A guide to the places Bob Dylan worked, played and created in New York's Greenwich Village.

High pressure water system trench at Christopher and Washington Streets; undated photo. At left, the storefront at No. 163 Christopher Street (today known as 649 Washington Street) is occupied by druggist M.B. McAvoy. At right is the Christopher Street station of the Ninth Avenue Elevated line, above Greenwich Street. Between the two is the Church of St. Veronica.

The same, better view of the buildings which supplanted the Weehawken Market. About 1830.

Pingpank Barber Shop ca. 1938 When Abbott photographed this shop window, August Pingpank was 87 years old, in business for more than 50 years, and said to be the oldest barber in New York City. On the verge of retirement, Pingpank remarked that “it’s different now with the men shaving themselves every morning at home.” Abbott’s photograph presents a distilled image of Pingpank’s world. Set up against a mirror are his customers’ personalized shaving mugs on a makeshift display stand. Given the place of honor on the stand are a Chinese porcelain jardiniere, a cut glass disinfectant jar, and a can of Jergen’s talcum powder. Attached to the mirror is a photograph of the shop’s interior, and on the left wall is a Victorian cigar advertisement. A horse-drawn cart is reflected in the window, a fitting accompaniment to this relic of a bygone era. Pingpank’s store, which falls within boundaries of the Greenwich Village Historic District, is currently occupied by an antique shop.

“A new warehouse is being built over and including the elevated roadbed in the block from Horatio to Gansevoort Streets. April 9, 1934.” The nine-story brick and limestone warehouse was designed by architects John B. Snook Sons for the New York State Realty & Terminal Company (owners of the elevated railroad right of way), built between 1931-35 and leased to the Manhattan Refrigerating Company, who bought the building outright in 1941. Construction on lower segment West Side Line elevated tracks was completed in 1934, eliminating all grade crossings of the former freight line along West Street and “Death Avenue,” as Tenth Avenue was nicknamed.

Wedged between the West Street portion of the West Side Highway and bustling 9th Avenue, the history of this site tells us about the many lives of this particular swath of Downtown Manhattan. This area was first largely industrial, then a hub of slaughterhouses and packing plants, and now an area densely populated with galleries as well as the latest home to the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Built as the New York headquarters for the Bell Telephone Laboratories, this industrial complex was one of the largest in the country when completed. As a telecommunication facility between 1898 and 1966, a number of major inventions took place here including the first transistor, first experimental talking movies, first vacuum tube, and early television. In 1966 Bell abandoned the massive complex. In 1968, under the direction of developer Dixon Bain and with funding from the J.M. Kaplan Fund and the National Council for the Arts (later the NEA), the buildings were converted into low-income live-work spaces for artists and their families. Westbeth Artists Housing was one of the first instances of adaptive reuse of industrial buildings for artistic and residential use in the country. The buildings opened to resident artists, including dancers, musicians, actors, writers, visual artists, and filmmakers in 1970. The building also became home to a number of large cultural organizations such as Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance and Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, the first LGBT synagogue in New York. Today the buildings are on the National Register and are a designated NYC landmark. They also remain the home and workplace of dozens of working artists.

The White Horse Tavern, ca. 1975. In addition to its literary bona fides, the White Horse served as a meeting place for leftists, labor organizations, and journalists, including writers associated with the Village Voice, whose 1960s headquarters at Sheridan Square was a short walk away.

Collapsed section of the West Side Elevated Highway, just north of 525 West Street, ca. 1975. On December 15, 1973 a section of the West Side Elevated Highway collapsed. 80 feet of the roadway fell to the street level below, along with a sedan and a dump truck. It is believed that the weight of the dump truck (more than 30 tons), which was carrying asphalt for highway roadwork, caused the collapse. (The truck was severely overloaded, with nearly 10 more tons than it should have been carrying.) Neither driver was seriously injured. This incident led to an investigation of the soundness of the elevated roadway. It was found to be serious defective and the road south of 46th Street was closed permanently.

The West Street facade of 6 Weehawken Street.

Jillian Jonas was the house photographer at the legendary boy bar on St. Mark’s Place in the mid 1990’s, where she captured thousands of images of drag performers who mixed gender-bending and illusion with downtown in-your-face attitude. This collection includes images not only from boy bar, but the Pyramid Club, Wigstock, the Gay Pride Festival, Jackie 60 and various other downtown nightlife and performance venues of the early-to-mid 1990s. Her pictures capture a golden age of LGBTQ+ nightlife and performance, as well as an edgy slice of life when drag and blurred boundaries of gender were just beginning to make inroads into the broader public consciousness, largely through this vibrant local scene. This image was taken by Jillian Jonas and is from Village Preservation's Historic Image Archive, view more historic photos like this here.

