16-18 Charles Street ca. 1938 This house belonged to a row of 11 houses built in 1845-46 by carpenter Patrick Cogan. Abbott was attracted to the doorway, the result of an eccentric renovation of unknown date. Nos. 16 and 18 were combined and an original door frame and oval window were installed at the basement-level entry. The fanciful ironwork canopy and the flagstone sidewalk converted Abbott’s straightforward document into a maze of graphic patterns.

The apartment building at 2 Fifth Avenue has been home to several notable LGBT figures who have made impacts in the fields of activism, health, theater, and literature. One resident, Larry Kramer, (b. 1935) helped catalyze the response to the AIDS epidemic as co-founder of Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC) and the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP). His literary achievements as playwright include The Normal Heart (1985) and its sequel The Destiny of Me (1992). He is also well known for his controversial book Faggots (1978) and his screenplay of Women in Love (1969). Edith “Edie” Windsor & Dr. Thea Clara Spyer also lived here. Edith “Edie” Windsor was a LGBT rights activist and her wife Thea Spyer moved into their apartment in the mid-1970s. Windsor, who resided here at the time of her death in 2017, was the lead plaintiff in the Supreme Court of the United States case, which overturned Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act.

The Rhinelander Gardens row houses on West 11th Street, February 3, 1937. The Unadilla Apartment building is to the right of the image at 126 West 11th Street. A Sheffield Farms milkwagon stands out front.

453-463 Sixth Avenue (formerly 141-149), west side, from north of 10th to 11th Streets. February 14, 1932. The rowhouse at 457 Sixth Avenue near the Jefferson Market police court (now the Jefferson Market Library) was the last residence and office of well-known Tammany politico Murray H. Hall, who today would be considered gender non-conforming. Murray H. Hall (c. 1840-1901) was a Tammany politico who lived as a man for decades without his gender being questioned. Following Hall’s death, however, the New York Times reported that Hall’s “true sex” was revealed by the doctor. As an early instance of a gender non-conforming person in New York, this attracted worldwide attention, including that of pioneering English sexual psychologist Havelock Ellis. According to one source, Hall was born Mary Anderson in Scotland and around age 16 began dressing as a male, taking the name John Anderson. Anderson married young, but had a roving eye and a jealous wife who disclosed Anderson’s gender to the police. Fearing arrest, Anderson fled to America in 1870 and assumed the name Murray H. Hall. In 1872, Hall married Cecilia Florence Lowe, a schoolteacher, and by 1874 Hall had established an employment agency chiefly representing domestic help. The couple moved several times but remained close to the Jefferson Market police court (now the Jefferson Market Library) since Hall was also a bail bondsman. Hall’s last home and office was an upper-story apartment at 457 Sixth Avenue. As a Tammany figure, Hall played poker and pool with city and state officials and political leaders and was often able to secure appointments for friends.

Images of every one of the 2,200 buildings in the Greenwich Village Historic District, prior to designation in 1969 and today, along with tours of the district’s history, architecture, artists, theaters, houses of worship, and more. All pre-designation images: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission. All 2019 images: Village Preservation Explore these images from the 1969 Designation of the Greenwich Village Historic District on Village Preservation's GVHD50 Then and Now map.

26 Washington Square North, ca. 1971. Washington Square North was once nearly fully lined with Greek Revival townhouses. Flanking the large mansion of William C. Rhinelander at the west corner of Washington Square North and Fifth Avenue and the slightly earlier Federal house at no. 20, the townhouses spread out in both directions facing what would become a park in 1850. Referred to as "the Row," the homes were constructed in the 1830s under the auspices of the Trustees of Sailors’ Snug Harbor. The homes were to be the residences of wealthy bankers and merchants from a leasehold which supported the retired sailors. This area was considered the perfect location for the upper classes who were looking distance themselves from the crowds and working classes of lower Manhattan. No. 18 was once the home of author Henry James' grandmother, and he immortalized the neighborhood in his 1881 novel Washington Square. According to the LPC designation report this row, with its classic ionic columns and length of wrought-iron railings, "may well be considered the prototype, in this country, of the monumental Greek Revival Rowhouse.” Today, west of Fifth Avenue only nos.19-26 remain of the early 19th century constructions. They are owned by New York University.

108 Waverly Place ca. 1933 108 Waverly Place is as unusual as its residents. The building is one of a few that remain of nine rowhouses built around 1826, but extensively altered over the years. The facade of No. 108, with its cut masonry and crenelated cornices simulating a castle, dates to 1906, and was designed by Charles C. Haight. The arched window on the ground floor is a 1927 alteration that replaced a former garage entrance. From the Greenwich Village Historic District Designation Report of 1969: This group (108-114 Waverly Place), in its present appearance, is unique to Greenwich Village. These four houses are all that remain of a row of nine built in 1826 for Thomas R. Mercein. He was president of the New York Equitable Fire Insurance Company, and had also served as City comptroller. In No. 108, we see a love for the picturesque as this new front is a granite-faced, rough ashlar facade with crenelated cornice, simulating a small castle. It was designed in 1906 by Charles C. Haight for Miss Grace Wilkes. At that time the stable and coachman’s apartment were combined, and the roof over the attic floor was raised, and it now has a steeply sloping studio window. The present two-centered arched window at ground floor that replaces the former garage entrance is a further alteration in 1927 when the entire building was converted into a dwelling. Additionally, the building has a marker affixed to it that reads, “Prior Home of The Institute of The Jazz Studies founded by Marshall W. Stearns 1952.” Marshall W. Stearns played drums in his youth and studied medieval English at Yale University, obtaining a Ph.D. He taught English at a number of colleges, and during this time frequently wrote about jazz music for magazines. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1950 and used the proceeds to finish his seminal 1956 work The Story of Jazz, a popular introduction to jazz. He taught jazz at New York University and the New School, and in 1952 he founded the Institute of Jazz Studies at 108 Waverly Place, which he also directed.

251 West 13th Street, unknown date. 251 West 13th Street was originally the Jackson Square Branch of the New York Free Circulating Library. It was built in 1877 by the legendary Beaux-Arts architect, Richard Morris Hunt, who also designed the main entrance of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The library opened in one year later with a gift of over 6,000 books from the collector and philanthropist George W. Vanderbilt At the height of the library's popularity, it attracted over a hundred visitors every day and circulated about 126,000 volumes annually. The library closed in 1908 when presented with the challenge of disinfecting books that could transfer communicable diseases. In 1967, the performance artist Robert Delford Brown acquired the former library, which he dubbed "the Great Building Crack-Up." During Brown's tenure, the venue hosted various art events and performances and became the international headquarters of Brown's "Orthodox Pagan" First National Church of Exquisite Panic, Inc. Since 1995, television producer Tom Fontana has lived and had his offices here.

"Originally constructed in 1831 to house the fledgling Greenwich Village Free Medical Clinic, the building was a philanthropic venture designed to provide care to the working-class neighbors and domestic servants of the wealthy in the area, and to reduce communicable illness in the interest of public health. The founders of the Dispensary saw it as a valuable contribution to both social welfare and scientific good — particularly well-positioned to study the diseases of the working poor otherwise not receiving medical care. It served more than three thousand patients and was busy enough by 1855 to require the installation of a third floor. By the middle of the twentieth century, the Dispensary was primarily providing free dental care, but its operators’ reluctance to serve people with AIDS led to its shuttering in 1988." To learn more about the Dispensary, check out Salonee Bhaman's profile in Gotham: A Blog for Scholars of New York City History

154 West 14th Street ca. 1917 One of the few Viennese Secession-style buildings in the New York, 154 West 14th Street has anchored this bustling corner for nearly one hundred years and appears today almost exactly as it did at the time of construction. 154 West 14th Street was constructed in 1912-13 for lawyer-banker and real estate developer Leslie R. Palmer as a speculative loft. It was built in anticipation of the extension of Seventh Avenue, completed in 1917, and the construction of the Seventh Avenue subway line underneath. This steel-frame structure employed the latest technology in loft construction with maximum allowance for light to the interior spaces, accommodations for automotive delivery and freight elevators. The architect responsible for the design was Herman Lee Meader (1874-1930) who after graduating from Harvard in 1898 worked for the architectural office of Ernest Flagg. In 1911 he established his own practice and had some notable commissions, all of which included terra cotta as a cladding material. These included the Cliff Dwelling Apartments (1914-17 – also for Palmer) at 339 West 96th Street and the Greenwich Village Theater (1916, demolished) at Seventh Avenue and Christopher Street which was an experimental theater for Marguerite Abbott Barker (daughter of the president of Eastman Kodak Co.) 154 West 14th Street conforms to a tripartite arrangement of base-shaft-capital differentiated by color and materials. The three-story base is entirely clad in the polychromatic glazed tile, which is also featured at the mid-section on the spandrels between the white brick piers and at the top section. The terra cotta was manufactured by the New York Architectural Terra Cotta Company which was the city’s only major producer of architectural terra cotta at the time. Palmer was a long-time director of the company and this building served as a virtual advertisement for the product.

Church of the Ascension, ca. 1979. Built by architect Richard Upjohn between 1840-41 in the Gothic Revival style, the Church of the Ascension is compared in the registers listing to Trinity Church, also built by Upjohn between 1839-1846. The listing also details a remodeling of the interior from 1885-1889, undertaken by Stanford White of McKim, Mead, & White. This remodeling lightened the space considerably, removing galleries on the north and south and adding stained-glass windows and the mural “the Ascension of Our Lord” by artist John La Farge. The sculptured angels over the main altar are the work of Louis St. Gaudens and the two angels in the mosaic were done by D. Maitland Armstrong.

Village Community Church ca. 1020 Greenwich Village may have a proud history of welcoming immigrants, but not all of the neighborhood’s residents was quite so willing to extend their open arms. In fact, one prominent Greenwich Village leader’s disdain for Catholic immigrants led to the coining of one of the most notorious slurs in American political history, and arguably changed the outcome of the hotly-contest Presidential election of 1884. In 1884, Democrat Grover Cleveland was running for President against Republican James Blaine. Blaine was embroiled in a bribery and corruption scandal that resulted in many Republicans jumping ship and supporting Cleveland, presenting the possibility of the first Democrat to win the White House since the Civil War. But Republican loyalists pushed back, fanning the flames of a scandal which soon engulfed Cleveland – that he had apparently fathered a child out of wedlock. Seeking to rally their base against the Democratic insurgent, Republicans led by the Rev. Samuel Burchard, leader of the 13th Street Presbyterian Church, gathered before the election to sound the alarm against a potential Democratic victory, warning loyalists not to support the party (in Burchard’s words) of “rum, romanism, and rebellion,” citing the party’s large constituency of Southern former Confederates and northern Catholics (who were thought to be particularly fond of drink). A Democratic spy at the rally reported the insulting alliteration to the press, which painted Blaine as anti-Catholic. In one of the closest Presidential elections in history, Cleveland won the electoral college by just barely winning New York State’s 36 electoral votes by a mere 1,000 votes cast or 0.1 percent. His edge came from high levels of support in heavily Catholic New York City, whereas he lost to Blaine in predominantly-Protestant Upstate New York. Cleveland would be the only Democrat elected to the White House between 1860 and 1912.

15 Christopher Street, ca. 1975. Built in 1827 by textile manufacturer and New York Assemblyman Samuel Whittemore, the wood frame house behind No. 15's brick facade is one of the oldest standing in Greenwich Village. In Edmund Vincent Gillon's 1970s photograph, the first-floor storefront is occupied by the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop, which moved to this location in 1973. Founded in 1967 on Mercer Street, the shop is credited as the first bookstore with an avowed focus on gay and lesbian authors. In 2009, the store closed, undone by an industry-wide decline in book sales compounded by the financial crisis.

St. Francis Xavier High School, 30 West 16th Street, ca. 1928. Founded in 1847 by Father John Larkin, a professor at St. John's College (now Fordham University), the school was originally known as the College of St. Francis Xavier and offered instruction to boys from the ages eight to twenty-one. A military training operation began at Xavier High School in 1886 under the direction of the National Guard; membership became mandatory in 1892. In the years that followed, collegiate and secondary studies were separated, and the college level department at the school closed in 1912. From 1935 to 1968, Xavier High School acted as a Junior ROTC unit. Students took four years of military science and training, which was recognized upon enrollment in any branch of the United States Military. After 1971, participation in military studies was no longer mandatory. Today, Xavier High School is an independent Jesuit university-preparatory high school for boys. Since 1928, when the school was first accredited, Xavier High School has held membership in the Jesuit Schools Network, the National Catholic Education Association, and the New York State Association of Independent Schools.

"Audre Lorde, too, points to the House of Detention as the epicenter of 1960s Greenwich Village. 'Information and endearments flew up and down, the conversants apparently oblivious to the ears of the passersby as they discussed the availability of lawyers, the length of stay, family, conditions, and the undying quality of true love. The Women's House of Detention, right smack in the middle of the Village, always felt like one up for our side — a defiant pocket of female resistance, ever-present as a reminder of possibility, as well as punishment.' …The House of D was an 11-story art deco stone structure that towered over Village rooftops. Billed when it opened in 1932 as a 'school for citizenship' with hospital wards, vocational training, and sinks, toilets, and windows in the cells, claims to its reform mission had faded by the 1960s… Inside the House of D lesbians stood their ground as boldly as they did outside. Confined in the 'skyscraper prison,' inmates and their visitors dominated the streets with their voices, their gestures, and their shouted intimacies. Stolen privacy led to the public, flaunted queerness that required bold defense in a hostile territory outside. Confinement did not contain lesbian ferocity." Continue reading this excerpt from the Gotham Center for New York City History's roundtable on the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots.

29 Washington Square West ca. 1930s During her time as First Lady, from 1933 to 1945, Eleanor Roosevelt changed the role from the passive hostess to active political leader and became an outspoken politician in her own right. She held press conferences on important issues such as women's rights and children's causes and led marches and protests. After the death of President Franklin Roosevelt in 1945, she resided here at 29 Washington Square West until 1949. She later became a U.S. delegate to the United Nations, chair of the UN Commission on Human Rights, and is widely regarded as one of the most renowned civil rights activists of the 20th Century.

9th Regiment Armory, ca. 1921. The colossal granite fortress of the 9th Regiment Armory was built in 1894 to the designs of architects Edward Sargent and W. E. Cable. In addition to military use, the cavernous main hall was used as an exhibition space, athletic venue, and welfare administration center. The 19th-century redoubt was demolished in 1969, only to be replaced by a new armory for the 22nd Regiment, in 1971.

Rhinelander Gardens, February 3, 1937. Designed by James Renwick Jr. in a High Victorian Gothic style the balconied houses with ornate ironwork were built in 1855 for William C. Rhinelander as rental properties. The homes of Rhinelander Gardens were set back from the street, which allowed for lovely and somewhat uncommon front yards. The buildings survived more than 100 years; they were demolished in 1958 for the construction of a new school building.

224 Waverly Place ca. 1933 St John’s in the Village suffered a catastrophic fire in the 1970s, destroying the previous church building on this site. The congregation decided to build a new church along with diverse performance and exhibition spaces to conform with its newly created mission statement which committed St John’s “to facilitate a continuing dialogue between the Christian faith and the artistic professions, acknowledging in this encounter that we share in common the enterprise of interpreting life, of advancing the quest for truth, and of reaching a fresh vision of reality.” The theater space at 224 Waverly Place has been home to Rattlestick Playwright’s Theater since 1994. Founded by Gary Bonasorte and Davis van Asselt, Rattlestick is an Obie-Award winning theatre that has developed and produced over 100 World Premieres in the past 23 seasons, including St. Vincent’s Project: Novenas for a Lost Hospital, an immersive play which Village Preservation is very proud to be a partner in creating. It will have its premiere on September 5th, 2019.

138 West 14th Street ca. 1928 144 West 14th Street (aka 138-146 W. 14th St.) is “a grandly-proportioned Renaissance Revival-style loft building” and was built between 1895-6. As described in its designation report, the structure is: “Faced with limestone, tan brick and terra cotta, it was designed by the architects Brunner & Tryon in 1895-96. Seven stories tall, the street facade is articulated through a series of monumental arches, embellished with handsome classical details.” The building served as a workshop for many different stores and products over the years, including Macy’s and Les Paul. Eventually in the late 90’s, the building was acquired by Pratt and now serves as their Manhattan campus. “Since its completion, many commercial tenants have occupied various floors, including R. H. Macy’s, which produced flags and silk underwear here, the silversmith Graff, Washbourne & Dunn, as well as Epiphone, a leading manufacturer of stringed instruments. In 1941, the noted American jazz guitarist Les Paul assembled a “solid-body” electric guitar in the company’s workshop; it became the prototype for many electric guitars played today. 144 West 14th Street was acquired by Pratt Institute in 1999. Restored by Ehrenkrantz, Eckstut & Kuhn Architects, it now serves as the school’s Manhattan campus.”

