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 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.

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

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.

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.

New York County National Bank ARCHITECT: DeLemos & Cordes; Rudolph L. Daus DATE: 1906-07 STYLE: Neo-Classical The Manufacturers Hanover Trust Company Building, built in 1907, is an exceptionally fine and well-conceived example of the neo-Classical bank type; that the overall design, though small in scale, employs the monumental classical type in a unified and structurally expressive manner. The well-proportioned composition superimposes two classical architectural systems, a trabeated and an arcuated order. The design is enhanced by fine stone carving, ‘Which incorporates Beaux-Arts ornamental motifs, classical symbols, and naturalistic elements. Among the noteworthy ornamental details are the entrance and window aedicules, the foliated spandrels, the classical balustrade and the imposing eagle in the pediment.

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.

Federal style townhouse at 41 Barrow Street, 1932. This brick house was one of seven built by the developer Charles Oakley between 1824-6. During the 19th century, it was home to Dr. Virgil Thompson and, later, Police Captain Ira S. Garland.

Whittemore House, October 21, 1935. President Abraham Lincoln, after saving the Union and winning the Civil War, was shot by actor John Wilkes Booth at the Ford Theater in Washington, D.C. on April 14, 1865, finally succumbing to his wounds the next morning on April 15th. Lincoln was the first U.S. President ever assassinated, and his death led to a protracted period of national mourning and political tumult, including the first impeachment of a U.S. President, Lincoln’s successor Andrew Johnson. But this event which changed the course of history might never have happened were it not for events connected to one of the most unusual houses in Greenwich Village, constructed by one of Greenwich Village’s most prolific builders, which thanks to landmark protections still stands. 45 Grove Street, just west of Bleecker Street, was originally a free-standing home built in 1830. According to the Greenwich Village Historic District designation report “it was undoubtedly one of the finest and largest Federal residences in Greenwich Village,” often referred to ask the Whittemore Mansion. It was built for Samuel Whittemore one of the major property owners in the area, and who was largely responsible for the early development of this part of the Village. Whittemore was the senior member of the firm of S. Whittemore & Company, manufacturers of steam-propelled carding equipment used in textile manufacturing. One of his factories was located nearby on Waverly Place, then known as Factory Street. When 45 Grove Street was originally built it was just two stories, and many of its original details including Flemish bond brickwork, arched doorway, and Federal lintels at the windows are still intact (the two upper stories were added in 1871). But by 1851, the neighborhood was becoming increasingly crowded with immigrants and industry, and the Whittemore Family sold it. Not long after the sale, the home was operating as a boarding house. One of the boarders was a man named Samuel K. Chester. Chester was an actor and associate of fellow actor John Wilkes Booth. Around the beginning of 1865, Booth came to 45 Grove Street to meet Chester at his home and try to persuade him to participate in a “conspiracy to take over the government” including kidnapping President Lincoln. Booth was a strong supporter of the Confederate cause, and wildly opposed to Lincoln’s war to save the Union and his move to free the slaves. After Chester turned Booth down the offer to assist with the kidnapping of the President, Booth changed his plan, deciding to murder the President. Had Chester either agreed to participate in the plan to kidnap the President, or reported Booth’s plot, Lincoln’s life might have been spared, and the course of history quite different. But he did neither. Just days after Lee’s surrender at Appamatox and the collapse of the Confederacy, Booth shot Lincoln as he watched a performance of ‘Our American Cousin’ at Ford’s Theater, shouting (by various accounts) “Sic semper tyrannis” (“Thus always to tyrants,” the state motto of Virginia) or “The South is avenged!” as he leaped from Lincoln’s box and onto the stage. He escaped, but after the largest manhunt in American history up to that time, he was shot and killed. Lincoln was replaced as President by Andrew Johnson, a Southern Democrat who was significantly more sympathetic to the Confederate cause than Lincoln, who refused to adopt or enforce many of the Republican party’s Reconstructionist programs granting rights to freed slaves. By another twist of fate, shortly after the Civil War, 45 Grove became known as the “Lincoln Home” for destitute soldiers and sailors. Early 20th century residents included the poet Hart Crane, who lived at this address when he wrote "The Bridge," a paean to the Brooklyn Bridge and New York.