Charles Lane looking east, September 20, 1938. Named for the same man for whom Christopher Street is named, Charles Christopher Amos, Charles Lane is a narrow street with no sidewalks and a unique brick paving. The pavers, seen prominently in the photograph, are laid out horizontally with 3 rows of vertically paved bricks in the middle. This configuration, which created a sort of gutter in the middle, was likely constructed to assist in the drainage of water from the street into the gutter on nearby West Street. Like many of the small hidden Manhattan alleys, Charles Lane saw debris, garbage, and likely its share of illicit activity in the 20th century. Today it is a quiet, quaint street, lined with brick buildings, some of which were originally stables.

Formerly the Bell Telephone Laboratories Complex, the Westbeth Arts Complex is a group of buildings that takes up an entire city block. Westbeth is significant not only as the former home to one of the world’s most prestigious telecommunications research organizations but also as the first and largest publicly- and privately-funded artists’ housing project in the United States. Westbeth is a pioneer of large-scale industrial rehabilitation and adaptive reuse.

132 Bank Street This charming row of three brick residences was built in 1833 for William E. Fink, a grocer. These houses, early Greek Revival in style are three stories in height with basements. Nos. 132 and 134 have fronts of Flemish bond. The corner house, No. 136, is constructed of running bond, and the top floor attic windows have been replaced by larger ones. The original wrought iron hand railing of the stoops has been retained at all three houses. At Nos. 132 and 136, the horizontal band beneath the handrail proper is designed with a very graceful scrollwork pattern. The iron spindles are enhanced by a delicate ball design at mid-height. The handrailings, resting on very simple newels with urnlike bases, terminate in a curved volute. A simple wrought iron areaway railing, and wrought iron uprights, topped by small acorn finials may be seen at all three residences.; At. Nos. 132 and 136, the charming Greek Revival doorways have columns and transoms. These doorways consist of a handsome three-paneled door which is flanked on both sides by well proportioned, fluted Doric columns. The two handsome columns support a low entablature which is surmounted by a five-paned transom. A simple lintel, enhanced by a delicate cornice, is seen over the transom. The lintels above the muntined windows of the first and second floors of all three houses have had cornices added. In all three houses, the original sills remain unchanged. The facades may have originally been crowned by a deep fascia board with waterproofed surface seen at No. 134, with small windows cut into it. No. 136 has a shallow cornice set above the lengthened windows, while No. 132 was remodeled to provide a double window located on center with casements, above which a dormer has been added to obtain north light. Philip Evergood, a well-known painter, lived at No. 132 Bank Street from 1940-47.

Trowmart Inn ca. 1906 While the Martha Washington Hotel established a model for housing business women, a 1907 housing exposé titled: “The Problem of Living for 97,000 Girls,” emphasized the “Absurd Restrictions and Poor Housing Conditions” working-class women continued to suffer. The article mentions one innovative solution, however: the Trowmart Inn. Completed in 1906, the Trowmart picked up on the ideas put into practice at the Martha Washington and, for the first time, provided accommodation for the working-class girl without the strict rules of a “Moral Home.” Like its inspiration, the Trowmart highlighted this fact in its promotional brochures. Compared to the Martha Washington, the inn’s interior spaces and furnishings were plain and even utilitarian, but the Trowmart provided similar amenities: a dining room and cafeteria, “beau parlors” (small parlors where the residents could entertain their gentlemen friends), a large parlor with a piano, a library, and doctor’s office. In addition, the Trowmart provided a sewing room, full laundry, and a drying room, essential spaces for the shop, millinery, and factory girls for whom the Inn was planned. Living expenses ran to $4.50 to $5 per work week, with breakfast and dinner included. The Trowmart Inn was an immediate success: a 1908 newspaper article reported the hotel, which housed 250 women, had been full since its 1906 opening. The Trowmart was the exception however. The majority of women’s hotels constructed during the first few decades of the 20th century were for professional women.