Salmagundi Club, November 24, 1937. The Salmagundi Club was an art club founded in 1871. Initially called New York Sketch Class and later the New York Sketch Club, the organization was a men's only group of artists, students, and friends who met once a week. It was renamed Salmagundi in 1877 and meet at a number of Greenwich Village locations during its first 40 years. In 1917 the club purchased and moved into the1853 Italianate-style townhouse at 47 Fifth Avenue. For the last century it has operated in this building as a center for fine arts, artists and collectors, exhibitions, classes, demonstrations,and auctions.

Edith Jones Wharton (1862-1937), one of America’s most important authors, lived at 14 West 23rd Street, Manhattan at a time when 23rd Street marked the northern boundary of fashionable New York. There, in her father’s extensive library, young Edith Jones discovered the world of literature. Wharton wrote with authority on gardens and design, but was most celebrated for her fiction. Her novels and stories are characterized by her intelligence, perception and the great beauty of her prose. Wharton lived in France for the latter part of her life, but the complex world of patrician New York remained the source of her greatest fiction. This includes The House of Mirth (1905) and The Age of Innocence (1920), for which, in 1921 she became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Literature.

Sheridan Theatre, 1926. The theatre seen here is at the southern tip of the triangle formed by Seventh Avenue, Greenwich Avenue, and West 11th Street. The Sheridan Theatre opened in 1921 and was taken over by Loew's in 1926. The house sat 2,342 patrons. The building was demolished by St. Vincent's Hospital in 1969 for a proposed nurses residences (which never came to be).

113 Waverly Place, ca. 1950.

14 West 10th Street (second building from the left), May 29, 1933. The Greek Revival house at 14 West 10th Street was constructed sometime in the 1850s. The house, in the fashionable area near Washington Square Park, was home to members of New York's high society in the 19th century. In 1900 Mark Twain lived in the house for a year or so. In the long history of the house at least 22 people died while residing there. (This is not an inconceivable number given the home's age and the fact that for much of history people died at home). In 1937 the single family home was divided into multiple apartments. Starting around that time residents began taking note of strange occurrences and haunting visions. Author Jan Bryant Bartell lived in an apartment there for seven years and wrote about her supernatural experiences there. It has been called the "House of Death." Unfortunately the building also hosted a real life gruesome event in 1987 when a former New York defense attorney beat his illegally adopted daughter to death in the house.

Dilapidated Federal style frame house, once home to Thomas Paine, 1932. Paine, the English-born Revolutionary era author, moved to the wooden house on Herring Street (as Bleecker was then known, west of Sixth Avenue) after his release from French prison in 1802. He would live there nearly until his death in 1809. Nearby Barrow Street was briefly renamed Reason Street in Paine’s honor, referencing “In Praise of Reason,” a tract he wrote while imprisoned in France. Locals, however, had difficulty embracing the new name: it was often bastardized as “Raisin Street.” In 1827, the Barrow Street name was restored.

On August 6, 1966, the first known recording of “I Heard It Through The Grapevine” was made by the Miracles. Written by Motown pioneers Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong, the song was re-recorded several times, most famously by Gladys Night and the Pips and Marvin Gaye, whose version landed on the top of the charts for seven weeks in early 1969. But where did it come from? Plentiful evidence and credible sources say it all goes back to a beloved tavern on the corner of 6th Avenue and 11th Street in Greenwich Village.

The Mad Hatter Tearoom ca. 1892 The one-story building at left has early LGBT history in its incarnation as the Mad Hatter, which was located in the basement from 1916 to c. 1930. The first tearoom in the Village, the Mad Hatter attracted a bohemian crowd (and a number of upper class “slummers” who came to watch them). Eliza Helen Criswell – who went by “Jimmie,” had short hair, and wore sandals, artsy smocks, and tailored suits and ties for formal events – owned the establishment with her partner Mathilda Spence for a number of years. Beginning in 1945, the ground floor space was the location of the Pony Stable Inn, a lesbian bar. Like other Greenwich Village lesbian bars of the 1940s-1960s, such as the Sea Colony and the Bagatelle, the Pony Stable Inn attracted mostly working-class white women who adhered to strict butch/femme gender roles \[for an explanation on butch/femme, see the entry on the Sea Colony]. Almost all gay bars of the time in New York City were run by the Mafia and frequently raided by the police. A McCarthy-era tactic of infiltrating gay spaces with informants was also common, making women reluctant to talk to those they did not know for fear of police entrapment. As Lee Zevy (who would later co-found Identity House NYC) described of her first visit to the Pony Stable Inn with a few more experienced friends, “Nobody talked to anybody because everybody was deeply, deeply in the closet, even at the bar.” Acclaimed black lesbian feminist, writer, and activist Audre Lorde wrote of the reluctance to speak with anyone at a lesbian bar at the time for fear of coming across a plainclothes policewoman: “There were always rumors of plainclothes women circulating among us, looking for gay girls with fewer than three pieces of female attire. That was enough to get you arrested for transvestism, which was illegal.”

51: 1843; 53: 1846; 1930, combined façade: William Bayard Willis) NYC IL, NYC HD, NR-P, NHL The Stonewall Inn was the starting point of the Stonewall Rebellion of June 28-July 2, 1969, which began when customers at the bar refused to leave during a police raid — in the 1960’s, it was illegal for a gay bar to obtain a liquor license and police routinely raided them. The uprising became a catalyst for the formation of organizations and groups across the country devoted to LGBTQ civil rights, and it’s commemorated nationwide and around the world with Pride marches and the celebration of LGBTQ Pride Month. In 2015, the Stonewall Inn became the city’s first Individual Landmark commemorating an LGBTQ site, designated entirely on the basis of its cultural, rather than architectural, significance. The area was designated as the Stonewall National Monument in 2016, the country’s first U.S. National Monument dedicated to LGBTQ civil rights history. Further State and National designations have made it one of the most decorated and protected sites in the city. Photo by Diana Davies/NYPL.

The Hotel Earle (Now The Washington Square Hotel) has been a haven for writers and artists for more than a century. Everyone from Bob Dylan to Norah Jones has been housed under its roof!

Grocery store at the corner of Christopher and Bleecker Streets, June, 1925. This tiny corner store was built between 1802 and 1808 by a grocer named William Patterson, in what was then a rural village. In 1807, the house at the corner of Herring (Bleecker) and Christopher Streets served as a meeting place for the commission charged with designing Manhattan’s street grid. Lead surveyor John Randel spent ten years staking out and marking intersections from 1st Street to 155th Street. Recognized as a work of genius today, Randel and his surveyors were pelted with cabbages and artichokes by landowners furious at the prospect of streets being plowed through their properties.

George Bruno residence at 1 Macdougal Alley (aka 176 Macdougal Street), August 5, 1927. Macdougal Alley was created in 1833, for access to the carriage houses of property owners on Washington Square North and West Eighth Street. The corner building was home to the Prohibition-era Jumble Shop tearoom (later tap room, following repeal), and in recent decades a restaurant, laundromat, florist, and bridal shop. Macdougal Street and Alley are both named for Alexander McDougall, the Scottish born merchant and Revolutionary War figure who was a representative to the Continental Congress, the first president of the Bank of New York, and New York State Senator.

Alexander Lyman Holley Statue, ca. 1900. Sculpted by John Quincy Adams Ward in collaboration with Thomas Hastings, this bronze bust casted and dedicated in 1889 commemorates one of the founding fathers of engineering and industry. Sitting atop an Indiana limestone pedestal in a park replete with a grand arch, fountain, dog park, and chess tables, funds from the Society of Mechanical Engineers and Save American Treasures allowed the MAS Adopt-A-Monument program to restore this sculpture in 1999.

While Manhattan's streets were largely laid out with the Commissioners' Plan of 1811, this grid system was only implemented between Houston and 155th Streets. The plan left Greenwich Village with its long-established mews, alleys, and courts, many of which date to the city's early colonial period, intact. While not exclusively in the Village, most of the secret streets on this list are located there among the organically developed 18th-century street plan. While some changes have come to these streetscapes in the last century, in most cases their concealment and a healthy dose of historic preservation work have aided in their continued survival in the 21st century.

St. Vincent's Hospital opened in November 1849 in a rented house on 13th Street in Manhattan. Ellen Hughes, Irish-born sister of Archbishop John Hughes, known within her community as Sister Angela, was the hospital's first administrator. Patient rosters at St. Vincent's between 1888 until 1894 indicate a predominantly immigrant, Irish population. By the turn of the century, the patient population majority was native-born.

Doorway to 16-18 Charles Street, June 1, 1938.

The Whitney Museum is now one of New York City's unparalleled art institutions. But it took a while to get there. Here's a brief history of the Whitney Museum

Jefferson Market Library ca. 1938 The fanciful clock tower of the Jefferson Market Court, the tallest of Greenwich Village’s 19th-century buildings, was a local landmark that appeared in many of Abbott’s Village views. In 1877, Calvert Vaux and Frederic C. Withers designed this Ruskinian Gothic courthouse and jail to replace an old open market and wooden fire tower. In 1931, the jail was torn down for an eleven-story women’s house of detention, which in turn was torn down in 1974 and replaced by a community garden. Abbott photographed the front of the courthouse in 1935, revealing the full exuberance of the Vaux-Withers design. In 1938, she rephotographed the courthouse, this time standing on Sixth Avenue and using a hand-held camera. Vacated by the courts in 1945, the courthouse was saved from demolition in 1967 and renovated as a branch of the New York Public Library.

The original Rhinelander Mansion, No. 14, on the west corner of Fifth Avenue, was built in 1839-1840 for Mary (Rogers) Rhinelander as her family’s residence and continued to serve the family until the death of her daughter in 1914. The house, and adjoining No. 15, were a pair of splendid Greek Revival town houses, each 42 feet wide and three and one-half stories high, with attic windows in the fascia. At each, a stoop led to the entrance portico, framed by Corinthian columns, and an iron balcony graced the parlor floor. No. 15 was built as the residence of Gardiner Greene Howland, who had previously lived with his brother Samuel at No. 12 Washington Square North on the block east of Fifth Avenue. They were important shipping merchants.

A tour of the architectural and cultural gems of Bleecker Street. From Bob Dylan to Dylan Thomas, from Federal style rowhouses to new law tenements, Bleecker Street represents a wonderful cross-section of New York City’s diverse history.

12-14 West 12th Street ca. Architect Alexander Jackson Davis was born on July 24, 1803. Davis, one of the most successful and influential American architects of his generation, is perhaps best known for his association with the Gothic Revival style of architecture and rural settings. Though many surviving examples by Davis exist in upstate New York and at other locales along the East Coast, some very prominent examples of Davis’ fine work once stood on lower Fifth Avenue. In 1849, Davis designed two matching Italianate mansions on West 12th Street, Nos. 12 & No. 14. A description of these buildings can be found on Daytonian in Manhattan: ” …abutting the churchyard of First Presbyterian Church, which had been completed three years earlier. The handsome brick residences reflected the refined neighborhood. Each two bays wide, they featured arched entrances four steps above the sidewalk and a cast iron, second floor balcony that ran the width both structures. Brownstone lintels and a simple cornice added to the understated elegance of Davis’ design.” These mansions survived into the mid-20th century, changing hands a couple of times throughout their lifespan. Most famously, No. 12 was the home of Thurlow Weed, an influential statesman. After the death of Thurlow, ownership of No. 12 fell to his daughter Harriet, and after her passing both buildings were taken over by the First Presbyterian Church, becoming their parsonage. However, in 1958, the church, in need of a modern church house, made the decision to tear down Nos. 12 & 14. A necessary decision for the church proved to be an unpopular one with the community, as reported by The Times: “Though church folk dislike the idea of having the old mansions torn down, and architects in town frown on the notion, too, they know they must go. The space is sorely needed for the children. So, one by one, the master works of great architects vanish from the city.” Davis, who worked along with the architect Ithiel Town, had a hand in other architectural works within the Village, including a portion of the now-demolished Brevoort Mansion on 5th Avenue, and the designs for Colonnade Row. However, with the loss of Nos. 12 & 14, the city lost a truly wonderful example of Davis’s designs. As lamented by The Times, “All that will remain of his dreaming on paper when the Twelfth Street mansions go down in rubble…will be a few villas up in Hudson River Valley.” Architect Alexander Jackson Davis was born on July 24, 1803. Davis, one of the most successful and influential American architects of his generation, is perhaps best known for his association with the Gothic Revival style of architecture and rural settings. Though many surviving examples by Davis exist in upstate New York and at other locales along the East Coast, some very prominent examples of Davis’ fine work once stood on lower Fifth Avenue.

Greenwich Village may have a proud history of welcoming immigrants, but not all of the neighborhood’s residents was quite so willing to extend their open arms. In fact, one prominent Greenwich Village leader’s disdain for Catholic immigrants led to the coining of one of the most notorious slurs in American political history, and arguably changed the outcome of the hotly-contest Presidential election of 1884.

72 Fifth Avenue ca. 1915 In 1847, on Bond Street in London, a young man named Philip Morris opened a small tobacco shop. Eight years later, Morris began to produce his own cigarettes. When, in 1873, he died, his widow Margaret and brother Leopold took over the business. In 1885, the company gained international fame and was officially named Philip Morris & Co. LTD. By 1902, Philip Morris was incorporated in New York. After some shuffling around and restructuring, in 1917, the business moved to 72 5th Avenue, at the northwest corner of 13th Street. This 7-story building was erected in 1893 as a warehouse. The masonry façade ornamentation and rhythm is very characteristic of loft warehouse buildings in this area at the time. In 1913 an alteration was performed by the architect Adolph E. Nast who worked for the firm of John L. Sands. In 1931, after disappearing from his New York hotel, Nast’s body was found in Baltimore with a pistol wound to the head. It was believed to be a suicide. Up until the 1930s the building was owned by the estate of Katherine Lorrilard and throughout the 1940s a bank was located in the storefront. In 1960, Ginn & Company publishers occupied three floors of the space, totaling 15,000 square feet. Philip Morris relocated to 5th Avenue and 19th Street in 1938, where they continued to grow. In 1954 the company launched a major campaign with Marlboro Cigarettes, marketing them specifically to men. In 1970 Philip Morris acquired Miller Brewing Company and in 1985 acquired Kraft. In 2003 the name Philip Morris disappeared when Altria Group, Inc. took over the company. Five years later the entire company was relocated to Richmond, Virginia.

Public School 16, 1920. Originally School No. 16 of the Ninth Ward, the original section of the building was constructed in 1845, with additions erected in 1859 and later. The institution became Public School 16 by the turn of the 20th century, but was in bad condition by the 1920s. Reports of the facilities suggest “plumbing wet and foul" and “rooms small, dirty and dingy.” The school became a vocational campus in 1924 and during the Depression offered programs for unemployed adults. In 1938 Mayor LaGuardia opened the building as the Food Trades Vocational High School, where pupils learned skills needed to become butchers, bakers, cafeteria workers, tea room hostesses and store clerks. LaGuardia wished to create an educational experience that would prepare children of poor immigrants for jobs that would remain necessary during times of economic depression. Later in the 1960s the school would add Maritime trades to its vocational offerings, becoming the Food and Maritime Trades High School. That institution moved into a new building in 1980 and this structure was put up for lease. The building initially became the home of a number of social and community non-profits, including a few small LGBT-focused organizations. In 1983 the gay organizations and AIDS advocacy groups joined forces to purchase the building from the city, forming the Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center for that purpose. Over the last nearly 30 years the LGBT Community Center has become an integral organization in the gay community. It is a meeting place for community groups, the founding location of organizations such as Survivors of Transsexuality Anonymous and Gender Identity Project, and home to medical clinics and cultural programming.

The Macmillan Co. Building (later Forbes Building), April 1, 1925. Called a “pompous limestone cube” by the AIA Guide to New York, the Macmillan Co. headquarters was built between 1923-1925, in a collaborative effort by two firms known for New York City landmarks: Carrère & Hastings (New York Public Library, 5th Avenue) and Shreve & Lamb (Empire State Building). In 1965, the building was acquired by Forbes Magazine, whose Malcolm Forbes opened a small gallery there, showcasing his eclectic art collection. New York University purchased the building from Forbes in 2010.

St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church ca. 1932 Even before the Irish potato famine of 1845, waves of Irish immigrants began to enter New York City. St. Joseph’s parish (now called the University Parish of St. Joseph’s), located on Sixth Avenue between Waverly and Washington Places, just west of Washington Square Park, was formed in 1829. Its founding is credited to the first Irish who settled in Greenwich Village, those who came to serve as domestic servants or to work on the construction of buildings when the Village’s population swelled due to outbreaks of yellow fever and cholera that beset the core city in 1799, 1803, 1805, and 1821. The parish originally served an area from Canal Street to 20th Street and was the sixth Catholic parish established in New York City. The cornerstone of the Church was laid on June 10, 1833, and despite several extensive renovations, the church that stands now is still the original.

Edgar Allan Poe residence, Waverly Place. Undated photo, ca. 1900. This turn of the century snow scene includes the Waverly Place townhouse were Edgar Allan Poe once lived. No. 137, at left, was built in 1829 by Thomas Cumming a builder who developed several houses in the surrounding area, including on Gay Street. When Poe came to New York in 1837, he first settled in Greenwich Village, before moving to farmhouses on the Upper West Side and in Fordham. On Waverly Place, Poe was close to the Northern Dispensary, where he was often treated.