"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.

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.

The Gansevoort Market Historic District was landmarked in 2003 thanks to efforts by Village Preservation. In 2002 Village Preservation wrote: "Gansevoort Market is one of Manhattan's defining neighborhoods - gritty, hard-working, low-rise, with its own special character, and a rich collection of buildings and history that cannot be replaced." Since 2002 much of the grittiness has been replaced with luxury. The High Line has transformed from abandoned to desirable. The world-renowned Whitney Museum of American Art has replaced blue-collar meatpackers. But thanks to landmarking, the rich collection of buildings still define the area and remain (mostly) low-rise. The architecture of the district tells the story of an important era in New York City’s history when it became the financial center of the country and when its markets were expanding to serve the metropolitan region and beyond.

276 Bleecker Street; February 2, 1937. Anchored by the famous Church of Our Lady of Pompeii, Bleecker Street stood in the center of Little Italy and was lined with food specialty stores. The Mandaro family, which owned this cheese store, made many of their own cheeses and imported others. Although Mandaro’s is gone, similar shops can still be found along Bleecker Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues. The Mandaro storefront has been absorbed by the ever- expanding John’s Pizzeria, a neighborhood institution that opened in 1934.

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.”

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.

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).

County Trust Company Building, March 16, 1933. Built as the home of the Country Trust Company, the 20-story structure with fanciful wedding cake-like setbacks was completed in 1930. The building was designed in a neo-Gothic style by William Whitehall.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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 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.

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.

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.

102 Bedford Street. 102 Bedford Street began its life around 1830 as a 2 1/2 story wood-frame Federal style house — the kind of simple structure one sees throughout Greenwich Village and Lower Manhattan. It seemed to live a pretty unremarkable life until 1925 when Clifford Daily purchased the building. According to NY Times Streetscapes columnist Christopher Gray, records show Daily, 39 years old at the time, was unmarried, lived in an old house on Sheridan Square, and was the decorator of “The Little House,” a tea room located next door at 100 Bedford Street in the tiny former back shed of 17 Grove Street. The 1910s and 1920s saw a lot of new interest in Greenwich Village from artists and those who simply wanted to live around artists. Like today, real estate developers were quick to try to capitalize on this trend, and rundown buildings in the neighborhood were often given makeovers intended to project an artistic image. Few, however, were as complete, or as fanciful, in their transformation as 102 Bedford Street. The two and a half story building was raised to five stories and given a sort of Tudor/Medieval/Swiss Chalet facade, including the twin-peaked roofs, from which its name is derived. The building was specifically intended to attract artists, with 10 one-room studios with casement windows, similar to the “artists’ studios” which had been popping up on the top of houses throughout the Village during this time. Again according to Gray (citing the NY Herald Tribune) the building was originally painted black, green, orange, and blue — a color scheme which has long since been replaced with the more conventional brown and beige we see today, and of which there seems to be little or no photographic record. Perhaps most notable, however, was the building’s dedication ceremony: On May 21, 1926…the actress Mabel Normand stood on a platform on top of one of the gables and shattered a bottle of Champagne over the roof. Next to her, Princess Amelie Troubetskoy (an American novelist who had married a Russian prince in czarist days) burned acorns in a charcoal brazier in honor of the Greek god Pan. Holy water, flowers, and other rites also inaugurated the building. The studio apartments in the building are all tiny, approximately 20 by 18 feet. However, many maintain original details, and the interiors of the building literally ooze Village bohemian charm. Despite the incredible appeal of the apartment’s unique charms, their modest dimensions have given rise to some skepticism about claims that Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Walt Disney, Cary Grant, and Miles Davis each lived there for a time

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.