My Archive Spring 2019 "An old abandoned Pier in Manhattan, which connects with both West 10th Street and back then, the old elevated West Side Highway. Looking south at the then-new World Trade Center. The couple had just learned of a tragedy in the family. June 21, 1978." —Michael Castellano

Few neighborhoods in New York can claim as rich a tradition of social advocacy as Greenwich Village. This collection documents the homes and lives of a few of them.

West Washington Market, August 18, 1936. West Washington Market consisted of ten two-story brick buildings between the piers and West Street, west of the Gansevoort Market Stand, an enormous, open-air produce market. Access lanes ran between the buildings (Loew Avenue is pictured, at left), which were erected in the 1880s to replace an earlier market complex. West Washington Market was demolished in the 1950s and replaced by the Gansevoort Garbage Terminal, where garbage was loaded onto barges to be dumped off-shore. The garbage terminal closed in 1981, but the site is still occupied by the Sanitation Department.

666 Greenwich Street Rising like an ark over Christopher Street, the Archive Building’s construction and multiple uses over a New York century reflect the changing character of the Far West Village waterfront and the city as a whole. Join us as we trace the unique history of this colossus of the West Village. Filling the entire block bounded by Barrow, Greenwich, Washington, and Christopher Streets, the Archive Building sits on an irregularly shaped lot more than an acre in size. In the best tradition of the Village street plan (or lack thereof), none of the lot sides are actually parallel to each other. Construction began in 1892 and was completed in 1899 based on the designs of Willoughby J. Edbrooke, the supervising architect of the U.S. Treasury. Crafted in the Romanesque Revival style, the structure is capped by a weighty cornice atop a masonry façade that features wide brick support piers and round Roman arches and a three-foot thick brick base. The massive building reflected the Far West Village’s transition from earlier light residential use to a more commercial and industrial character that would remain for much of the twentieth century. Though English-born, Edbrooke came to the U.S. government from a successful practice in Chicago where the influence of the developing “Chicago Style,” disseminated by the likes of Louis Sullivan and Dankmar Adler, was strong. It’s been noted that the façade of the Archive Building reflects the Chicago work of Sullivan and Adler’s Auditorium building. You can find an actual Louis Sullivan building here in New York right over in NoHo – the Bayard-Condict Building on Bleecker Street. The building, originally termed the U.S. Appraisers’ Warehouse, was used by the U.S. Customs Service to assess the tariffs on goods arriving in New York via ship. Originally it was meant to be built near the planned U.S. Custom House at Bowling Green far downtown, but shipping owners lobbied to have the building constructed closer to the West Side piers near Christopher Street so they would not have to deal with the headache of navigating their cargoes from the piers and through the congested, narrow streets of lower Manhattan. After the Federal income tax was instituted in 1913, revenue generated by import tariffs was no longer a crucial component of the Federal budget and by the 1930s the building was reconfigured into office space for the National Archives, a post office, and other Federal agencies. Even as the various Federal tenants gradually began to depart, the City recognized the important character of the structure and in 1966 designated it a city landmark. It was later recognized by the State and National Register of Historic Places in 1973. By 1976 the federal government deemed the building to be government surplus property and its future was in jeopardy. However a deal was successfully arranged to preserve the structure by transferring ownership to the New York State Urban Development Corporation. The UDC in turn leased the property to a private developer for residential conversion. By the 1980s, despite its continuing industrial, gritty character, the Far West Village had lost many of the industries housed in the large structures in the neighborhood. The area was beginning its transformation into one of the most sought after residential communities in the city. By the late 80s several large residential buildings were constructed or re-purposed from existing commercial structures farther and farther west. The renovation of the current Archive Building as we know it was completed in 1988. Although many historic elements were retained, many new elements were added and an entire interior atrium was cut into the structure to make the floor plans viable for apartment living. It was one of the earlier examples of preservation by commercial conversion in to residences in the city. The conversion of Westbeth (which was just landmarked) to the north is another, but it did not have the same overtly commercial character.