When searching through the chronicles of Greenwich Village history, some things almost seem too Village-y to be true, with all their quirky details and theatrical anecdotes. A prime example: The Pepper Pot Inn at 146 West 4th Street, a 1920s multi-level restaurant that became a sensation. Purchased in 1918 by Carlyle “Doc” Sherlock and his wife Viola, this spot came into being as the neighborhood surrounding Washington Square Park transitioned from affluent enclave to working-class territory and artists’ haven. Doc and Viola themselves tried to make it as actors on the big screen, but they soon left that world to become the owners of “the most popular eating place in the Village and a nation-wide destination.” The basement level of 146 West 4th served as the bustling restaurant of The Pepper Pot, where customers could enjoy a variety of cuisines, followed by Viola Sherlock’s own homemade desserts. Strings of peppers and paper lanterns decorated the ceiling, while the tables displayed enormous candles made of the wax drippings of all the candles that had sat there before. Artists seated at the table would carve figures into these mounds of wax, and the light from these candles illuminated the dark basement room. Home › South Village › The Pepper Pot Inn, “The Realest Thing in Bohemian Atmosphere” The Pepper Pot Inn, “The Realest Thing in Bohemian Atmosphere” A view down West 4th Street with The Pepper Pot's big vertical sign and ads on neighboring buildings. Via http://daytoninmanhattan.blogspot.com. The Pepper Pot Inn, “The Realest Thing in Bohemian Atmosphere” Laura FleischmannLaura FleischmannPosted on August 2, 2019 Posted in South Village, Uncategorized — 4 Comments ↓ When searching through the chronicles of Greenwich Village history, some things almost seem too Village-y to be true, with all their quirky details and theatrical anecdotes. A prime example: The Pepper Pot Inn at 146 West 4th Street, a 1920s multi-level restaurant that became a sensation. Purchased in 1918 by Carlyle “Doc” Sherlock and his wife Viola, this spot came into being as the neighborhood surrounding Washington Square Park transitioned from affluent enclave to working-class territory and artists’ haven. Doc and Viola themselves tried to make it as actors on the big screen, but they soon left that world to become the owners of “the most popular eating place in the Village and a nation-wide destination.” A view down West 4th Street east from 6th Avenue with The Pepper Pot’s big vertical sign and ads on neighboring buildings. Via http://daytoninmanhattan.blogspot.com. Lanterns, Candles, and Chili Peppers The basement level of 146 West 4th served as the bustling restaurant of The Pepper Pot, where customers could enjoy a variety of cuisines, followed by Viola Sherlock’s own homemade desserts. Strings of peppers and paper lanterns decorated the ceiling, while the tables displayed enormous candles made of the wax drippings of all the candles that had sat there before. Artists seated at the table would carve figures into these mounds of wax, and the light from these candles illuminated the dark basement room. On the parlor and second floors of this 1828 house, guests could dance and enjoy music. An image of the dance floor also appears to show a ceiling of greenery and more lanterns, with beautiful sunlight coming in from a tall window. Then above this was the Bridge Room, where Carlyle and Viola’s “friends of the motion picture, theatrical, bridge and chess world” could play and watch “exhibitions” of expert players. As The Pepper Pot continued to flourish through the Roaring ‘20s, it became a popular spot for a new wave the neighbors didn’t care for – jazz! As Daytonian in Manhattan describes, “In the days before air conditioning open windows let in the night breezes but also let out the blaring music.” As a result, the Sherlocks’ landlady across the street, Mrs. Creveling, and her neighbor stopped by Jefferson Market Court to file a complaint. The landlady told the magistrate of “those funny ditties that they play” and the liquor continuing to flow despite prohibition. Dr. Sherlock arrived in court on February 17, 1921 ready to fight this case. But according to the New York Times from the following day, he “waited in vain for the complaintants.” And so, the music and enjoyment continued at The Pepper Pot. A year later The Evening World newspaper described the place as still “extremely Greenwich Village – with an automatic piano in the candle-lit basement and a group of furious jazzers two floors above.” A few years later, Carlyle and Viola moved to their country home and another person managed the place, which by this time had expanded to include Nos. 148 and 150. Newspaper reviews continued to paint a picture of a funky hangout, complete with a fortuneteller, tap dancing, singing, dim lights, and neighborhood celebrities “of whom there have been many in the proud Pepper Pot past.” The good times k...

MacDougal Alley, March 20, 1936. A cul-de-sac off MacDougal Street, MacDougal Alley is actually a mews. In a mews, the buildings have to have been working stables or carriage houses at some point. And the homes seen here were just that, for the large homes that lined nearby West 8th Street and Washington Square North. Named after a Revolutionary War hero, Alexander McDougall (the original spelling of his name), the small street had been home to a number of artists and art related venues. Gertrude Vanderbilt established her studio at no. 19, which has since become the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting, and Sculpture. Jackson Pollack lived at no. 9 for a year in the late 1940s and sculptor Isamu Noguchi lived at no. 33, which was demolished mid-century during the construction of nearby 2 Fifth Avenue.

Home and Office of WIlliam Kunstler ca. 1933 William Kunstler was an American radical lawyer and civil rights activist, known for his involvement in some of the most high-profile and controversial civil rights and civil liberties cases of the late 20th century. A native New Yorker, he attended DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx, Yale College, and Columbia University Law School in 1948. Kunstler practiced family and small business law in the 1950s and was an associate professor of law at New York Law School (1950–1951) before entering civil rights litigation in the 1960s. Kunstler's defense of the Chicago Seven from 1969–1970 led The New York Times to label him "the country's most controversial and, perhaps, its best-known lawyer". He is also well known for defending members of the Catonsville Nine, the Black Panther Party, the Weather Underground Organization, Attica Prison rioters, and the American Indian Movement. Kunstler also won a de facto segregation case regarding the District of Columbia's public schools and "disinterred, singlehandedly" the concept of federal removal jurisdiction in the 1960s. In late 1995, Kunstler died in New York City of heart failure at the age of 76.

National Maritime Union Headquarters Designed by famed Modernist architect Albert C. Ledner, the Joseph Curran Building (seen here at left) was completed in 1963 for the National Maritime Union. The building's notable architecture—it certainly was not a modernist glass box— caught the attention of critics and the public alike. The Union, which represented longshoreman and merchant sailors, capitalized on the interest, offered tours of the building in the late 1960s. Ledner also designed two other eye-catching buildings for the union nearby. In 1973, the white building became the Edward and Theresa O'Toole Medical Services Building when neighboring Saint Vincent Catholic Medical Center purchased it. Following St. Vincent's bankruptcy in 2005, this building became the center of a highly contested debate regarding contextual development. With plans to raze the building and erect a 21-story hospital tower, the community voiced their dissent and controversy ensued. In the end, the building was not demolished but restored and reused. In 2017 the ship-like structure reopened as the Lenox Health Greenwich Village, a state-of-the-art medical facility.

The Church of Our Lady Guadalupe was established in 1902 by the Augustinians of the Assumption. It was the first Spanish-speaking Catholic parish in New York City, serving working-class Spaniards. The church was popular with various Hispanic communities throughout the 20th century. The rapid growth of the Mexican population in the late 20th century overwhelmed the small church and forced it to move to a new location at St. Bernard Church in Chelsea. The church has been re-purposed since the 2003 move.

Ice delivery on West 4th Street, just east of Sheridan Square, ca. 1950. The corner delicatessen (at left) is located at the corner of West 4th Street and Sheridan Square. Next to the right is the shop of Pedro Pujol, known for his modernist copper jewelry. At far right is Miss Douglass' Bake Shop.

First Presbyterian Church ca. 1900 Set in ample grounds where it may be seen from three sides, this handsome exemplar of the Gothic Revival makes us realize that all was not necessarily fuss and gingerbread in this period. Joseph C. Wells, the architect, attempted a scholarly representation of an ecclesiastical style which, at best, was foreign to this country before 1835.

Forbes Building, 60-62 Fifth Avenue, ca. 1977.

396 Sixth Avenue, ca. 1969. Nathan's Hot Dogs was one of the first tenants to occupy No. 396 Sixth Avenue, a one-story commercial space built in 1950. According to the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, photographer Doris Diether "took this picture because of objections to Nathan's move to 8th Street. At the time, it was the first chain restaurant to move onto the street and there were concerns that it would move operations outdoors." Following Nathan's departure, the building was renovated in the early 1980s into a two-story storefront for B. Dalton, a local bookstore. Barnes and Noble later took over the space, though, after 12 years renting, it was priced out in 2012.

23 East 11th Street, ca. 1971.

These images are taken from Certificate of Appropriateness applications to the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) for sites located within the area covered by Village Preservation – Greenwich Village, the East Village, NoHo, the Meatpacking District, and the South Village – since late 2009, when Village Preservation began maintaining these applications on our website. These are applications for changes to landmarked properties which are substantial enough that they require review by the full Landmarks Preservation Commission and a full public hearing. Often times these applications include historic photos of the building or even surrounding buildings as part of the documentation and argument supporting the proposed application for changes. Regardless of the applications (which can also be viewed in each case – just click on the link to see along with the outcome), these images are invaluable visual documents of the history of these buildings. Explore more images like this here.

88 Grove Street, ca. 1915. No. 88 (at right with the ironwork at the roofline) was constructed in 1827 as a Federal style home by Henry Halsey, a mason. In the 1860s the house was remodeled into a French Second Empire style complete with slate mansard and classic dormer windows (all the rage at the time). When this view was captured in the early 1910s, the structure was obscured by ivy and home to Italian landscape architect Ferruccio Vitale. Later the building was purchased by James Graham Phelps Stokes, referred to as a “millionaire Socialist." Today no. 88 looks very much as it did when it was altered in the middle of the 19th century.

Manhattan Borough President Andrew Stein (in suit on right) cuts the ribbon, 1982. From its founding in 1980 until 1984, GVSHP was known as the Greenwich Village Trust, as noted on the sign.

From Washington Square Park to the Whitney Museum, there is always a new piece of New York City social and cultural history to discover on a walk through Greenwich Village. The neighborhood is steeped in history. In the 1950s and 1960s, the Village was the center for the LGBT and counterculture movements and still continues to be a welcoming and accepting place for all. With a plethora of jazz clubs and local music venues to stop in and soak up the local scene, you’ll need to stop for a coffee or a quick bite at one of the storied cafes or restaurants along your way. Many of the great dining options around the neighborhood have been around for decades—some boast over a century of service—and whatever cuisine you’re in the mood for, Greenwich Village is sure to serve it up.

The Napolitana Kitchen, photographed by Berenice Abbott in 1947, in the ground floor space of no. 228, a 1900 Romanesque Revival tenement designed by Peter J. Herter.

1 Sheridan Square, 1933. From 1938 to 1948 Barney Josephson ran Café Society, New York's first racially integrated nightclub at 1 Sheridan Square. Josephson was a former shoe salesman whose extensive travels in Europe inspired him to create a jazz club that might look like the racially diverse cabarets he attended in Europe. On opening night Billie Holiday performed and she would later debut 'Strange Fruit' at the club. The venue only lasted for a decade. Josephson had leftist leanings and in 1947 his brother refused to refused to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee. As a result the club was lambasted by writer and critics, the patrons stopped coming, and the Sheridan Square (and the second uptown location) were forced to close.

St. Francis Xavier R.C. Church, ca. 1895. St. Francis Xavier Church was established in 1847 by Jesuits who came down from Fordham (then in Westchester) to start a Manhattan parish. The original building was a simple classical style building, constructed in the 1850s. In 1877 the original church was site of a false alarm panic after someone yelled 'fire' during a service. The ensuing stampede caused the death of seven people. The first structure was demolished a year after this event, and a new church was built in a grand neo-Baroque style, completed in 1882. The tall church with an imposing granite-block facade was designed by well-known church architect Patrick Charles Keely. At the time of its completion it dwarfed most of the surrounding buildings. The interior too was designed in a colossal scale, with frescos, carved plaster and stone, arches, niches, and inlaid marble. A local newspaper in 1884 called the church "sumptuous and exhilarating.”

Moquins Restaurant. ca. 1910. Though today no. 456 Sixth Avenue is located at 11th Street, when this photograph was taken ca. 1910, no. 456 was located further uptown between 27th and 28th Streets. In 1929, during the extension of Sixth Avenue south from Greenwich Village to Canal Street for the Sixth Avenue IND subway, the addresses on the avenue were renumbered.

The Fifth Avenue Hotel, 24 Fifth Avenue ca. 1926 Replacing the Brevoort mansion at the northwest corner of Fifth Avenue and West 9th Street, the Fifth Avenue Hotel was built in 1926 as a high-class apartment hotel. Apartment hotels provided people with the option of a permanent residence with the provision of housekeeping and cooking services. Typical units ranged in size from one to three rooms and each came with a serving pantry in lieu of a kitchen. This handsome building is 15 stories in height with a limestone, two-story base and brick in two different shades of buff to lend texture to the upper floors. Terra-cotta ornament is featured throughout the exterior colored in blue, brown and gold

No. 7 Washington Square North, ca. 1925. Built by the Scottish-born merchant John Johnston in 1832-3, No. 7 was the largest house on the block. After Johnston’s death in 1851, the house remained in the family: His son, John Taylor Johnston, would become the first President of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. At the time of Samuel H. Gottscho’s photo, ca. 1925, the residents were Robert W. de Forest and Emily de Forest, the elder Johnston’s granddaughter. According to Robert de Forest, “on the day of \[the Met’s] founding, I became engaged to the daughter of one of the founders and married her as soon as I could.” De Forest would go on to become a Trustee of the museum and, in 1913, its fifth President. Architecturally, all is not as it seems along Washington Square North. A 1939 renovation connected the townhouses of Nos. 7-13 as a modern apartment building, without altering the appearance of their historic facades. The residences, now owned by New York University, are entered on Fifth Avenue.

70 Fifth Avenue (at far right), May 19, 1933. Constructed in 1913 as a speculative office building, the 12-story structure on the corner of Fifth Avenue and West 13th Street was advertised as "office space at a prestige address." In 1914 it became the headquarters for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the offices of its official publication, The Crisis. (The NAACP had previous worked from offices at 20 Vesey Street for the first five years of their existence.)

70 Greenwich Avenue, October 13, 1930. The lot at 70 Greenwich Avenue originally included three separate homes constructed in the 1850s. At some point in the late 19th century the homes were combined to create the small four-story brick building that now occupies the lot. Designed to fit in its sharply angled location, the first floor extends to a blunt narrow end (too slim for even a door). The second through fourth floors are set back from the narrow end and the facade is wide enough for a single window.

The former Mad Hatter tearoom, 150 West Fourth Street, 1932. The wood-framed, brick-fronted building at 150 West Fourth Street dates to the early 1800s, but became a Greenwich Village fixture in 1916 when the sculptor Edith Unger opened the Mad Hatter tearoom in its basement. The Mad Hatter claimed to be the first tearoom in Greenwich Village, a hangout for the neighborhood’s so-called Bohemian types: artists, writers, performers, and hangers on. As curiosity about the Bohemian lifestyle became fashionable, the Mad Hatter became a popular downtown destination. However, the tearoom’s popularity was to be short lived: by the time of Charles Von Urban’s 1932 photograph, the basement-level entrance had been sealed, though the “Mad Hatter” lettering is still visible, just above the sidewalk.

Felipe Rose of the Village People, Can't Stop the Music Film Set in front of 244 West 4th Street, 1979.

56 West 14th Street Everyone knows the iconic Macy’s flagship store on 34th Street and Broadway. But before moving to 34th Street, Macy’s operated out of a series of buildings on West 14th Street between 5th and 6th Avenues. H. Macy & Co. was founded by Rowland Hussey Macy in 1858. The original Macy’s stood on the southeast corner of 14th Street and 6th Avenue. As the company succeeded over the next few decades, claiming to have “pioneered such revolutionary business practices as the one-price system, in which the same item was sold to every customer at one price, and quoting specific prices for goods in newspaper advertising. Known for its creative merchandising, Macy’s was the first to introduce such products as the tea bag, the Idaho baked potato and colored bath towels.” it expanded into neighboring buildings on West 14th Street. After Macy’s passing in 1877, the company remained in family hands until 1895, when brothers Isadore and Nathan Straus took over the company. In 1898, the Straus brothers built a new Macy’s Annex at 56 West 14th Street. This tall (nine stories) and narrow (25 feet) building is ornately designed in the Neo-Classical style popular at the time. Landmarked in 2011, the building is now home to a 5 Guys Burgers and Fries. Macy’s moved to 34th Street in 1902. It is not clear if any retail took place in the 14th Street Macy’s Annex, or whether it was just used for offices, storage, or rented out. According to the designation report, “The former Macy 14th Street Annex, owned by the Straus family until 1939 and internally connected to the 13th Street Annex through the 20th century, housed a variety of firms over subsequent decades.” The Macy’s logo has always featured a red star, which allegedly comes from a tattoo that Macy got as a teenager when he worked on a Nantucket whaling ship. 56 West 14th Street is still ornately decorated, and if you look closely you can still see the Macy’s logo and stars on the building facade.