17 Commerce Street, July 1967.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

High pressure water system trench crosses Jackson Square; undated photo. The city acquired the parcel at the intersection of Greenwich and Eighth Avenues and Horatio Street in 1826. While it's unclear exactly when or how this triangular park became known as Jackson Square, it is likely the name is in some way connected to President Andrew Jackson. Through the mid-19th century, Jackson Square served as a de facto meeting place for rallies and celebratory gatherings. In 1872, the Parks Commission officially recognized Jackson Square as parkland, and installed features including lamps, ironwork, and sidewalks. In the background, West 13th Street continues toward the Hudson River.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Bedford Street at Commerce Street, ca. 1910. The clapboard house at the corner (no. 76) has long since disappeared, but there’s a historic under-the-radar building just visible further up Bedford Street. At far left (zoom in!), past Barrow Street is no. 86 Bedford, a Federal style house with twin dormer windows on its third floor. From 1922-2007, it was the home of Chumley’s, a legendary Prohibition-era speakeasy established by the leftist activist Leland Stanford Chumley. The bar was accessed by a secret entrance off Barrow Street, along with an alleyway called Pamela Court. As legend has it, the restaurant industry term “86” (meaning something has run out or should be thrown out) originated here, either in reference to ejecting unruly customers via the door at 86 Bedford Street, or to Prohibition cops tipping Chumley off to impending raids, so patrons could exit through the side door — while police used the courtyard entrance. The bar was also known as a meeting place for writers — the walls were lined with the dust jackets of books by regular visitors — both for the modernist generation (Edna St. Vincent Millay lived down the street) and the Beats who followed. Sadly, a chimney collapse in 2007 spelled the end for Chumley’s. The building has been restored, but the restaurant that opened in October 2016 is, despite the dust-jackets, a successor in name only.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

289 Bleecker Street, ca. 1979.

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. Bernard's Roman Catholic Church ca. 1930 St. Bernard’s, at 328-332 West 14th Street and now known as Our Lady of Guadalupe at St. Bernard’s, was originally founded by Irish immigrants during the wave of immigration resulting from the 1840’s famine. This church served relatively middle class “Lace Curtain Irish” (opposed to the lower classes known as “Shanty Irish”), who worked as longshoreman, janitors, mechanics, and teamsters, and owned saloons, stables, blacksmith shops, and the other types of businesses needed to support the industries of the time.

“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.

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

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.

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

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.

10 Grove Street This fine row of Federal two and one-half story houses from 4-10 Grove Street is one of the most delightful in the Village. They are frame structures with brick fronts in Flemish bond and were built between,1825 and 1834 on land leased from Trinity Church and St. Luke’s Chapel. The builder associated with the row is James N. Wells, who, like Samuel Winant and John Degraw, had started out as a carpenter, but soon achieved recognition as a builder. He did a great deal of work for Trinity Church and built St. Luke’s Chapel. With the exception of No. 2 1/2, subsequently altered by the addition of a third story with bracketed cornice and steel casement windows, this row of houses has been modified very little. They faithfully reflect the type of modest dwelling which a conscientious builder erected in the late Eighteen-twenties and early Eighteen-thirties. No. 6, built in 1827 by and for D. G. Van Winkle, a house carpenter, and No. 8, erected in 1829 for Abraham Storms, Jr., merchant, were extensively remodeled by James N. Wells in 1833-34, as was No. 2 1/2, the earliest house of the row, which Wells had originally built in 1825. No. 4, erected by Wells in 1833-34, replaced a shop owned by William J. Roome, a house painter. Consequently, Wells should certainly be credited with the fine proportions and good taste so evident here. All of these Federal houses, with the exception of No. 2 1/2, are three windows wide, two and one-half stories high, and surmounted by two dormer windows at roof level. A low stoop leads to a doorway framed by paneled reveals. Although No. 4 was the last house in the row to be built, it is interesting to note that it has a prototype Federal doorway flanked by columns, standing in front of rusticated wood blocks simulating stone. The three other doors are similar, but have pilasters instead of columns. The transom of No. 10 retains its handsome leadwork applied over the glass. The eight-paneled entrance doors of these houses, surmounted by a rectangular transom, are also typical of the era. The stone lintels, flush with the brickwork, above the doorways and windows have lost their cornices, but the plain wood cornices with undecorated fascia board may be the originals. The dormer windows at Nos. 4, 8, and 10, have double-hung muntined sash; they have frames with small square paneled blocks at the meeting of vertical and horizontal trim members and are crowned with little pediments. At No. 6, the two dormers have been combined under a low gambrel-shaped gable with a small diamond-shaped window inserted between the two original ones.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Entrance to Grove Court, 1939. Grove Court is one of several private courts that dot the city. Entered through a gate on the south side of Grove Street near no. 10, the residence is a row of six, brick-faced townhouses. Completed in 1853, the development was funded by a local grocery store owner. While today the Grove Court homes are offered on the market in the range of $4 million, when constructed they were considered 'backhouses,' occupied by poor residents.