Le Gandarme ca. 1970 The 9th (later 6th) Police Precinct Station House was the first New York City police station house built under the new Police Commissioner Theodore Roosevelt in 1896-97. It became familiarly known as the “Charles Street Police Station,” and also included a prison and a stable wing. The building ceased to function as a police station in January 1971 after the construction of the new station at 229-235 West 10th Street. The old police station was sold at auction and converted to “Le Gendarme” Apartments in 1977. Only eight months after the Stonewall uprising, in the early morning of March 8, 1970, police raided the Snake Pit, a gay-run non-Mafia, the after-hours bar in the basement of a Greenwich Village apartment building at 215 West 10th Street. The raid was led by Seymour Pine, who had also led the ill-fated raid on the Stonewall. Fearing similar rioting from the crowd of patrons, the police arrested 167 people, who were taken nearby to the 6th Police Precinct Station House. Argentinian immigrant Diego Vinales apparently panicked over the possibility of deportation, tried to escape from the second story of the jail, and was impaled on the iron fence below. According to Arthur Bell in Dancing the Gay Lib Blues: A Year in the Homosexual Liberation Movement, one witness later commented, “I was at the window right after he landed on the spikes. The remarks the cops made after this happened were unbelievable. One cop said to a fireman, ‘You don’t have to hurry, he’s dead, and if he’s not, he’s not going to live long.’ I was with three or four kids when one of the kids heard crying and screaming out. Then the other kids started crying. They saw what was happening and they were shaken. But the remarks kept coming from the cops. They probably thought they were justified. Diego was a faggot, they said. They used the word faggot so many times it was unbelievable.” Vinales was cut loose along with part of the fence, taken to St. Vincent’s Hospital and survived, but word spread that he was dead or dying. The Gay Activists Alliance and Gay Liberation Front organized a quick response – an angry protest by a crowd numbering around 500 people, who marched from Christopher Park to the police station.

Village Preservation places plaques on sites in our neighborhoods to mark the locations of historically significant events, organizations, places, or figures. Click here to learn more about our plaque program, including upcoming unveiling.

St. Luke’s Chapel (Church of St. Luke in the Fields), ca. 1912. St. Luke’s was established in 1820 as a chapel of Trinity Church. Clement C. Moore, the first pastor, was responsible for planning the full-block complex that included a brick church building in the Federal style (1821-2), private burial ground, rectory, and surrounding townhouses. James N. Wells, a prolific builder, was responsible for construction. The popular moniker “St. Luke’s in-the-fields” arose from the character of the surrounding neighborhood at the time the church was built. Greenwich Village, though starting to be developed, still included considerable tracts of farmland. St. Luke’s has long had a reputation for philanthropy and ministry to the poor, including in recent decades, as the West Village community was hard-hit by the AIDS crisis. The AIDS Project of St. Luke’s, founded in 1987, provided food and care to New Yorkers, including many parishioners, affected by the crisis.

Spanning over a century of architectural styles from the 1860s to 1960s, with a stellar renovation in the 1970s by Richard Meier, the Bell Laboratories Building Complex is an amazing example of adaptive reuse. The oldest building in the complex was constructed in the vernacular Italianate style circa 1860 to house the Hook’s Steam-Powered Factory. It is one of the last remaining 19th-century industrial buildings on the Hudson Riverfront. From the 1920s to the 1960s, the complex served as the headquarters for Bell Laboratories and bore witness to parts of the Manhattan Project and innovations including the first television broadcast. When Bell Laboratories vacated the property in the early 1960s, the complex fell into disrepair and found itself at the mercy of an aggressive Urban Renewal Program. Jane Jacobs spoke on behalf of the West Village Committee at a townhall discussing the demolition of Bell Laboratories, arguing that the complex suffered only from negligible blight and that it would be unconscionable to demolish it. Thankfully, Bell Laboratories escaped this fate, with an innovative plan to convert the historic structure into a hybrid work/live artists’ studios complex. In 1968, the J.M. Kaplan Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts provided $1 million in seed money to purchase the former Bell Laboratories site for the Westbeth Artists’ Housing project. The adaptive reuse project was designed by Richard Meier, who was inspired by Le Corbusier’s Unite d’Habitation in Marseilles. Meier created 383 single-story and duplex residential units, gallery spaces, dance and theater performing spaces, and common studio spaces in the basement and the Section I (former Hook’s Steam-powered Factory) building. The Bell Laboratories complex showcases the evolution of the West Village from a gritty industrial hub to a hot spot for art and architecture.

James Baldwin Residence ca. 1930 James Baldwin was born in Harlem in 1924 and became a celebrated writer and social critic in his lifetime, exploring complicated issues such as racial, sexual, and class tensions, as a gay African-American man. Baldwin spent some of his most prolific writing years living in Greenwich Village and wrote of his time there in many of his essays, such as "Notes of a Native Son". Many of Baldwin's works address the personal struggles faced by not only black men but of gay and bisexual men, amid a complex social atmosphere. His second novel, Giovanni's Room, focuses on the life of an American man living in Paris and his feelings and frustrations with his relationships with other men. It was published in 1956, well before gay rights were widely supported in America. His residence from 1958 to 1963 was 81 Horatio Street. A historic plaque memorializing his time there was unveiled on October 7, 2015.