Marion Parker, a graduate of Michigan State University, designed the structure for the Whitehall, and Broad-Exchange buildings, and assisted in designing the Flatiron Building. Elmina Wilson, a graduate of Iowa State University, designed the structure for the Whitehall Annex, the Manhattan Municipal Building, and the Metropolitan Life Insurance Tower — the tallest building in the world from 1907 to 1913. Learn more here.

Rhinelander Row ca. 1937 Rhinelander Row — a group of 11 houses with wooden balconies and front yards — was built in 1843 by William C. Rhinelander, a powerful Greenwich Village landowner. For 75 years, the Row stood at the base of Seventh Avenue, but with the 1914 extension of the avenue south to Canal Street, the Row lost its neighboring residences and was stranded on the edge of a major intersection. When demolition began in 1936, only one house was occupied. Abbott first photographed the Row before the May 10 front page New York Times story, “Historic Greenwich Village Homes to be Demolished.” Her two return visits recorded the stages of the Row’s demise. Shortly before election day, she showed the Row abandoned and decorated with campaign posters for a Democratic candidate for City Court judge (not shown). The following May, while a WPA crew dismembered the porches, Abbott photographed the site again. Workmen, seen on the roof and the second-story porch, were responsible for collecting clothing left in the houses and draping it on a front yard tree, which Abbott placed in the center of her composition.

Washington Square Arch ca. 1925 Originally erected in staff and plaster by Stanford White in celebration of the hundredth anniversary of Washington's inauguration as President, the arch found such popular favor that it was rebuilt in permanent materials. Statues of Washington in war and peace face northward up the Avenue, and it is interesting to note the freedom in design of the panels behind them relative to the otherwise Classical design.

23 West 13th Street, c. 1994 Substation 235, located at 23 West 13th Street on at the intersection of Greenwich Avenue and Horatio Street. The structure was built in 1932 during the construction of the IND Eighth Avenue Line, a project that lasted from 1932 until 1940. A substation is fed power from a central station that is converted from high voltage alternating current (AC) into low voltage direct current (DC) to power the subway. This substation and others constructed for the IND line were the first to be non-manually operated. Greenwich Substation was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2005 as a unique piece of New York City's transit history. The masonry structure's footprint, a chamfered rectangle, reflects the infill lot's geometric condition at this bustling intersection. The facade is adorned with limestone, brick, and aluminum; its loading dock doors are framed by Art Deco motifs and sunburst patterns, not uncommon of substations and telephone buildings of the era. The human-scaled entrance is decorated more modestly and located at the level of the sidewalk.

St. John's Evangelical Lutheran Church, ca. 1978. Built 1821-22 as the Eighth Presbyterian Church, the Federal style church was sold to St. Matthew’s Episcopal in 1842. The church was sold again in 1855, this time to a Lutheran congregation of German immigrants. In 1886, Victorian embellishments were added to the facade, including a new pediment inscription commemorating the church’s German-American heritage: “Deutsche Evangelish-Lutherische St. Johannes Kirche.

82 Washington Place, ca. 1975. Rendered in a French Beaux-Arts style, this six-story apartment building was completed in 1903 by architects Horenburger & Straub. Famous residents have included author Willa Cather and urbanist and Robert Moses adversary Jane Jacobs.

The Jefferson Market Library, constructed in 1874-77, was “one of the ten most beautiful buildings in America,” according to a poll of architects conducted in 1885. The Ruskinian Gothic structure, originally a courthouse, is considered one of the finest examples of High Victorian architecture in America.

Washington Square Arch Wrapped, 1980. In 1980 artist Francis Hines wrapped the Arch in 8,000 yards of polyester netting. Using rope and fabrics and metal and mechanical devices, Hines' work often included covering large objects, similar to artists Christo and Jean-Claude. Described as “a giant bandage for a wounded Monument,” the work stayed up for six days and aimed to call attention to and raise funds for park improvements.

New York City Fire Engine No. 72 Cinema Village, located at 22 East 12th Street, is the oldest continuously operated cinema in Greenwich Village and one of the oldest continuously operated art cinemas in the city. Information from GVSHP’s research notes the following about the Cinema Village building: The façade appears to date from a 1964 alteration. The NB application shows that the structure was built as a three-story fire engine house in 1898 and designed by Horgan & Slattery for the City of New York. (Horgan & Slattery designed the Butterick Building at the Corner of 6th and Spring Streets in 1903 and other sites around the city during the early twentieth century). The building at 22 East 12th Street remained in use as a firehouse until it was converted to a movie theater in the 1960s. A 1964 Certificate of Occupancy shows it was operating as a “moving picture theater and entrance lobby.” The theater opened on October 5th of that year with Ingmar Bergman’s All These Women. Through most of its early years, Cinema Village was one of the city’s many repertory cinemas, showcasing vintage movies, cult classics, and contemporary favorites on double bills (aka double features) that would usually change three times a week. This once essential programming format has mostly died out in commercial movie theaters throughout New York City and the United States. By the late 1980s – and due to the surge in home video, buy outs by large-name theaters, and real estate development – commercial repertory cinema all but disappeared in New York City. Cinema Village escaped closure, surviving by presenting limited engagements of unconventional first run shows. In the early 1990s, before Jackie Chan, John Woo, Michele Yeoh and their stunt coordinators went to Hollywood, Cinema Village became known, through its annual festivals and other bookings, as the place to see the Hong Kong films of what would soon be acknowledged as a filmmaking golden age.

Mabel Dodge Luhan Residence, 23 5th Avenue ca. 1915 Mabel Dodge Luhan was born in Buffalo, New York, to wealthy banker Charles Ganson and his wife Sarah Cook and grew up among the social elite. While living in New York City in 1912, Gertrude Stein introduced her to the Greenwich Village intelligentsia and provided Dodge's introduction to the artists and collectors organizing the Amory Show of modern art, which is considered the event that launched Dodge into action. Dodge organized weekly salons in her apartment at 23 Fifth Avenue (since replaced by the building with the address 25 5th Avenue) to include a mix of intellectuals and artists. John Reed and Max Eastman met with Margaret Sanger and Charles Demuth. Most importantly, the salons often crossed class barriers as Dodge invited those of different classes such as Emma Goldman and Bill Haywood to bring new voices into the conversations she hosted. She wrote that she wanted her guests to mix “in an unaccustomed freedom a kind of speech called Free.” In 1919, she moved to Taos, New Mexico and began a literary colony and hosted a number of influential artists and poets including Ansel Adams, Willa Cather, Georgia O'Keeffe, Aldous Huxley, and D.H. Lawrence. She died in 1962 at her home in Taos, which is now a National Historic Landmark.

This image is from the 1969 Designation of the Greenwich Village Historic District on Village Preservation's GVHD50 Then and Now map click here to explore the map.

This is an introductory text to this sample story. From here you can explain the premise of the story or jump right into its context.

The Salvation Army National and Territorial Headquarters ARCHITECT: Ralph Walker; Vorhees, Gmelin & Walker DATE: 1929-35 STYLE: Art Deco The complex includes a 12-story office building, adjacent to a 4-story auditorium building that included modern broadcast facilities. The building was designed by preeminent modernist architect Ralph Walker of the firm of Voorhees, Gmelin & Walker, using an Art Deco style. Both of these buildings are clad in brick, with a small amount of cast-stone ornament near the top and around the entrances.

Saint John's in the Village ca. 1970 The Greek Revival made several modifications in the conventional Greek temple form. Where the width of a building might have required six columns (hexastyle) and the cost of erecting them was prohibitive, the scheme of bringing the sidewalls forward (in antis) and using two columns (distyle) was followed; the balance of the width was met by widening as much as required on each side of the portico, with flush walls parallel to the street. These walls were the unusual feature, resulting in an exceedingly handsome innovation. This church is distyle in antis, combined with prostyle tetrastyle (having four columns).

The Hotel Grosvenor Apartments were constructed in 1926 on the site of the 1876 Grosvenor Hotel. The original hotel was one of the earliest businesses in the fashionable mansion district.

My Archive Spring 2019 "This is a family photograph of my grandfather, Andrew Bambace who was born in Calabria, Italy in 1900. He immigrated to America in 1920. Our family comes from a region rich in agriculture, so fruits and vegetables is what he knew. He literally built a push cart out of discarded wood and sold apples and oranges. He would push from West 4th Street to 34th Street. Then the great depression came, and he had to abandon his cart. He then roasted chestnuts on a corner of 34th Street. It became increasingly difficult to survive, but he managed to save for ship passage and in 1928 he returned to Italy, discouraged but not about to give up on his American dream. He married in 1931, sold a small piece of land and in 1934 he came back to New York and opened this store in the photograph at 10 Cornelia Street (between Bleecker and West 4th Street). “Nonno” lived right up the street in a 6th-floor walk-up, 165 West 4th Street." "That little fruit and vegetable store was patronized by many locals and some of them were the young, struggling writers, artists and actors of the day. My mother helped out in the store and she would tell us about these “regulars.” Eva Marie Saint and her then-boyfriend Jeff, (who she eventually married), Robert Culp and James Broderick. Also, the actor Dean Jagger (who played the General in the film “White Christmas”) were “Nonno’s customers”. My mother was very artistic and sometimes she would hang her paintings and drawings in the store. Dean Jagger bought one of them. They all shopped at Nonno’s because he always carried the best vegetables and fruit. When they asked him where did he get such fine quality produce, he would answer “I grow everything on my roof and window sill” and they believed him!" "Greenwich Village was populated with many Italian immigrants, and the narrow Village streets were bustling with Italian shops, my grandfather’s being one of them. He wanted to expand to a larger location on 8th Street, but he did not have enough money, (he continued to support his many siblings in Calabria who were impoverished and broken by the war). The 8th Street property was bought by his competitor, Mr. Balducci. My grandfather’s little store closed in 1963 after one of his daughters died suddenly, and then his health deteriorated. Growing up, I have fond memories of walking up Sixth Avenue with my Grandfather. He would hold my hand and as we made our way past 14th Street he would recount his many journeys on foot all the way uptown to meticulously choose his produce. I also vividly recall the aroma of the potted basil plants facing the sun on his kitchen windowsill on West 4th Street. Grandfather’s store never had an official name, but everyone in Greenwich Village knew where to go for the best produce and lively conversation with a charming, beloved shop keeper named Andrew." —Mary Lofaro

2 Fifth Avenue visible above MacDougal Alley, ca. 1955. Designed by the firm of Emery Roth Sons for the developer Samuel Rudin between 1951 and 1952, 2 Fifth Avenue is a massive 353-apartment building. The major portion of the structure is the large 20-story white-glazed brick building (visible in this photograph). At the south end of the lot the building faces Washington Square Park, and it was designed to complement the low rise structures that face the park. 2 Fifth Avenue here is a five-story red brick building that works with the 19th century mansions that sit to its west. The building has been the home of a number of well-known New Yorkers including former Mayor Ed Koch and writer and activist Larry Kramer. The pair had an acrimonious relationship, as Koch was mayor for the first decade of the AIDS epidemic and his failure to act had serious repercussions for the gay community.

Washington Square Arch, ca. 1961. Clipping on the back of the photograph is entitled, "Guarding Washington Square Fountain Yesterday." The caption reads: "Police surround fountain in Washington Square to prevent troubadours from singing.

By Salonee Bhaman The dusty red brick façade of the Northern Dispensary sports a hand-lettered sign, a throwback to a bygone era. Built in a neo-Georgian style, the triangular, three-story building occupies the entirety of its oddly shaped, now-trendy West Village block bound by Christopher Street, Grove Street, and on two sides by Waverly Place. Remarkably, given its bustling and costly surroundings, the Dispensary is empty—a shell observing a city in constant flux. Underwritten by a mixture of public and private funds, the building and the land it sits on fall under a restrictive deed requiring that the premises serve the poor and infirm. Just what that requirement means has become a question determining much of the Dispensary’s fate over the 20th century. Read this in its original format here.

Northern Dispensary, April 24, 1934. The triangular dispensary building is a cartographic curiosity: it has two sides on one street (Waverly Place, which forks around the building), and one side on two streets (Grove and Christopher Streets, which share its northwestern face).

"St. Joseph's Home for the Aged, 15th Street adjoining N.W. corner of Seventh Avenue. This institution, which opened in 1873 is maintained by the Society of St. Vincent De Paul. (Roman Catholic), 1931." The building that once housed the St. Joseph’s Home for the Aged, still exists below the simple Art Deco style brick apartment building that stands on 15th Street today. In 1940 a New York Times article described how the older building will be converted and modernized (not demolished) into a six-story elevator apartment building. The cost of the building for the development company was $75,000

The Brevoort Hotel and "Mark Twain House" on Fifth Avenue, between 8th and 9th Streets, October 24, 1935. Berenice Abbott’s 1935 photo captures lower Fifth Avenue in its waning days as a boulevard of the stately townhouses. The 27-story apartment building at 1 Fifth Avenue (extreme right) is a harbinger of the developments to come. The corner townhouse at left was known as the “Mark Twain House,” but its historical significance long predates the author’s brief residence in the winter of 1904 (or 1906, sources differ). The house — called “one of the most architecturally notable houses in all New York” in the 1969 Greenwich Village Historic District Designation Report — was built by architect James Renwick Jr. for his family’s estate. The light-colored building at right (actually a set of multiple townhouses connected by a shared cornice) is the Brevoort Hotel, named for Henry Brevoort, Sr., the owner of a large farm north of 9th Street that predated Greenwich Village development. Brevoort, a vehement opponent of the grid plan, successfully persuaded the city to bend Broadway at Tenth Street to accommodate his property. In 1953, the entire block was razed for the construction of the Brevoort superblock apartment building.

The three townhouses combined to form the new museum building.

“Looking down a narrow lane at children on the porch of 9 ½ Jane Street, 1915.” The three-story house is accessed by an alley to the west of no. 9 Jane Street, a four-story brick townhouse built in 1844 for tinsmith Walter H. Mead. The rear house was built in 1854.

Washington Square Arch with No. 1 Fifth Avenue behind. March 3, 1929. The Washington Square Arch, a Tuckahoe marble triumphal arch designed by Stanford White, commemorates the centennial of George Washington’s inauguration as President. William Rhinelander Stewart, a Washington Square resident, had erected a wood and plaster arch in 1889. After Stewart’s temporary tribute proved popular, White was commissioned to design a permanent monument, which was completed in 1892. The arch includes a little-used 102-step spiral staircase inside its western end, leading to an skylit attic room and rooftop.

Washington Square Arch with 2 Fifth Avenue (left) and 1 Fifth Avenue (right) visible in the background, ca. 1955.

Hotel Earle, ca. 1902-08. Named for its owner, Earle L’Amoreaux, the slim, eight-story Hotel Earle went up on Waverly Place, just west of Washington Square, in 1902. Six years later, L’Amoreaux expanded the hotel by building an identical tower next door. In 1917, he added an additional floor and connected to a further adjoining building at the corner of Macdougal Street. As Washington Square and Greenwich Village transition from an elite enclave to a Bohemian district, many notable artists were either guests or residents, including Ernest Hemingway, Dylan Thomas, and Bob Dylan. In 1986, the Earle was renamed the Washington Square Hotel.

Washington Square Park, April 16, 1936. What today might be a scene of benches covered in lodging students, a dog park, and buskers trying to make a dime, was once a potters field. In 1797, New York City bought a plot of land that had once been a farm to create a potter’s field—a burial ground for the indigent, poor, criminals, and victims of epidemic. Occupying what is now the eastern two-thirds of the park, the burial grounds remained open for more than 30 years. The area also hosted a hangman's gallows used by a nearby prison. By the 1810s the potter's field had largely been filled to its capacity (unsurprising with yellow fever epidemics in 1797, 1798, 1801, and 1803). Burial spaces for the Cedar Street and Pearl Street Presbyterian churches were also located nearby in the early 19th century. In 1827 the area was declared a public square and over the next century became the park as we know it today.

GVSHP Executive Director Regina Kellerman conducts TV interviews ahead of the groundbreaking of the Sheridan Square Architectural Dig, 1982.

Valerie Perrine being filmed in Can't Stop the Music in front of Sevilla Restaurant & Bar, 1979.

39 Fifth Avenue ca. 1923 Emery Roth designed this 14-story apartment building, his first in Greenwich Village, in 1922. It was the first of many of the larger apartment houses which would line this part of Fifth Avenue, typically replacing the 19th-century mansions which originally lined the thoroughfare. It is clad in Flemish bond brick and is restrained in its ornament with the exception of the multi-colored terra-cotta loggias at the third and the eleventh and twelfth floors.

Rhinelander Row, Seventh Avenue, March 20, 1936. This set of eleven cottages along Seventh Avenue became known as Rhinelander Row, after the developer William C. Rhinelander. The three-decker style brick rowhouses were built in 1849, with each story allocated its own wooden porch (replaced by sturdier iron in 1888). The row was demolished in 1937, with a gas station occupying the site after plans for a contemporary apartment building fell through. In 1964, the Maritime Union Building, later the Maritime Hotel, was built on the site.