Christopher Street Station, June 18, 1936.

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.

17 Commerce Street ca. 1932 No. 17 serves as a welcome reminder of the original proportions and general appearance of the row adjoining to the east. This small two and one-half story late Federal house, with basement, has a low pitched roof and central dormer window. It was built in 1830 as an investment by Abraham R. Bogert, a stone-cutter, and rented immediately. With a brick front of Flemish bond, its handsome paneled stone lintels, dark exterior blinds, and small light fixtures flanking the doorway, it is easily the most attractive building on the block. Pilasters flank the deeply recessed door with leaded transom. The second story windows have muntined sash, and the dormer has a casement window. The ironwork of the stoop is the original and notable for its fine openwork newels of wrought iron.

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.

Just behind 17 Grove’s wooden workshop lies a building that captures the whimsy, flamboyance, and bohemian spirit of early-20th-century Greenwich Village like no other. This Story is adapted from a blog, which can be viewed here.

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.

Former New York Bank for Savings Interior ARCHITECT: R. H. Robertson DATE: 1896-97 STYLE: Academic Classic The interior of the New York Savings Bank was built in the Academic Classic style popularized by the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago (1893). The interior is intrinsically linked with the exterior, reflecting the exterior volume in the interior space. It is exceptional for its use marble, bronze, stained glass, and plaster. The engaged Corinthian columns and pilasters, coffered ceiling, the drum and dome possess fine ornamental detail.

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.

367 Bleecker Street, ca. 1980.

"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.

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!).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Produce market, ca. 1935. This long street view depicts the corner of Jones and Bleecker Streets south to the church of Our Lady of Pompeii at Bleecker and Carmine Streets.

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.

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).