Christopher Street Pier In the 1970's and 1980's, LGBTQ culture was much less mainstream than it is today, and young men and women relied on the kinship and mutual aid of their community for support. The late 1980s film 'Paris is Burning' offers an intimate look into New York's LGBTQ culture of the time. The "family" structure explored in the documentary served as a replacement to the subjects' biological families, whom they were often rejected by because of their gender and sexual identities. They also created a community at the Christopher Street Pier. The piers at the western edge of Greenwich Village have been a haven for gay youth since the 1970s. Today, the pier remains a popular place to socialize for black and Latino LGBTQ youth.

New York has always been a great place to enjoy a pint (or three). A rare class of the city’s taverns date to Prohibition days or earlier, and each carries decades of local history: from the Revolutionary War to the gay rights movement. Starting with the Old Town Bar on 18th Street, take a loop through downtown Manhattan, and pay a visit to the dives that have withstood the test of time.

505-507 West Street, ca. 1929. The Jane, formerly known as the American Seamen’s Friend Society Sailors’ Home and Institute, is a landmark building that was originally designed as a hotel for sailors. Constructed in 1907-08, the structure was designed by William A. Boring, also the architect of the immigration station on Ellis Island. His designs for the building include a chapel, concert hall, and a bowling alley. On April 19, 1912, the American Seamen’s Friend Society Sailors’ Home and Institute hosted a memorial service for surviving sailors rescued from the Titanic. The hotel was also used to house survivors while the American inquest into the sinking was held. In 1944, the YMCA took over the building. It has since taken on a number of different uses. During a period in the mid-1980s, the American drag performer RuPaul lived in the tower of the hotel. In 2000, the building was designated a New York City landmark.

Christopher Street Station, June 18, 1936.

Bell Telephone Laboratories Complex ARCHITECT: Cyrus L. W. Eidlitz; McKenzie, Voorhees & Gmelin; Warren B. Sanford; Richard Meier DATE: 1860-1903 STYLE: Neo-Classical 45-465 West Street, 137-169 Bank Street, 51-77 Bethune Street, and 734-754 Washington Street, Manhattan. Built c. 1860; 1896-1903, Cyrus L.W. Eidlitz, architect, Marc Eidlitz & Son, builder; 1924-26, McKenzie, Voorhees & Gmelin, architect, Tidewater Building Co., builder; 1929, Warren B. Sanford, engineer, Turner Construction Co., builder; 1931-34 alterations, Voorhees, Gmelin & Walker, architect; and 1968-70 conversion, Richard Meier, architect. The Bell Telephone Laboratories Complex, occupying an entire city block in Manhattan’s Far West Village, is highly significant as the site of one of the world’s most prestigious telecommunications research organizations, where research work that resulted in many significant innovations and inventions was conducted, and later, as the first and largest publicly- and privately-funded artists’ housing project in the United States, as well as a pioneering large-scale industrial rehabilitation project. The Western Electric Co. built an office and factory building for telephone-related equipment (1896-1903) at 455-465 West Street, 149 Bank Street, and 734-742 Washington Street. After 1913, the building ceased as a manufacturing plant and was largely the headquarters of Western Electric’s Engineering Department. In 1925, it became Bell Telephone Laboratories for research and development for both the American Telegraph & Telephone Co. and Western Electric Co. After Bell Labs vacated the property in 1966, Roger L. Stevens, first chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, conceived of the complex as a pilot project of subsidized, affordable studio living quarters for artists, which was substantially supported and inaugurated by the J.M. Kaplan Fund. It was converted in 1968-70 into Westbeth Artists’ Housing, the first major work by architect Richard Meier, with 383 residential and work studio units, as well as gallery, performance, and commercial spaces, and a park.

163 Christopher Street, at the N. W. corner of Washington Street showing "McAvoy's Drug Store" which was operated by a local character lovingly known as "Mother McAvoy." To sailors and truckmen of the neighborhood she was more than a druggist. She was a friendly counsellor, and a 'bank" and "post office" for sailors on their brief stays ashore. From her old-fashioned desk in the store and through her self-acquired knowledge of various foreign languages, and acting as a Notary Public she helped many sailors turn to land lubbering. Proximity to the Federal Building increased her field of operations. She was born in Rome, N. Y. and was graduated from N. Y. C. P. in 1902. After clerking in several drug-stores she bought this little store for $3500. At this time her clientele consisted of many New Jersey people who commuted on the Christopher Street Ferry. She died at the age of 64.