View of Patchin Place with Jefferson Market Courthouse in the background, November 24, 1937. The houses along Patchin Place were built in the late 1840s, in close proximity to Jefferson Market and, later, the Jefferson Market Courthouse and Prison. Berenice Abbott’s photograph depicts the brick buildings lining Patchin Place, a single dead-end block off of West 10th Street, in 1937. At the time, the secluded side street was known as a popular spot for literary New Yorkers. Long-term residents included e.e. cummings, and Djuna Barnes, while Marlon Brando also stayed on the block for a short time. Today, Patchin Place looks much like it did 80 years ago, with one notable exception. Rather than poets and writers, the street’s seclusion has attracted a different kind of privacy-seeking professionals: therapists.

Civic Repertory Theater, 1900 This building is a theatre with a long history. The structure was originally constructed in 1866 as the Theatre Francais, a venue for French dramas and opera. Designed by German-born architect Alexander Saeltzer, his inspiration came from 18th century English styles. The resulting theatre was a large stone building with a two-story portico, classic pediment with sculptural figures, and supported by numerous Corinthian columns. Saeltzer is better known for his still extant buildings, including the Public Theatre (former Astor Library) and the Gothic Revival Anshe Chesed Synagogue, which is now the Angel Orensanz Center. The theatre would change hands and names with great frequency over the next 50 years. It was renamed the Lyceum in 1871 (one of a number of theatres to use that moniker). In 1879 it was taken over by J.H. Haverly and renamed Haverly's 14th Street Theatre. By the next decade it was called just the 14th Street Theatre. The theatre became a movie venue in the 1910s but returned to theatrical productions in 1926 when it was taken over by British actress Eva Le Gallienne, who was very involved in the American Repertory Movement. She successful produced high quality, low cost shows until the Depression forced the theatre's closure in 1933.

10 Sheridan Square, steel framing, March 6, 1929.

Milligan Place is a small alley off of Sixth Avenue, one of a number of hidden alleys in the Greenwich Village. Named for Samuel Milligan, the original owner of the property, the alley is lined with brick homes constructed in the 1850s. Today the small alley looks much like it did in this circa 1915 photograph and likely just as it did in the second half of the 19th century, quietly tucked away from the busy nearby street.

The Rhinelander House, Washington Square North, January 1950. Built for William C. Rhinelander in 1940, the Greek Revival mansion at Washington Square North and Fifth Avenue became a preservation flashpoint after the Rhinelander Real Estate Company sold the property for development in 1944. After a half-decade in limbo, the house was demolished in 1951, over the objections of the nascent Washington Square Committee, formed in January 1950. Today, the nineteen-story 2 Fifth Avenue stands on the site.

Man playing chess in Washington Square Park; unknown date.

Liquor Raid at Luigi's, Greenwich Village Progressive-era and Prohibition reformers often took aim at saloons, arguing that spent wages and alcohol consumption hurt working-class families. While $60,000 of illegal liquor was confiscated from Luigi’s in the raid shown here, the owner was not charged, as he claimed that the alcohol was left over from before Prohibition. Image Info: January 24, 1923 CREDIT: Museum of the City of New York, Cityana Collection, gift of Mr. Benjamin Blom, 91.69.20.

52 West 9th Street ca. 1933 52 West 9th Street has a rather unusual studio window. According to the designation report for the Greenwich Village Historic District, this house was built in 1848 for physician Austin Sherman. But the unusual studio renovation took place some time in the early 20th century. Here the studio is not only unusually high (seemingly a nearly double-height space), but is recessed enough to supply a balcony with a balustrade for the lucky resident.

61 Fifth Avenue, ca. 1983. 61 Fifth Avenue first opened in 1938 as a Schrafft's luncheonette. The cozy restaurant, framed by a grand staircase, semi-circular open ceiling, and heaps of flowers, gift baskets and boxes of chocolate, was designed by architects Bloch & Hesse. By 1969, Schrafft's became the “official dining spot” for what New York Magazine then called “L.O.L.’s,” or Little Old Ladies. With the hope of reinventing its image, the owners hired Andy Warhol to film a trio of young girls in miniskirts with the tagline, “Have you seen the little old ladies in Schrafft's lately?" for a commercial. Despite efforts to appear hip, the restaurant closed in the 1970s and was replaced by a Brew Burger. Then came The Lone Star Café. Known for its “honkytonk” live music and the giant 40-foot iguana statue that sat on its roof, the Texas-themed cafe and club was the top venue for country music in New York from 1976 to 1989. Mr. Fuji's Tropicana opened at 61 Fifth Avenue in the early nineties, but only remained open for a short period of time. The club was famous for its tie to Vin Diesel, who is rumored to have worked the front door as a bouncer. A Korean deli with a secret karaoke bar on the second floor opened after Mr. Fuji’s shut down, and following that, a 24-hour convenience store. In 2006, the building was destroyed in a fire. The land was sold to a developer who recently erected a 10-story condominium at 61 Fifth Avenue. Designed by architect Alta Indelman, the building today is surrounded by a fence that has become a showcase for street art.

15 Christopher Street, Manhattan (1827, Architect unknown) NYC HD, NR-P Originally founded in 1967 in a storefront at 291 Mercer Street, the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop moved to the parlor floor of this rowhouse in 1973 until it closed in 2009. The shop was the country’s first bookstore to cater to the LGBTQ community, selling LGBTQ literature and hosting book signings with LGBTQ authors. Its location in Greenwich Village, a prominent gay community in New York and the world, made it an important gathering place for both local customers and international visitors. Its founder, Craig Rodwell, was a leader in the gay rights movement, volunteering in gay rights groups and organizing protests. He also participated in the Stonewall Rebellion of 1969 and organized the Christopher Street Liberation Day March, held one year later, which became the precursor for all future Pride Marches. The Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop was also the headquarters of Rodwell’s organization, Homophile Youth Movement in Neighborhoods. In 1993, Rodwell sold the shop, passing away later that same year after a battle with stomach cancer. In 2006, the shop’s long-time manager, Kim Brinster, took over, but soon had to close due to pressures from the 2008 financial crisis and the rise in online book sales.

The small wedge-shaped building at 1 Sheridan Square was built in 1834 for Samuel Whittemore (first owner of the Julius’ Bar building) and was originally three stories with a hipped roof. In 1927-28, it was raised one story, terminated with a stepped parapet, and stuccoed. During this remodeling the basement was joined with that of the adjoining 1902-03 factory building next door, which was converted into apartments. The basement was first the location of the Four Trees speakeasy/restaurant c. 1927-35. Trenton shoe salesman Barney Josephson opened Café Society in the basement space in 1938. Many people, including Josephson, have claimed that it was New York City’s first racially integrated club, but at least one venue, Small’s Paradise in Harlem (opened in 1925), appears to have preceded it. Bookings were made by now-legendary jazz producer John Hammond. It opened with a relatively unknown young singer named Billie Holiday, who played here for nine months and debuted the anti-lynching song Strange Fruit. Billed as “the wrong place for the Right people,” Café Society featured many of the jazz giants of the day, as well as such singers as gospel (and briefly jazz) star Sister Rosetta Tharpe. After his brother was subpoenaed by the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1948 due to his leftist political connections, Josephson was attacked by newspaper columnists, and his business fell off greatly. He closed this club in 1950. The space was converted into the Off-Broadway theater One Sheridan Square in 1960. Charles Ludlam’s Ridiculous Theatrical Company, founded in 1967, moved here in 1978. This was one of New York’s most innovative and influential Off-Off-Broadway theater troupes. In 2003, the New York Times noted that “Playwright, actor, and director, iconoclast among iconoclasts, Charles Ludlam was revolutionizing downtown New York culture in the 1970s with his gender-bending and outrageous theatrical sendups long before terms like ‘gender-bending’ were common.” Ludlam was in a unique theatrical position in New York, as the writer of 29 full-length plays that were produced by his own company. Ludlam died of AIDS in 1987. The Ridiculous Theatrical Company was located here until 1995. Since 1998, the basement theater has housed the Axis Theatre Company.

Old Grapevine Tavern ca. 1895 On August 6, 1966, the first known recording of “I Heard It Through The Grapevine” was made by the Miracles. Written by Motown pioneers Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong, the song was re-recorded several times; Marvin Gaye’s cover landed on the top of the charts for seven weeks in early 1969. While the song now a Motown standard, the famous saying about receiving important news or information through a person-to-person chain of communication significantly pre-dates the Motown era. In fact, plentiful evidence and credible sources trace it back to a beloved tavern on the corner of 6th Avenue and 11th Street in Greenwich Village. A wooden two and a half story house built in the 1700s that stood at the southeast corner of this intersection housed a saloon called the Hawthorne. Originally a private home, by the early 19th century it had become a refuge for those escaping the beehive of activity in Lower Manhattan. But by the late 19th century, as the city grew around it, the tavern took on a different role. In 1877, the Tavern became a noted hangout for lawyers and politicians, including future presidents Teddy Roosevelt and Chester A. Arthur. There they shared information from and speculated about the many goings-on at the nearby courthouse, and the tavern became known as the best place to hear political gossip in New York. Also in the 19th century was the growth of an ever-expanding grapevine along the 11th Street façade of the building. So prominent was the climbing plant that the Hawthorne simply came to be known as “The Grapevine.” And thus, at least according to legend, this fertile ground for gossip and reconnaissance became the source for the figure of speech that information could be “heard through the grapevine.” In 1915, the old Grapevine Tavern was demolished to make way for the six-story apartment building which now stands at 78 West 11th Street.

149 West 14th Street, ca. 1930. Kooky’s Cocktail Lounge, better known as Kooky’s (pronounced “cookies”), was a Mafia-owned lesbian bar that operated here from 1965 to 1973. Even though a female-operated bar at that time was unusual, Kooky (last name unknown) was not particularly welcoming to lesbian patrons. She enforced a door cover-charge policy ($3 – a large financial burden at that time) and had a lot of control over the imposing bouncers; rather than protect the patrons, which was supposedly their job, they would often bully them. Lesbian feminist author Karla Jay described Kooky’s memorable style: “Her hair was shellacked into a large golden beehive that suggested that she had last set, teased, and sprayed her hair in the 1950s and then left it permanently in place.”

Salmagundi Club ca. 1965 As written in the designation report, the four-and-a-half story Italianate style building at 47 Fifth Avenue was constructed in 1852-1853 for Irad Hawley, the president of the Pennsylvania Coal Company, which had yards along the Hudson River in the West Village. The building’s arresting entrance, up a flight of wide steps, is framed in original stone ornament and flanked by French doors that open onto cast-iron balconies. And, the report indicates, the inside is no less stunning. The first floor of the building showcases Italianate-style carved marble chimney pieces, rose wood doors, and an arcaded Corinthian screen dividing the front and back parlors. The dining room features elements of the Gothic Revival style and is one of the few remaining interiors in New York to do so. The Salmagundi Club, by 1969, was one-of-a-kind, the last architectural relic of the swath of mid-nineteenth century Anglo-Italianate brownstone mansions that once lined the lower portion of Fifth Avenue. Its dignified, former northern neighbors at 49 and 51 Fifth Avenue were razed to make way for a 19-story apartment building, built-in 1929 by Thomas W. Lamb, but the Salmagundi Club stayed put. Beyond the architectural significance of 47 Fifth Avenue, the designation report cites the building’s cultural significance as a key reason for its designation. The Salmagundi Club, before moving into its longtime home, was organized in 1871 for the “the promotion of social intercourse among artists and the advancement of the art” and named for the “Salmagundi Papers,” a satirical magazine published by short-story writer Washington Irving in which he coined the term “Gotham.” The Club purchased the grand Fifth Avenue mansion in 1917, and has resided there ever since. The designation report credits the maintenance of the historic building to the club, which had been, and continues to be, a reliable and generous steward. Notable members of the Club include illustrators Edwin Abbey, N.C. Wyeth, and Howard Pyle; Impressionist painters William Merritt Chase and Childe Hassam; Arts and Crafts pioneer John LaFarge; designer Louis C. Tiffany; Hudson River School artist Thomas Moran; and architect Stanford White. But that’s not all there is to celebrate today. The building is not only a historic cross-section of Fifth Avenue history and an esteemed center of orbit in the city’s art world. It is noteworthy also as one of the first individual landmarks named and protected by the city. The designation report is a mere page long, absolutely minuscule compared to the over 50-page reports put together today, but it set a crucial precedent in New York City’s landmarking process. And, from April 1, 1982 until 1999, Village Preservation’s offices were located in the building’s attic!

In 1981, a “rare cancer” first seen in a group of gay men primarily in New York and San Francisco eventually became a widespread epidemic more accurately known as acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). This curated collection includes the residences of influential AIDS activists and artists, venues where fundraising events were held, and meeting and demonstration locations of AIDS organizations.

View up Fifth Avenue from the top of the Washington Square Arch, ca. 1908.

10 Sheridan Square, under construction, April 8, 1929. The 14-story apartment house called the Shenandoah loomed over its more low-rise neighbors when constructed in 1929. It remains still one of the taller buildings in the area, directly across from a pocket park on one side and a small garden on the other. Designed by famed apartment house and hotel architect Emery Roth, the simplified neo-Romanesque building includes a multi-colored stonework base with large segmental-arched windows. The tower, with arched loggia (open portico) can been seen in both construction photographs set back from the corner on the Sheridan Square-facing facade (on the right in the photographs). Take note of the small stone and metal sea creatures, elephants, and dragons that decorate the ground floor, which has been occupied by a gay bar called Monster since the 1970s.

West 14th Street looking east from Sixth Avenue, ca. 1892. No. 36, is at right, in the middle of the block. In the middle of the 19th century a brownstone occupied the lot. In 1858, sugar merchant Moses Lazarus (father to Emma Lazarus) and his family moved into the mansion. They remained in the home until at least 1876, when Emma wrote a letter to Thomas Wren Ward from this address. In 1877 the home was replaced by a five-story cast iron commercial building for Lazarus (as a headquarters or office, or as a rental property, it is unknown). That building is visible at right. In 1899 the Lazarus building was replaced by an addition to a neighboring structure, the Ludwig Brothers building. It soon after became Rothenberg & Co., "New York's most up-to-date store." Today that Neo-Grec commercial structure still stands at 34-42 West 14th Street.

59 Christopher Street, ca. 1909. This Greenwich Village standard, known as Kettle of Fish, was established 1950 as a Wisconsin Sconnie bar. In the early-1960s, when the bar was located at 116 MacDougal Street, it emerged as a major hangout for Beat writers like Jack Kerouac, and musicians and writers, including Gregory Corso, Allen Ginsberg, Joyce Johnson, Bob Dylan, and Andy Warhol among others. Kettle of Fish later moved to Third Street, where the live music venue Fat Black Pussy Cat is now, before relocating to its current Christopher Street location in the late 1990s. While the bar has moved twice since its opening, through the years, Kettle of Fish has proven to be popular with people from all walks of life -- intellects, musicians, writers, and sports fans alike. The owner, who hails from Wisconsin, has made the bar the go-to NYC spot for Packers and Badgers fans!

Northern Dispensary, ca. 1975. The Northern Dispensary was founded in 1831, then in the northern part of the city. When New York deeded the land to the Northern Dispensary organization, the deed included a firm stipulation: that any building be used for the medical treatment of the city’s poor. Edgar Allan Poe, who lived nearby on Waverly Place, was among the facility’s patients in the winter of 1837. The clinic continued to operate until the 1980s, when the dispensary was fined for refusing to treat a prospective patient who had AIDS. In 1989, the building was purchased by the Roman Catholic Church, whose attempt to open a clinic for homeless AIDS patients was defeated by local opposition. The Northern Dispensary building sits on an extremely valuable lot in the middle of the West Village, but its 1831 deed restriction continues scare away developers. Today, the building is owned by the estate of William Gottlieb, an inscrutable real estate speculator who purchased the property in 1998.

"Built between 1874 and 1877 as the Third Judicial District Courthouse, the Jefferson Market Courthouse, located on Sixth Avenue between Greenwich Avenue and West 10th Street, remains a Greenwich Village landmark, albeit serving a very different function. Designed in the American High Victorian Gothic style by the firm Vaux & Withers, it was built to house the Police Court and the District Court. In 1906, Henry Thaw was indicted in this courthouse for the murder of architect Stanford White, whom Thaw suspected of dallying with his wife, the former actress Evelyn Nesbit. Reflecting its judicial function, the building’s sculptural detail includes the trial scene from The Merchant of Venice. The Sixth Avenue El rumbled past the courthouse from 1878 to 1939. By 1958, the building had not been used as a courthouse for over 10 years, and the City was planning to sell the entire block to private developers. Before the enactment of New York City’s Landmarks Preservation Law, a grassroots preservation group succeeded in eliciting the support of then Mayor Robert Wagner, who prevailed on the New York Public Library to acquire the building for a branch library, which it remains to this day." For more on Jefferson Market Library and NYC's other 'lost' courthouses, check out this article by Robert Pigott in Gotham: A Blog for Scholars of New York City History.