St. Veronica's ca. 1985 St. Veronica’s, located on Christopher Street between Washington and Greenwich Streets, was built to accommodate the growing congregation of St. Joseph’s, as the Irish population of longshoreman who worked along the docks of the Hudson River grew. The parish was formed in 1887 by the Reverend John Fitzharris of St. Joseph’s Church with a collection by local parishes. Services began in a warehouse at the corner of Washington and Barrow Streets. The Irish congregation laid the cornerstone in 1890, but the final dedication would not be until 1903, owing to the limited financial means of the congregation’s working class parishioners. The church is named for named for Veronica, the woman who is credited with wiping the face of Jesus and is depicted on the 6th Station of the Cross.

555 Hudson Street, Manhattan (1842, attributed to John Cole) NYC HD From 1947 to 1968, this was the home of author, urban theorist and activist Jane Jacobs (1916-2006). While it is not certain that she wrote her 1961 seminal work “The Death and Life of Great American Cities” here, she did often reference her home in Greenwich Village while extolling the virtues of thriving urban settings with bustling sidewalks and small-scale, mixed-use buildings —like 555 Hudson. She wrote and spoke out against the then-rising practice of slum clearance and urban renewal, and was instrumental in the fight to save the South Village, SoHo and Little Italy from Robert Moses’ Lower Manhattan Expressway. Her work heavily influenced contemporary urban thought, despite urban planners who, at the time, criticized her lack of formal education. Today, her legacy is celebrated every May with Jane’s Walks — volunteer-led walking tours in urban neighborhoods — throughout the country. Photo by NYC Municipal Archives

St. Luke's Chapel, October 21, 1935. The parish of St. Luke's was organized by Greenwich Village community members in the fall of 1820. They named the church after St. Luke, the physician, as a reference to the town's use as refuge from the yellow fever epidemics that plagued New York City during the summers. One of the church's founders was Clement Clark Moore, Oriental and Greek Literature scholar, author of "Twas the Night Before Christmas," and real estate developer of Chelsea. The church building was constructed between 1821 and 1822 on a plot of land donated by Trinity Church. In 1891 St. Luke's would become a chapel of Trinity Church. That relationship lasted through 1976, when St. Luke's once again became an independent parish of the Episcopal Church. A major fire in 1981destroyed much of the church building, but thought fundraising the structure was restored. Throughout the later 20th century the church became very active in community ministries, working with people with AIDS and at-risk LGBTQ youth.

David Christie House at 131 Charles Street, next door to the NYPD Sixth Precinct, 1928. Christie, a stonecutter, built this Federal style house in 1834. It retains many of its original features, including Flemish bond brickwork and wooden window frames. Left of the front steps is the alley door, leading to a small outbuilding at the rear of the lot. The photographer Diane Arbus lived in the that carriage house, now known as 131½ between 1957 and 1966.

The White Horse Tavern at Hudson and 11th (formerly Hammond) Streets, 1933. Opened in 1880, the White Horse became known as a hub for literary and “Bohemian” New Yorkers in the 1950s and 1960s. Among its notable patrons was Dylan Thomas, the Welsh poet — and prodigious drinker — who was a frequent visitor right up until his death in 1953 (two days after he is said to have ordered eighteen whiskeys at the White Horse).

Decaying structures on the Christopher Street Pier, ca. 1974. Photographer Jack Dowling is standing somewhere on the pier itself, facing the headhouse structures on the shoreline. The pier structures west of the elevated Miller (West Side) Highway, itself in a state of disrepair, had become an ad hoc gathering place for the city's queer youth, with the Christopher Street pier notable for its cruising scene. In the background at right, the uppermost story of the massive, full-block structure today known as "The Archive" is visible. Erected in the 1890s, the Appraisers' Warehouse as a holding depot for goods awaiting customs inspection downtown. It later passed into city ownership, and in the mid-1970s became a preservation cause for the nascent Landmarks Conservancy.