80 Fifth Avenue, an elaborately-detailed Renaissance Revival style office building constructed in 1907-1908 by the architecture firm of Buchman and Fox, has been a striking presence at the southwest corner of Fifth Avenue and 14th Street for well over a century. The stunning architecture would be enough to warrant landmark designation of the 17-story office, store, and loft building, which has housed law firms, clothing and jewelry shops, magazines and real estate offices, a school, and civic organizations over it’s more than one hundred ten year history. But beginning in 1973, the top floor was also home to the National Gay Task Force, the country’s first national LGBT rights organization, during its early period when it made groundbreaking advances — the first in fact ever made — for LGBT rights on the federal level. This building was constructed in 1908 to be used as manufacturing and office space. Known as both 80-82 Fifth Avenue and 2-4 West 14th Street, its facades facing two of New York’s busiest streets is full of stately embellishments. This beautiful building’s lower and upper levels feature decorative floral and geometric ornamentation, elaborate cornices, and angled bay windows on the third floor. Ornamented pilasters are found at either side of these windows, with slightly more austere middle floors and in its arched windows and elaborate ornamentation at the top story. The National Gay Task Force, now renamed as The National LGBTQ Task Force, works to advance full freedom, justice, and equality for LGBTQ people. The organization is the country’s oldest national LGBTQ advocacy group. The founding members of the Task Force included Dr. Howard Brown, Martin Duberman, Barbara Gittings, Ron Gold, Frank Kameny, Nathalie Rockhill, and Bruce Voeller. They were inspired by the Stonewall uprising and the burgeoning LGBTQ rights movements in the Village. Among the Task Force’s accomplishments during the time it was located at 80 Fifth Avenue included getting the American Psychiatric Association to end its classification of homosexuality as a mental illness; getting the federal government to end its ban on employing gay or lesbian people in any federal agencies (though a guarantee not to discriminate based upon sexual orientation was not implemented until decades later); and brokering the first meeting of gay rights advocates with the White House in 1977.

Construction of the Sheridan Square Viewing Garden, 1982. For most of the twentieth century, Sheridan Square served as nothing more than a traffic-safety island. It wasn’t until 1982 that the area went from a paved triangle to a lovely viewing garden. The genesis of this project came in July of that year when a group of Sheridan Square neighbors, the Sheridan Square Triangle Association, convinced the Parks Department to turn this plot of land into a garden. GVSHP’s then-Executive Director, Regina Kellerman, heard about these plans and thought it would be the perfect spot to conduct an archaeological dig since the 4,200 square foot triangle hadn’t been used since the early twentieth century and hadn’t really been touched at all prior to that. Professional archaeologists contributed their time, and Dr. Anne Marie Cantwell, a professor at Rutgers, agreed to direct the site excavation and involve her students. Mostly it was Native American artifacts that were being searched for, many of which were uncovered. The Sheridan Square Viewing Garden stands today, cared for still by its neighbors, as a reminder of the unity and commitment to history of Greenwich Village.

Townhouses on West 10th Street, October 11, 1940. (Note the growth of the tree in front of No. 17!)

Civic Repertory Theater, July 2, 1936. From the 1860s to the turn of the century, New York’s theater district centered on 14th Street. Abbott photographed four 19th-century theaters in the old district, anticipating their imminent destruction. The Civic Repertory opened in 1866 as the Theatre Francaise and acquired its modern name in 1926, when Eva Le Gallienne reopened it to produce classic revivals and new plays at low prices. Between 1932 and 1935, it housed the Labor Theatre, which performed plays with social themes. When Abbott photographed the Civic Repertory in 1936, it was closed, and two years later, a motion picture chain tore it down with plans for a new movie house, which was never built. In 1974, a six-story apartment house went up on the site.

No. 12 Gay Street (left, with lantern), ca. 1975. The Federal style row houses at Nos. 12 and 14 were built in 1827-1828 by the developers Daniel H. Weed and Joseph D. Baldwin. During prohibition, No. 12 allegedly housed a speakeasy before becoming a different sort of clandestine meeting place: the house was purchased by the married Mayor Jimmy Walker, to be used for barely-secret assignations with Betty Compton, his showgirl girlfriend.

The original structure was a two-story Federal style frame house, built in 1826 and converted into a tavern in 1864. During Prohibition, by which time a third story and stucco finish had been added, the “Seven Doors” bar continued to operate as a speakeasy. Following the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment, the bar was renamed Julius’. During the 1950s, Julius’ became known as a gathering place for gay New Yorkers, despite its management’s harassment of gay customers, under the auspices of liquor regulations prohibiting the sale of alcohol to “disorderly” customers (gay men were considered intrinsically disorderly). In 1966, a group of gay activists and members of the Mattachine society held a “sip-in” to challenge the discriminatory law: after first identifying themselves as homosexuals, they ordered drinks from the Julius’ bartender who then refused service (the New York Times headline read “3 Deviates Invite Exclusion by Bars”). The men successfully challenged the New York State Liquor Authority in court, winning a ruling that guaranteed gay New Yorkers the right to peaceful assembly, thereby opening the door to legal, licensed gay bars.

8 and 10 West 8th Street. This pair was building in 1838 (along with nos. 12 and 14 to the east). In 1914, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney turned 8 West 8th Street into the Whitney Studio Gallery. In 1931, she turned nos. 8,10, and 12 into the first home of the newly established Whitney Museum.

29 West 14th Street, August 10, 1927. No.29, the old house at the right, belonged to the estate of the late Frederick T. Van Beuren.

Village Preservation successfully advocated for this building's landmark designation in 2021. This building housed the headquarters of the nation’s oldest and largest civil rights organizations, the NAACP, the first magazines for an African-American audience, The Crisis Magazine, and what would become the American Civil Liberties Union, among many other entities. To learn more about 70 Fifth Avenue, click here.

From 1972 until 1982, a racially and economically diverse crowd patronized the Duchess, a lesbian bar located on the ground floor of 70 Grove Street. Guidebooks at the time described the bar as, “A friendly and relaxed atmosphere, popular with ‘movement’ women.” and with a “relaxed Feminist atmosphere.” A small space, the Duchess did not offer as many attractions as other bars; a jukebox near the entrance provided music for the small dance floor. It also offered a Sunday buffet and table service, like some other lesbian bars of the time. While staff at earlier Mafia-run lesbian bars monitored bathroom use to supposedly prevent sexual activity, this was not the case at the Duchess. Alison Bechdel, cartoonist and author of the graphic memoir Fun Home, said of the bar: “There was a lot of routine anti-gay hostility on the street. Even in Sheridan Square \[Christopher Park] on a weekend night you’d get hassled for holding hands. But then you’d step past the bouncer at the Duchess, and you were home free …. it afforded me the space to just be, with my guard down, and that was salvational.” - Alison Bechdel, 2016 By 1980, however, the Duchess ran into legal trouble for not serving alcohol to men, an act of “discrimination” that led to the bar losing its liquor license. However, it continued to serve liquor and, on September 8, 1982, the bartender and bouncer were arrested for doing so by two undercover police officers from the “NYC Morals Division.” Ironically, the “anti-discrimination” law for which the Duchess’s license was revoked was one many movement women who patronized the bar had actively supported in an earlier era. Fran Greenfield of Womannews explained the justification for the Duchess’s discrimination as opposed to misogynistic discrimination, against which the law was meant to protect: “On one side there are privileged and powerful groups who use their clubs to keep ‘social undesirables’ clearly on the outside. On the other side there are the people denied privilege and power who rely on their own clubs as a haven in an otherwise hostile world.” The Grove Café / Duchess II / Grove Club / Pandora’s Box After an unsuccessful attempt to continue the space as a lesbian “juice bar” without liquor, and a brief hiatus (based on guidebooks), soon after 1983, the Grove Café opened with a similar atmosphere to the Duchess. By 1989, the name changed to Duchess II, and then again in 1990 to Grove Club, and finally in 1992 to Pandora’s Box. The Grove Club was described in a guidebook as, “One of the most famous women’s bars in the entire world, known as one hang-out where you can still have a good feminist conversation.” By 1992, the bar was again running into legal trouble, but this time from neighborhood residents complaining about bar fights and noise. Cynthia Russo, then-manager of the club, claimed “residents dislike the club because many of the patrons are lesbians and because most are black or Hispanic.” Pandora’s Box apparently closed shortly after, ending the over twenty-year long lesbian legacy of 70 Grove Street.

The Village Barn, unknown date. 52 West 8th Street has a long and interesting history. From 1930 to 1967, the basement housed The Village Barn nightclub. Later, the space attracted abstract expressionist artists, such as Hans Hofmann, who hosted a series of lectures there in 1938. In 1970, Jimi Hendrix purchased the building to start Electric Lady Studios. While Hendrix only spent a few weeks recording at the studio before his death, it has since been used by many notable artists including Stevie Wonder, David Bowie, AC/DC, the Clash, and Weezer.

Women's House of Detention, February 1939. Constructed in 1931 as the Women's House of Detention, the 11-story subtle Frech Art Deco building replaced the Jefferson Market, a jail, and a firehouse. The chapel in the prison included a turntable altar with wedges set up for Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish services. Never a popular building in the neighborhood, it was closed in 1971 and in 1973 then Mayor Lindsay ceremonially took a hammer to the building. Despite this early act of demolition, a local group fought, unsuccessfully, to retain the building for senior housing. The building was eventually demolished and replaced with the Jefferson Market Garden, a project supported by a group of local garden advocates, grant funding, and water from the Parks Department.

20 Christopher Street This pair (18 & 20 Christopher Street) of charming little Federal houses was built in 1827 by Daniel Simonson, a carpenter who had purchased the lots that year. These two and one-half story houses of Flemish bond brickwork have gambrel roofs, which are now echoed by the roofs of the dormers. Each house has a dormer window, which is triply divided while its gable is decorated with a sunburst pattern. No. 18 has three simple panels on the fascia board of its roof cornice and a paneled doorway with fanlight giving access to the upper floors. No. 20 has its original paneled Federal door and doorframe with panels replacing the original sidelights. In the corners may be seen the original semi-engaged colonnettes, while those which once stood in front of the pilasters on either side of the door have been replaced by brackets at the top under the transom bar. The transom bar is very handsome, consisting of a convex (pulvinated) frieze with a refined cornice above. The leaded transom above the bar is exceptionally graceful and displays circular and oval forms. At both houses the charming wood shop fronts, which were doubtless added at a later date, consist of glass windows and corner colonnettes set under small continuous hoods, which shelter both show window and door.

The Stonewall Inn, site of the 1969 Stonewall riots, 1969. The buildings at 51-53 Christopher Street were constructed in the 1840s as stables. In 1930 the two buildings were given a unified first floor of an Arts & Crafts style brick and stucco facade. The Stonewall Inn opened in 1967 and became a popular bar for the LGBT community. In the early morning of June 28th, 1969 the police raided the bar (as they often did to gay establishments in the 1960s). The patrons of the bar did not disperse as ordered but instead fought back, angrily remaining on the streets in front of the bar, growing in numbers, and chanting at the rough treatment of those arrested. The Stonewall Riots (sometimes referred to as the Stonewall Uprising) lasted for the next six days and included demonstrations that encompassed the surrounding blocks. This event is considered the beginning of the modern LGBT right movement. The buildings (today only no. 53 is the Stonewall Inn, an iteration that opened in 1993) are a part of the Greenwich Village Historic District, designated in 1969. In 2000 it was the first LGBT-related location to be named to the National Register of Historic Places and in 2015 an individual landmark designation was enacting, marking its cultural importance and making it the first landmark in New York City to be recognized on the basis of its status in LGBT history.

21 Fifth Avenue ca. 1933 At 21 Fifth Avenue at the southeast corner of 9th Street stood a stunning brick townhouse and a one-time residence of Mark Twain. Referred to in the Greenwich Village Historic District designation report as “one of the most architecturally notable houses in all New York,” the Romanesque Revival style home was likely designed by the noted architect James Renwick, Jr. for his parents, James and Margaret Ann (née Brevoort) Renwick. Renwick, Jr. was also the architect of Grace Church at Broadway and 10th Street in 1843. In designing his family’s home, Renwick, Jr. employed graceful round arches at the window lintels and colonette door surround. Brick corbelling at the window sills and cornice as well as ironwork at the parlor floor balcony added extra dimension to the façade. The side street elevation was equally as detailed with its peaked gable and numerous windows of varying sizes. In 1906, the noted author Mark Twain lived here when he began dictating his autobiography to his collaborator, Albert Bigelow Paine. Despite the beauty of its architecture and its link to famous figures, 21 Fifth Avenue – along with its four townhouse neighbors and the famous Hotel Brevoort to the south – was razed in the early 1950s to make way for the fourteen-story apartment building at 11 Fifth Avenue, known as the Brevoort. Paired with the Brevoort East, the apartment complex occupies the full city block bounded by Fifth Avenue, East 8th Street, University Place, and East 9th Street.

Jefferson Market Courthouse, ca. 1975. The Third Judicial District Courthouse was erected between 1874-1877 on a site adjacent to Jefferson Market. The building, which came to be known as the Jefferson Market Courthouse, was designed by architect Frederick Clarke Withers, the partner of Calvert Vaux. Withers’s ambitious design incorporated High Victorian and Ruskinian Gothic elements, including a 100-foot clock tower, eastern-facing gable, parapets, and countless intricate facade details. A matching prison, also designed by Withers, was built on the same triangular block. In 1927, the Jefferson Market Prison was demolished, ahead of the construction of the New York Women’s House of Detention. The courthouse survived that development, but its long-term future was imperiled. When redistricting shifted court operations to another location 1945, demolition seemed likely. In the meantime, the Police Academy used the structure as a training facility. In the late 1950s, a group of local residents started a campaign to convert the former courthouse into a library — first disguised as an effort to restart the stalled clock on its tower. The scheme was approved in 1961, and the Jefferson Market Library opened to the public in 1967.

Jefferson Market Library ca. The courthouse and watchtower which we see today is all that remains of a complex of buildings which once included, in addition, a market and a jail. These buildings, on their triangular site, were all designed in a uniform style and represented a remarkably coherent piece of town planning carried out by the city government. The style can best be described as Victorian Gothic.

Christopher Park, the triangular landscape across from the Stonewall Inn, has played an important role in the history of the LGBT rights movement. Interestingly, due to a number of possible factors, including the fact that a statue of General Sheridan was placed here in the 1930s, the park has historically been misidentified as Sheridan Square (this is actually a group of streets with a landscaped median around the corner). As such, accounts of the Stonewall uprising and other LGBT-related events that occurred in or near Christopher Park sometimes incorrectly refer to it as Sheridan Square. Even before the June/July 1969 Stonewall uprising, Christopher Park was a favorite hangout for a diverse group of (often homeless) gay street youth and those who might identify today as transgender. By the time of the uprising, crowds took over the park and Christopher Street and, at its peak, several thousand people filled the streets. In 1999, the 30th anniversary of the uprising, Christopher Park was included in the National Register of Historic Places nomination for the Stonewall Inn, a nomination co-written by two founders of the NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project. A month after the uprising, LGBT activists Marty Robinson and Martha Shelley addressed a crowd of several hundred people in the park, capping off a rally that began in Washington Square Park to protest the police’s actions at Stonewall. In 1979, the tenth anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, New York City announced that a commemorative statue by sculptor George Segal would be placed in Christopher Park. Activist Bruce Voeller initially proposed the idea to place a statue in the park commemorating LGBT liberation. Due to controversy from Village residents, LGBT activists, and lack of official support, Segal’s Gay Liberation (1980) sculpture was not installed here until 1992, when it was unveiled by Mayor David Dinkins. Executed in bronze, with the artist’s signature white patina, the memorial was commissioned by arts patron Peter Putnam, who stipulated that the figures “had to be loving and caring, and show the affection that is the hallmark of gay people…and it had to have equal representation of men and women.” Mysteriously abstract, Gay Liberation avoids direct reference to the uprising. The sculpture, commissioned through the Mariposa Foundation, has become an important focal point of the park. A second cast was installed on the campus of Stanford University in California in 1984, though it was vandalized and restored that year and again in 1994. In the 1980s, landscape architect Philip Winslow, who later died of AIDS-related causes, redesigned portions of the park. His work included installing new benches and brick paving. The overall park configuration still looks as it did during the Stonewall uprising.