Jillian Jonas was the house photographer at the legendary boy bar on St. Mark’s Place in the mid 1990’s, where she captured thousands of images of drag performers who mixed gender-bending and illusion with downtown in-your-face attitude. This collection includes images not only from boy bar, but the Pyramid Club, Wigstock, the Gay Pride Festival, Jackie 60 and various other downtown nightlife and performance venues of the early-to-mid 1990s. Her pictures capture a golden age of LGBTQ+ nightlife and performance, as well as an edgy slice of life when drag and blurred boundaries of gender were just beginning to make inroads into the broader public consciousness, largely through this vibrant local scene. From Village Preservation's Historic Image Archive, view more historic photos like this here.

Constructed on a newly laid out street and on land that had most recently been the Newgate State Prison, the wood-frame building at 6 Weehawken Street has a long and varied history. Opened in 1834 by the City as part of an open-air market called the Greenwich Market, its design was purposeful. The deep eaves of the roof protected the produce from the weather. The market lasted just a decade. In 1848 the building was bought and repurposed by a boat builder for his business (and also probably a saloon). The proximity to the water and its related businesses and sea-going, likely hard-drinking populations, made this an ideal location for a tavern. In the late 19th and early 20th century, it served variously as an insurance brokerage, cigar store, and pool hall. By the 1920s it was “Billie’s Original Clam Broth House.” Further tenants in the 20th century included a sort of clothing/accessory shop for dock workers, a trucking company, and a couple of gay bars. In late 2016 the building's owner, Jean-Louis Goldwater Bourgeois, architectural historian and son of the famed sculptor, Louise Bourgeois, announced he was giving the building, and more land it was on back to the original Manhattanites. Having bought it in 2006 for $2.2 million, he was gifting it to a nonprofit controlled by the Lenape tribe. A few years later, it is unclear if the transfer of property went through.

Charles Lane ca. 1938 Abbott called Charles Lane the only genuine back alley she ever found in New York City. The lane was one block long, sandwiched between the New York Central Railroad freight viaduct and the elevated West Side Express Highway. Abbott focused on the south side of the lane, lined with stables and tradesmen shops, as it was in the 19th century. First paved with cobblestone in 1893, the alley is still cobblestoned, but its buildings, both old and new, are now residential. After a successful battle in the late 1960s against a high-rise housing proposal, Charles Lane retains its scale and quaint character.

Weehawken Street, west side, north from but not including Christopher Street (where it commences), to and including West 10th Street (where it terminates), showing an old 2-story house in a state of collapse. On the extreme left appears a portion of the West Side Vehicular Express.

American Seamen’s Friend Society Sailors’ Home and Institute ARCHITECT: William A. Boring DATE: 1907-08 STYLE: Neo-Classical This building was constructed in 1907-08 to the handsome neo-Classical style design of architect William A. Boring. The American Seaman’s Friend Society, established in New York City in 1828, was one of a number of nineteenth-century religious organizations concerned with improving the social and moral welfare of seamen throughout the U.S. and abroad. After the luxury liner Titanic sank in 1912, surviving crew members received care here.

The Lucille Lortel Theatre, ca. 1984. This landmark theater is the Lucille Lortel Theater, formerly known to many as the Theatre de Lys. The facade of the theater today does not reflect the rich overall history of the site. In fact, who knew the theater was converted from two row houses and rear stables dating back to 1868? Before becoming a motion picture house and theater, the two homes were owned by a rug and carpet merchant named Jeremiah W. Dimick. It is not certain if he and his family lived at this home because Dimick was a bit of a real estate mogul. Shortly before his death in 1896, Dimick was shamed in the New York Times with other property owners for creating unfathomably terrible housing for lower class tenants. His rear stables at 121 and 123 Christopher Street were converted into housing; piling 14 and 10 tenants into each respectively. His son, also named Jeremiah, would take over the property and allow the site, with rear stables and all, to be converted into a motion picture house, called the New Hudson Theater, around 1913. In 1932, the Dimick family no longer owned the property and the theater would change hands several times as the Hudson Playhouse, Theatre de Lys and finally its current owners, the Lucille Lortel Foundation. The theater today is still going strong with a performance almost every day.

The Carey Lithograph Company building, to the west of elevated railroad track construction, 1933. Following the demolition of buildings along Washington Street to make way for elevated tracks, the Carey building was the only structure in the square block bounded by West, Gansevoort, Washington, and Horatio Streets not owned by the Manhattan Refrigerating Company.

Throughout the years many artists have called Greenwich Village home. This collection highlights the writers of Greenwich Village.