Hotel Earle ca. 1915 The Washington Square Hotel has been a haven for writers and artists for more than a century. Built in 1902 as a residential hotel named the Hotel Earle after its first owner, Earle S. L’Amoureux, the hotel occupied a single, eight-story, red brick building on Waverly Place, in the heart of Greenwich Village. In 1908, L’Amoureux built an identical connecting building to create a grand apartment hotel, complete with reading rooms, restaurant and banquet facilities. Four years later, he added a ninth floor and, in 1917, he acquired an adjoining three-story building, bringing the hotel to MacDougal Street, at the northwest corner of picturesque Washington Square. In the 1930s, Knott Hotels, one of the nation’s first hotel chains, owned and managed the Earle and advertised: American Plan from $3.50 single, $7.00 double European Plan from $2.00 single, $3.50 double The 1950s saw great change in the Village which was swiftly becoming the center of New York’s bohemian counterculture, reflected by the Beat generation who gravitated to the coffee houses and jazz clubs. The once-grand hotel began to deteriorate into a shabby apartment hotel, making it an affordable location for struggling artists, actors, writers, and musicians. Ernest Hemingway stayed at there for a few weeks in 1914, just before he went off to serve in World War I. Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Barbra Streisand, the B-52’s, Maynard Ferguson and Bo Diddley have all been guests at the hotel. Dylan Thomas and his wife Caitlin were evicted from the Beekman Hotel after, legend has it, the management got tired of his partying and excessive demands on room service. Seeking residence close to one of his favorite bars in the Village, the Minetta Tavern, Dylan checked into the Hotel Earle. He wrote a letter to his parents in May 1950 in which he described the Earle as “right in Washington Square, a beautiful Square, which is right in the middle of Greenwich Village, the artists’ quarter of New York.” In recent years, Judy Paul and her husband Marc Garrett have renovated it to become a charming, beautiful boutique hotel. The restaurant has large picture windows overlooking Washington Square Park which bathe the room with sunlight. The restaurant serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner. On Sunday afternoons, they do a jazz brunch. A few years back, one of the breakfast waitresses asked if they’d let her perform. She gave them a demo CD to listen to. The Pauls were impressed and gave her the green light. She went on to win five Grammy Awards. That waitress was Norah Jones.

367 Bleecker Street, ca. 1980.

While the holiday season seems to begin earlier and earlier every year, there is a point every winter when New Yorkers know Christmas has actually begun: when the Christmas trees markets come out. But how did this practice come about? Crowding sidewalks with the smell of pine, funneling pedestrians into a gauntlet of jutting branches. The answer involves two essential elements of New York's history: immigration and capitalism.

Civic Repertory Theatre, 1936. The Civic Repertory Theatre opened in 1866 as a home for French language dramas and opera. Also known as Theatre Francais, it was designed by Alexander Saeltzer and presented French productions until 1869. It operated as a booking house from 1880 through the start of the twentieth century, most famously presenting Haverly's Minstrels. In 1871, the theatre was renamed to the Lyceum, after its new owner. The theater was again renamed in 1878 as Haverly's 14th Street when J.H. Haverly took it over. Despite its name change, by the mid-1880s, it had simply become known as the Fourteenth Street Theatre. The space was used as a movie theatre in the early part of the twentieth century until 1926 when actress Eva Le Gallienne turned it into the Civic Repertory Theatre. Although she put on 34 successful productions, the Great Depression ended that venture in 1934. The building was demolished in 1938.

"Southeast on Greenwich Avenue from Horatio Street on southwest side and 13th Street on northeast side to its southeastern terminus at Sixth Avenue, March 10, 1933." Designed by architect George F. Pelham in 1882, the building was constructed as studio apartments. The LPC Designation Report for Greenwich Village notes its "prow-like" shape at the narrow angled point between Greenwich Avenue and West 13th Street.

“The Shenandoah”/10 Sheridan Square/80 Grove Street This building was also originally an apartment hotel, albeit presumably intended for more middle-class residents than the intended tenants of 24 Fifth Avenue. It was built in 1928-29 and designed in what the Greenwich Village Historic District designation report refers to as “a severely simple version of Neo-Romanesque” style. The battlements, use of irregular and multi-colored stone and dark brick lend to a medieval feel to the exterior of the building. The living units were designed predominantly as one-room apartments which served as living, dining and sleeping space, with a bathroom and a pantry directly adjacent.

Washington Square Park, ca. 1975.

Washington Square Methodist Church, ca. 1972. The history of the Washington Square Methodist Church dates back to 1842 and the founding of the Sullivan Street Methodist Episcopal Church, from which the new congregation emerged. The church building on West 4th Street was designed by Charles Hadden and constructed in 1859-1860 and when the community moved into this new building, they changed their name. The Romanesque Revival building was home to the Methodist church until 2004 when the small community moved into a rented space in an NYU chapel. Known as the "Peace Church" for its anti-war advocacy, the congregation in the late 20th century was very progressive community. They welcomed LGBTQ members early on and they were led by the first openly gay clergyman (in New York and of a major major Christian denomination). Rev. Paul M. Abels served as pastor from 1973 to 1984. After selling the building, the church merger with a number of other local Methodist congregations to form Church of the Village, which meets at the former Metropolitan-Duane United Methodist Church on Seventh Avenue. The building was purchased by a real estate developer, but could not be knocked downing owing to its inclusion in a historic district. The building has been converted into condos called "Novare."

Patchin Place ca. 1936 The poet e. e. cummings lived at No. 4 Patchin Place for four decades, until his death in 1962. Patchin Place was a cul-de-sac of small workingmen’s houses off of West 10th Street between Sixth and Greenwich Avenues, across from the Jefferson Market Courthouse (now the Jefferson Market Library). It was during his years on Patchin Place that cummings was his most prolific. While clearly the Village was a source of inspiration for cummings, as it was for so many in those years of the early and mid-20th century, the Village actually only makes very few explicit appearances in his poetry. John Reed, the radical journalist and author of Ten Days That Shook the World, also lived at Patchin Place in the years just before he died in 1920 (and he was a friend and frequent attendee of Mabel Dodge’s salon, see more below!).

Marble House, March 20, 1936. No. 8 (the corner building) was built for John Taylor Johnston, the founding president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Johnston made his fortune in the railroad business. According to his obituary, he was the originator of the entire Central New Jersey Railroad system. Johnston created what was the first art gallery in NYC–to showcase his own collection– in a stable building next to his home before the Met was established. The house, which was called the first marble house in the city, was constructed in 1856 and, as a bright white building, stood out from its slightly later red brick neighbors. After his death the home was occupied by his daughter Frances for some time. She passed away in 1928 while living further uptown on Fifth Avenue. That same year the Johnstons, who had leased the land the home occupied from the Rhinelanders family, gave up the lease when the land owners planned to build an apartment building. The building never came to be as originally planned, due to the Depression. In 1936 when it was photographed, the home had been subdivided into apartments and named the Marble House. It was later occupied in part by NYU. The home and its neighbors seen here (and others unseen) were demolished in the early 1950s for the large apartment house at 2 Fifth Avenue.

One of a pair of almost entirely identical townhouses, 24 West 12th Street was built in 1851 by Charles Partridge. In 1853, it was sold to General Winfield Scott, who used it as his residence in the city. Winfield Scott was one of the most important generals of the 19th century. Having successfully lead the United States Army during the invasion of Mexico, Scott was important in the organization and modernization of the American military. Despite the respect of his peers and broad popular support, Scott was unsuccessful as the Whig presidential candidate of 1852 (the party having been broadly divided due to the Compromise of 1850.) Despite being a Virginian, Scott stayed loyal to the Union during the civil war and developed the Anaconda plan to crush the rebellion. However, Lincoln caved to popular pressure for an immediate (and disastrous) attack. Scott resigned in 1861, dying five years later.

Doorway 204 West 13th Street, May 5, 1937. Somewhat strangely, this particular door on West 13th Street is the subject of photographs by two well-known American photographers. In 1931 Walker Evans captured the columned door frame of no. 204. Six years later, Berenice Abbott, under the auspices of the Federal Art Project, took a slightly wider framed shot. In the late 1920s through the early 1930s, the building at no. 204 was the home of Charles Seeger, American musicologist, composer, and father of folk singer Pete Seeger.

Photo, left: Ken Lustbader of the NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project, Julius’ owner Helen Buford, Sip-In participant Randy Wicker, author/activist John Cameron Mitchell, Andrew Berman of Village Preservation, and State Senator Brad Hoylman; photo, right: Berman, Wicker, and the plaque.

The Metropolitan Temple (Methodist Episcopal) at the northwest corner of Seventh Avenue and 13th Street, December 22, 1932. The Collegiate Gothic church, designed by Louis E. Jallade, opened in September 1932. The Montréal-born architect moved to New York City in childhood, and later become the commander of the city's Twelfth Regiment of the New York Guard, which he first joined in 1914. Openly gay Reverend C. Edward “Ed” Egan, Jr. led the Metropolitan-Duane United Methodist Church from 1971 to 1977, when he was forced into early retirement because of his homosexuality. From 1973 to c. 1996, the church was the meeting location of the support group now known as PFLAG, the first such group in the world for parents of lesbian and gay children. Between 1974 and 1976, the church was also the first meeting location of the Salsa Soul Sisters, a black and Latina lesbian group. From c. 1977 to 1988, the church hosted services by the Metropolitan Community Church of New York, which was founded to minister to the LGBT community whose members were not welcome in most churches.

22 West 15th Street, ca. 1935. The Leopold Ascher Brush Company was headquartered in the large six-story building at center. They produced boar bristle brushes for shaving. They were established in 1888 by Ascher, a German-Jewish immigrant to New York. In 1920 he applied for a trademark for his products. Oddly that trademarked symbol was very similar to the Nazi swastika. He is better known for the 1939 trademark for his popular Strong Set of shaving brushes. Ascher was a cousin to Paula Kissinger, mother to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Young Kissinger worked at the factory as a brush maker and later clerk and delivery boy as a teenager, while attending high school in the evening uptown.

Washington Square Methodist Church ca. 1993 The Spiderwoman Theater Ensemble was launched in 1976 at this Greenwich Village church by original members and sisters Lisa Mayo, Muriel Miguel and Gloria Miguel from the Kuna and Rappahannock nations. The Spiderwoman Theater Ensemble is the oldest Native American feminist theater group in the United States, and one of the leading performing arts groups to emerge out of the New York movement, gaining national and international attention. Additionally, this ensemble is the oldest continuing feminist theater group in the United States and internationally. Their work explores the issues of gender roles, cultural stereotypes, sexual and economic oppression – sexism, racism, classism, and violence against women. Spiderwoman Theater’s unique “story-weaving” methodology infuses traditional storytelling genre with organically layered movement, text, sound, music, and visual images. This culminates in a powerful voice for indigenous women and cultural artisans. They founded the Native American Women Playwrights Archive at Miami University in Ohio where they received honorary Doctorates of Fine Arts in 1997 for their life’s work and contribution to the theater.

In celebration of the centennial of George Washington's inauguration in 1889, a temporary wood and plaster arch was erected at Washington Square. Six years later it was replaced by the present seventy-seven-foot marble structure. In 1916 another celebration of sorts was held. A group of artists led by John Sloan and Marcel Duchamp forced open the door to the stairs leading to the top of the arch and held a midwinter party to declare the secession of Greenwich Village from the United States of America. They lit Japanese lanterns, read poems, fired cap pistols, and proclaimed the independence of the state of New Bohemia.

Manhattan: Washington Square North - 5th Avenue (I) Washington Square Park,showing the center fountain with the Washington Arch in thc background,and children at play in the water. I8-22 Washington Square North,west of Fifth Avenue,are the houses in background. August 6th,I932 P.L.Sperr. No Reproductions. NEG ~~376E (2) The same,from another angle . AES ~S766 August 6th,I932 P.L.Sperr. No Reproductions. (3) The same. Augaut 6th,I932 P.L.Sperr. No Reproductions. NES~~ 3767

20 West 12th Street, 1940. In the years just prior to and after the First World War there was a movement among a group of architects, homeowners, and developers to re-imagine the old (and sometimes deteriorating) rowhouses of Manhattan's older neighborhoods into innovative and stylish dwellings. No. 20 was one of those older rowhouses (it likely looked very similar to its neighbors). In the 1930s the home was renovated by architect Charles Magill Smith, who also lived there. The stoop was removed and the entrance created at the garden level.

By Robert Pigott When most New Yorkers think of courthouses, they visualize Foley Square in lower Manhattan or perhaps Court Street in Brooklyn. But there was a time when the City’s courthouses were not so centralized. If you travel to Brooklyn’s Sunset Park neighborhood and walk along 42nd Street towards the East River, when you get to Fourth Avenue, you will come upon a truly majestic building. An apparently recent sign out front says “Community Board 7.” But engraved in stone over the entrances on opposite sides of the building are the words “MAGISTRATES COURT” and “MUNICIPAL COURT.” This building unlocks the story of New York City’s lost neighborhood courthouses. Until a 1962 amendment of the New York State Constitution, there were Magistrates’ Courts handling minor criminal matters and Municipal Courts for small civil cases. By 1962, these courts had been abolished, and the City’s courthouses were largely centralized in each Borough. But from the late 19th century through the early 1960s, you could find courthouses in every corner of New York City. Some were very modest structures that you would not expect to have been preserved. Others were very grand structures that either has been put to new uses or are sadly lying fallow. Read this in its original format here.

St. Vincent's Triangle, ca, 1976. The plan for a nurses' residence on this plot never came to be. The triangle was used as a community garden and greening-recycling center for many years. Sometime in the late 20th century, St. Vincent's built a low-rise, brick materials receiving center on a section of the plot. The hospital closed in 2010, and a park was planned through community review, and constructed by the development company as part of the hospital to residence conversion work. The park was given to the city in 2017. A year earlier the park was dedicated as the NYC AIDS Memorial Park. (The former hospital was the city's first and largest AIDS ward.) The new park includes an 18-foot steel canopy-shaped public memorial, "to honor New York City's 100,000+ men, women and children who have died from AIDS, and to commemorate and celebrate the efforts of the caregivers and activists."

Milligan Place, March 20, 1936. Named for Samuel Milligan, whose home originally stood on the site, Milligan Place’s four houses were built in 1852 by Aaron Patchin, Milligan’s son-in-law, who owned nearby Patchin Place. Like Patchin Place, Milligan Place attracted bohemian tenants, such as George Cram Cook, co-founder of the Provincetown Players, and his wife, playwright Susan Glaspell. After 1917, the houses were modernized and subdivided into apartments. Abbott allowed the bright sunlight to impose a graphic pattern on the awkward space of Milligan Place, with the deep shadow of the El filling the foreground and the craggy branches of a barren tree filling the middle ground. The man standing at the apex of the triangular walkway cooperated with the photographer; a variant image shows that he walked into space twice. Threatened with demolition by a new owner, Patchin Place and Milligan Place were granted landmark status in 1969.

In 1967, neo-Dada artist Robert Delford Brown performed one of his greatest pieces of all time, which he titled "The Great Building Crack-Up." The performance was meant to evoke a collision of the new and the old. The site of the performance was the elegantly designed brownstone by Beaux-Arts master Richard Morris Hunt. It was a meeting of Avant-garde minds between Brown and the architect Paul Rudolph. This is the story of a building that has lived many lives.

My Archive Spring 2019 "Marques and Jayden at the park" —Juana Rodriguez

Varitype Building, ca. 1985. Designed in an Arts and Crafts style in 1907 by Fred Ebeling, the Varitype Building originally housed studio and manufacturing spaces on its upper floors. Painter John Sloan had studio space in the building in the 1910s and it is featured prominently in his 1922 painting, "City from Greenwich Village." In 1926, 1929, and then again when the building was converted to condos in 1982 the interior, exterior, and ground floor were altered. These modifications including window replacement, a drastic new look (not historically accurate) for the ground floor commercial space, and considerable changes to the facade at the top floor.

Entrance to the Whitney Museum When the conversion of the three houses was complete, the new Whitney Museum of American Art moved in and installed this signage an accompanying cast-aluminum eagle (still visible above the current signage for the New York Studio School). The creation of this museum was largely predicated by the Metropolitan Museum of Art's refusal of Gertrude Whitney's donation of around 500 artworks. This original museum was a modest exhibition space and director Juliana Force (a long-time friend and associate of Ms. Whitney) lived in an apartment above the galleries.

In the 1850s James Boorman Johnston, a wealthy real estate investor, had an idea. He wished to create a building that was designed specifically and solely for artists. He commissioned a young Richard Morris Hunt to bring his vision to life. The resulting Tenth Street Studios were nothing much to look at from the outside, a somewhat simple three-story brick facade with large windows. But it was these windows that aided in the buildings innovative interior. The inside of the structure was laid out with a domed central gallery from which rooms radiated. Light flooded the studios from the large windows. The functional design was an instant success, with some of the spaced occupied before the building was even complete in mid-1858. Early tenants included painters Frederick Church and John LaFarge and Hunt himself, who started the first architecture school in the States from his studio here. Later famed artists William Merritt Chase and Winslow Homer lived and worked here. The building remained true to its original form and function for more than half a century before an important, but ultimately non-disruptive change occurred. In 1920 the resident artists discovered that the owner wished to sell the building. They banded together and purchased it to hold off a commercial conversion or demolition. Saved for three more decades, the building was sold again in 1952 and razed four years later. A banal mid-century apartment building now stands in its place.

Brevoort Mansion ca. 1925 Completed in 1834, the Brevoort Mansion was an imposing Greek Revival home surrounded by gardens and commissioned by Henry Brevoort from two leading architects of the style, Ithiel Town and Alexander Jackson Davis. The mansion broke ground with several architectural innovations—a sectioned Greek key pediment and a “paneled” front façade accomplished by slightly recessing the two outer bays. It was designed as much for entertaining as for living; there was a billiard room, a library and two large parlors separated by the entrance hall. In fact, the Brevoorts set the tone for New York parties when, in 1840, they planned the first grand entertainment New York society had seen. Invitations went out in February 1840 for a bal costume, so popular in European society. It would set the pace for social events of high society for the rest of the century. Henry Brevoort died in 1848 and two years later his widow Laura sold the house to Henry De Rham for $57,000 (over $1 million today). It remained in the hands of the De Rham family until 1919, when it was sold to George F. Baker, Jr. and his wife, who toyed with the idea of restoring the old mansion for their personal use. However, by 1920 the Bakers leased the house to the Red Cross for $1 a month and by 1925 the house was slated to be destroyed to make way for the apartment house at 24 Fifth Avenue, originally built as the Fifth Avenue hotel, that still stands at the intersection today.

18 West 10th Street, June 15, 1938. Constructed in 1856 in an Italianate-style, the mansion was built for James Winslow, a wealthy New York banker. The home, four-stories above an English basement, was next door to Winlow's father-in-law and business partner, James F. D. Lanier at No. 16. The building's most striking feature was the three floor to ceiling windows at the parlor level, which matched the entranceway. The original residents only lived in the home for three years. Over the next two decades the mansion would change hands a number of times before being purchased by wealthy and retired sugar merchant Moses Lazarus in 1883. Lazarus, who was in poor health, moved in with his grown daughter, Emma. Emma Lazarus already a known poet, was surrounded by artists on the block, including painter John La Farge who lived two doors down. In 1883, after a trip to Europe, Lazarus wrote "The New Colossus," as part of the fund-raising art exhibition for the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. Moses died in the home in 1885 and Emma left for a second trip to Europe soon thereafter. She returned to New York and the house in 1887, herself ill. She passed away in November of that year, of what is now believed to have been Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The mansion was sold to Henry B. Livingston, a wealthy scion of an old New York family, before once again passing hands through various of New York's financial elite. For the middle part of the 20th century, the largely unaltered home was occupied by attorney Charles Abrams and his wife, artist Ruth Abrams. Today the basement level has been converted into a separate residence, though the upper floors remain a single-family home.

With good reason, Missouri and Connecticut like to claim the great writer Samuel L. Clemens, a.k.a. Mark Twain, as one of their own. But New Yorkers like to claim Twain as well, and there’s plenty of cause to do so. He did have a love/hate relationship with the city, and lived here often. When he did, he liked to live in Greenwich Village. It’s a crying shame then that his most significant residence here, and a building that was indeed one of New York City’s most beautiful and storied, was razed in the years just prior to the formation of the Landmark Preservation Commission and the subsequent designation of the Greenwich Village Historic District.

GVSHP members, including executive director Regina Kellerman (center), pose while workers set up barricades for the groundbreaking of the Sheridan Square architectural dig, 1982.

Church of the Ascension ca. 1933 Particularly beautiful for its interior and for the great mural by John La Farge above the altar, this church is a good example of Gothic Revival style in ecclesiastical architecture. It appears that the rector, knowing architect Richard Upjohn's High Church proclivities, bought the lot across the end of the property for his rectory in order to prevent Upjohn from building a deep chancel, as was his wont.

114 Waverly Place ca. 1932 According to the designation report for the Greenwich Village Historic District, 114 Waverly Place was built in 1826 as part of a row of nine houses for Thomas R. Merecin. However it underwent a complete and dramatic alteration in 1920 per the designs of William Sanger for Murray P. Bewley. In some ways the studio window is among the least unusual parts of the redesign of this building, which has been described as both “Art Nouveau” and “German Expressionist.”

Let's go west! Explore 14th Street, one of Manhattan's most vital and vibrant arteries. This time, we'll be starting at 5th Avenue and heading towards the Hudson River. Among the highlights: an armory, a bowling alley, and a gorgeous old theater that is no more.

Opened in 1938 by Barney Josephson, the Cafe Society was the first racially integrated nightclub in New York City. Though it was only open for a little over a decade (the building is still standing), its legacy has lived on long since its doors closed in 1949. Josephson had been a shoe salesman but quit to pursue his dream of owning a nightclub. He knew that Greenwich Village would be possibly the only place in Manhattan that would welcome the progressive club he hoped to establish. Cafe Society welcomed some of the biggest talents in jazz history during its time in operation, including Billie Holiday. It was here that she first performed "Strange Fruit", an explicit song of protest against lynching and racism.

Greenwich Village Inn, 1933. The origins of the Greenwich Village Inn date to before the First World War when Polly Holliday ran a restaurant that became a gathering spot for Greenwich Village radicals and bohemians. In 1916 she moved her establishment to 5 Sheridan Square. She also took on a new partner, Barney Gallant, an early nightclub entrepreneur. Though the original venue had been full of tried and true Village bohemians, this new spot, with Gallant's marketing, became more of a place where outsiders came to see the bohemians. Soon the place was flooded with flappers, undergrads, and tourists. Gallant made a name for himself—and become a bit of a local hero— when in 1933 a few of his Greenwich Village Inn waiters were arrested for Prohibition violations. Gallant offered himself up in their place and served 30 days in the notorious Tombs. By the 1940s the venue had suffered in reputation and popularity. According to a 1971 book, the Inn was largely a mafia front in its final years. Closed in 1951 the building was taken over by the newly founded Circle in the Square theater and was demolished for a 17-story apartment house in the late 1950s.

The Bigelow Building, ca. 1980. Founded in 1838 by Dr. Galen Hunter, the C.O. Bigelow apothecary practice was sold to its present namesake, Clarence Otis Bigelow in 1880, and is today the oldest surviving apothecary–pharmacy in the United States. The Bigelow building, a transitional Romanesque Revival/neo-Classical structure by architect John E. Nitchie was completed in 1902.

Christopher Street—Sheridan Square Station, 1929.

Village Community Church, West 13th Street, ca. 1985. This temple-fronted Greek Revival church was built in 1846 as the Thirteenth Street Presbyterian Church. Mergers with nearby congregations led to a series of new names: Greenwich Presbyterian, Village Presbyterian, and the Village Community Church. In 1975, the church was sold to a residential developer, despite its inclusion in the Greenwich Village Historic District. It is now an apartment complex known as Portico Place.

First Presbyterian Church, ca. 1915. Founded in 1716, the First Presbyterian Church in the City of New York first worshipped on Wall Street, before shifting to Cedar Street and, in 1846, to its present location on Fifth Avenue. The Gothic Revival church, designed by Joseph C. Wells, was built between 1844-6. Today, the First Presbyterian complex includes several additions and outbuildings, including a transept by McKim, Mead & White (1893-4) and a “church house” by Edgar Tafel.

Street & Smith Publishing is was one of the oldest publishing houses in the country. They can be credited with encouraging literacy en masse by churning out thousands of volumes of enticing and easy-to-read dime novels, pulp fiction books, comic books, and magazines. The company was founded in 1855 by Francis Scott Street and Francis Shubael Smith when the two revitalized a dying fiction magazine. Three short years later, they purchased the New York Weekly Dispatch and began growing their publishing empire. The house put forward novels in the following categories: adventure and sea stories, detective and mystery, romance, sci-fi, sports, westerns, and young adult fiction. They also published comic books including the likes of Jesse James, Buffalo Bill, and Nick Carter. Their weekly magazines included Popular Magazine, Pic, Charm, and Mademoiselle. Street & Smith ceased production of pulp fiction in 1949, largely due to increasing competition with television. The publishers turned their attention to their collection of magazines. The publisher was sold to Conde Nast for over 3.5 million dollars in 1957.

12 Washington Square North is part of a row of Greek Revival houses east of Fifth Avenue. All of the houses on this row were apparently built at the same time, between 1832-1833. Handsome porticoes, consisting of fluted Ionic columns carrying a full entablature, grace the entrances of these grand town houses. The doors are framed with sidelights and simple transoms and have paneled pilasters supporting the transom bar. Most of the houses retain entrance doors with a pair of vertical panels enframed by egg and dart moldings. The stoops have stone balusters and paneled newels, except for No. 12 which has paneled, stepped wing walls without balusters. In 1872, the house at Fifth Avenue corner, No. 13, was combined with No. 12 to form a double mansion for William Butler Duncan

Village Plaza Hotel, ca. 1975. Built in 1915, the Hotel Colborne was renamed the Village Plaza Hotel in 1960, when it was sold to new owners. A few years later, the Village Plaza was a seedy SRO hotel, named in contemporary reports as the final fixed address for Linda Fitzpatrick, who was bludgeoned to death alongside her boyfriend in the so-called “groovy murders” of 1967 (the boyfriend went by “Groovy” in Village circles).

Workers lay pipe in a trench at the corner of West 11th Street and Greenwich Avenue; undated photo. In the early 1900s, the Monahan Express Company, an express mail courier service, operated from the ground floor and stables of No. 61-71 Greenwich Avenue, a former brewery also occupied by an industrial stamping company and a wine importer. In February 1907, a fire caused more that $100,000 of damage to the "old-time brewhouse." The fire-damaged building was eventually demolished ahead of construction for the Seventh Avenue Extension and the IRT Seventh Avenue subway line.

Harris (1855-1931), an Irish immigrant who became a naturalized U.S. citizen during his editorship of Pearson’s Magazine, was a noted author, journalist, editor, publisher, and provocateur. His autobiographical My Life and Loves was banned in the United States and Britain for 40 years due to its sexual content. In addition to publishing this and Pearson’s, Harris wrote two books about Shakespeare and biographies of his friends, the playwright George Bernard Shaw and the poet and playwright Oscar Wilde. Wilde, who was found guilty of engaging in acts of “gross indecency” in 1895, became an icon in the emergence of the modern LGBTQ rights movement. Harris’ close friendship with Wilde is portrayed in Moises Kaufman’s Gross Indecencies: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde, as well as several other literary portrayals of Wilde’s life.

Twin townhouses on West 12th Street, which served as the Church House for the First Presbyterian Church on Fifth Avenue. July 16, 1936. These townhouses, designed by Alexander Jackson Davis, were likely completed during the 1840s. Decades later, No. 14 (right) was home to the sculptor John Rogers (1888-95) and the writer Theodore Dreiser (1897-98). The townhouses were razed during the 1950s, ahead of the construction of the new Church House, designed by Edgar Tafel, a student of Frank Lloyd Wright. One architectural element of the old Church House survives: a stained glass window, now part of the Brooklyn Museum collection.

5-11 MacDougal Alley, ca. 1903. This small street has been home to numerous artists including Jackson Pollock and Gertrude Vanderbilt. At no. 11 once was the former studio of the prolific muralist, Barry Faulkner. Faulkner's 12-panel series in Washington Irving High School depict key moments and figures in New York City's early history. They were conserved under the MAS Adopt-A-Mural program in 1998, with funds from several foundations including Putnam, Herman Goldman and Gramercy Park, in addition to funds from the NYC Board of Education and MAS Members.

This building served as the home of the groundbreaking Pearson’s Magazine and bookstore. Pearson’s began as a progressive British magazine in 1896 with a socialist bent and focus on literature, publishing works by Upton Sinclair, George Bernard Shaw, and H.G. Wells, among others. However, the American version, founded in 1899, began to diverge in its content and focus more on American writers and issues, especially under the editorship of Frank Harris in the 1910s and 20s, when it was located here.

Juliana R. Force Residence, ca. 1932.

Jefferson Market Library, NYPL 425 Sixth Avenue Designed by Frederick Clarke Withers of Vaux and Withers, 1874-77; renovation: Giorgio Cavaglieri, 1967 In the 1830s, this small, triangular block became the heart of Greenwich Village when Jefferson Market was built here. In addition to the market, the block also had a small Police Court, prison and watchtower. In the 1870s and 80s, the block was renewed with a picturesque complex of buildings designed by the firm of Vaux and Withers, including the Third Judicial District Courthouse. This magnificent building, designed in the High Victorian Gothic style, is the only remnant of that complex. It features a rich, polychrome palette of materials with bandcourses, Gothic arches, stained glass windows, turrets, a large gable and variegated roof slates. The City seal is found on its Sixth Avenue façade. The crowning achievement is a prominent corner tower, whose top was designed as a fire lookout with an alarm bell and large clock faces to serve the community. When the building ceased to function as a courthouse in 1945, it briefly served as a Police Academy. The building was threatened with demolition in the late 1950s, but public outcry led to its conversion to a branch of the NYPL, one of the first adaptive reuse projects in the country. In 1996, after 135 years of silence, a campaign to reinstate the ringing of the fire bell was successful, and it has rung the hours from 9:00am to 10:00pm ever since.The library is located within the Greenwich Village Historic District, is listed on the State and National Register of Historic Places and is a National Historic Landmark.

Washington Square North, Nos. 21-26 (right to left), August 12, 1936. The 1969 Designation Report for the Greenwich Village Historic District describes Washington Square North as “the most important and imposing block front of early Nineteenth Century town houses in the City.” Nos 21-23 (furthest right) were built in 1835-6 for the attorney Edmund Wilkes. Today, No. 22, which has rear additions designed by James Renwick, Jr., is the Faculty Club of New York University.

New York City is known for many things: Art Deco skyscrapers, picturesque parks, the world’s greatest theater district, venerable museums and educational institutions, not to mention bagels and pizza! But above all of these, New York is most important as home to some of the world’s most fascinating and significant people and as the site of impactful and significant happenings throughout history. The city’s cultural influence is, perhaps, its greatest contribution to the world, and its built environment stands as a grand scavenger hunt of clues waiting to be uncovered. Lucky for us, the city’s Landmarks Law, passed in 1965, provides the legal framework for protecting the physical reminders of the city’s cultural wealth. In fact, one of the stated purposes of the Landmarks Law is to “safeguard the city’s historic, aesthetic and cultural heritage.” In the first 50 years that landmarks were designated by the City, much emphasis was placed on the historic and aesthetic. In recent years, though, more consideration has been made for the importance of sites associated with people or historical events, rather than just for their architectural or historical value. In 2015, the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) designated the Stonewall Inn as an Individual Landmark solely for its association with the Stonewall Uprising of 1969. In 2018, the Commission designated the Central Harlem—West 130th-132nd Streets Historic District, describing it as “not only representative of Central Harlem’s residential architecture, but the rich social, cultural, and political life of its African American population in the 20th century.” Also, in recent years, Greenwich Village’s Caffe Cino and Julius’ Bar were listed on the National Register of Historic Places as significant and influential sites connected to the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender (LGBTQ) community, The New York Times profiled a historian giving tours of Muslim sites of significance in Harlem, and the City is commemorating some of our most storied and accomplished female citizens with the installation of statues in all five boroughs. Indeed, grassroots preservation activism around the city is also swelling around sites of cultural significance: Tin Pan Alley and Little Syria in Manhattan, Walt Whitman’s house in Brooklyn, Arthur Avenue in The Bronx and a recently-rediscovered African burial ground in Queens, to name a few. In response to this movement of interest in cultural landmarks, the Historic Districts Council undertook an initiative to highlight such places as one of its Six to Celebrate in 2018. The culmination of that effort was a conference in October 2018 entitled “Beyond Bricks and Mortar: Rethinking Sites of Cultural History.” The conference convened preservationists, historians, artists, planners, place-makers and more to work together to clarify what cultural significance is and how it can work, how to document and create compelling narratives around cultural sites, and how to identify the specific challenges of cultural sites from a preservationist perspective. This tour provides just a sample of some of the city’s cultural landmarks, organized thematically and representing all five boroughs. The list includes some sites that are legally protected — in some cases by more than one government body — and some that are unfortunately in danger of being lost. Preserving culturally significant sites that may not possess overtly aesthetic value often requires a particularly active and engaged form of advocacy to achieve protection from the wrecking ball. But, as long as there are interesting people making their mark on New York City and crucial events taking place here, that effort will never be in vain, since those stories are the lifeblood of this vibrant place.

Double-decker Fifth Avenue buses at the Washington Square Arch, March 3, 1929. Until 1958, vehicular traffic and parking were permitted in Washington Square Park. That year, activists including Jane Jacobs and Margaret Mead formed the Joint Emergency Committee to Close Washington Square Park to Traffic in opposition to Robert Moses’ plan to run a six-lane roadway down the middle of the park, as a Fifth Avenue connection to his proposed Lower Manhattan Expressway. On October 23, 1958, the Board of Estimate issues a ruling prohibiting traffic in the park. The ruling was made permanent five years later.

Village Presbyterian Church ca. 1985 The simulation of stone in wood required that the carpenters produce absolutely flat, smooth surfaces for parts of the entablature and for the back of the pediment. Where these surfaces were not properly maintained and kept painted, the whole illusion was lost. In this hexastyle Doric church it was apparently not deemed necessary to return the entablature beyond the depth of the portico, as this was not a corner site.

April 13, 2020, marks the 150th anniversary of the founding of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Museum occupied two temporary buildings before opening its permanent location in Central Park in 1880. When it first opened to the public, The Met was located in the Dodworth Building at 681 Fifth Avenue. The Douglas Mansion became The Met’s second home from 1873 to 1879, situated at 128 West 14th Street. Since opening its permanent home on Fifth Avenue, the building has expanded greatly, and various additions now surround the original structure. These images chronicle the early decades of The Met’s 150-year history.