1 Little West 12th Street Many people know the restaurant Bagatelle located at 1 Little West 12th Street for their lavish brunch parties, where as one recent brunch reviewer stated “I’ve never seen so many bottles of Dom Perignon ordered in my life”. Bagatelle helped changed the face of NYC brunch in 2008 from a laid back Sunday afternoon meal to a party atmosphere featuring live DJ’s and $15,000 bottles of champagne. 1 Little West 12th Street was built in 1909 and is located in NYC’s Gansevoort Market Historic District. It is also part of the Gansevoort Market National Register Historic District. This building plays a role in several important aspects of NYC history including the famous Astor family, the meatpacking industry, and currently, the tech industry, which according to Bloomberg News is now NYC’s second largest industry, employing almost 300,000 people. According to the designation report, “This Arts and Crafts style building, which is largely intact, contributes to the historically mixed architectural character and varied uses – including market-related functions – of the Gansevoort Market Historic District. Constructed in 1913, during one of the major phases of development of the area when storage- and market-related buildings continued to be constructed in the district, it further contributes to the visual cohesion of the district through its brick facade and metal canopy.” This property has a long and storied history. When built in 1913 by William Vincent Astor, a member of the prominent Astor family, the address was 5 Little West 12th Street, a.k.a. 2 Ninth Avenue. From 1913-1922 it served as a warehouse for the provisions firm of C. Percival, which was established in 1868, and according to the book History and Commerce of New York, published 1891, supplied “hotels, restaurants, and steamers on a large scale, as well as the general public, with pressed larding pork, breaded pig’s feet, sugar cured ham, bacon, pure lard, and provisions of a like description”. 1 Little West 12th was then owned by Ottman & Co. for use as a packaging and processing plant, with storage on one floor, and butchering and packaging on other floors. Ottman & Co. was owend and operated by Jacob “Jack” Ottman, descendant of Phillip of Philipp Ottmann & Company which was founded in 1859 and later renamed William Ottmann & Company (around 1876) of Fulton Market. William Ottmann & Company was sold around 1916 to rival Beinecke & Company, who were originally in the meatpacking business, and were also owners at the time of the Plaza Hotel. Note one of the n’s was dropped from the last name to work around a non-compete clause that was part of the sale of the original company. Ottman & Co., after a brief stint at 446-448 West 13th Street moved into part of the building in 1919, with C. Percival using the rest, and eventually bought the entire building along with the neighboring buildings 1 and 3 Little West 12th street, which Ottman & Co. had used as administrative offices. The former 1 Little West 12th Street was built in 1887 and was also known as the Middendorf building and housed Middendorf & Rohrs grocery company. The former 3 Little West 12th Street was built in 1918 and also housed the Middendorf & Rohrs company for many decades. The three buildings were sold in 1987 to Peter J. and Richard P. Kleinknecht, who ran Kleinknecht Electric Co. Inc. from the space. This company was founded in 1916, and is still “solving all of your electrical needs” from West 37th Street. In 1998 the property was sold to current owner William Gottlieb Real Estate. In 2011, after remaining vacant for over 10 years, once bricked over windows that shielded refrigerated spaces that were devoted to the production and storage of portion controlled frozen meats, were opened up to house new “boutique” office tenants WeWork, a company that leases office space to startups. Bagatelle moved into the ground floor space from a different Meatpacking District location in 2012.

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.

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.

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.

New York Savings Bank ARCHITECT: R. H. Robertson DATE: 1896-97 The New York Savings Bank, built in two sections in 1896-97, has a significant place in the architectural and cultural history of New York City. It was designed by the well-known architect R. H. Robertson and is one of his most successful designs because of its scale, choice of materials, and relation to the two major thoroughfares on which it is situated. Its Eighth Avenue portico, the 14th Street elevation of pedimented bay and westernmost three windows, the wall clock, cornice and cresting, the drum and the dome comprise fine ornamental detail. Its materials–granite, marble, bronze and copper–and the workmanship these represent are exceptional.

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.

The wooden house at 17 Grove Street (at Bedford Street) is often assumed to be one of the oldest houses, if not the oldest house, in Greenwich Village. It’s a good guess since wooden house construction was banned in Manhattan starting in the early 19th century in response to fires in these densely-packed precincts. The prohibition was enacted first below Canal Street in 1816, then below 32nd Street in 1849, and finally below 155th Street in 1882. But 17 Grove Street only dates to 1822 (actually, just the first two floors do; the third floor was added in 1870). This makes it a relative youngster compared to some of the houses found in these parts, in spite of its charmingly anachronistic look. But regardless of its date of construction, 17 Grove is one of the most photographed and beloved houses to be found anywhere in the Village. And while there are several wooden houses in the Greenwich Village Historic District (including the 1799 Isaac Hendricks House diagonally across the street at 77 Bedford Street), most of those have been covered in brick. But 17 Grove proudly wears its woodenness on its sleeve. It also improbably maintains the wooden workshop behind it on Bedford Street, built by the original owner William Hyde, a window sash maker. Both the main house and the former workshop are now single-family residences.

New York Savings Bank moved into the basement of this four-story bank building in 1857. Over the next few decades, the bank prospered and became more visible when it moved into the first-floor space. In 1896 the New York Savings Bank demolished this structure and commissioned a new building on the same site.

79 Eighth Avenue, ca. 1980. One of two landmark banks on this corner, the Manufacturers Hanover Trust Company Building was constructed in 1907 to the designs of De Lemos & Cordes. Created in the model of the "City Beautiful" movement, which postulated that beautiful civic and commercial buildings could promote moral and civic virtue among urban populations, the architects produced a stately, classical building that has enured more than a century.

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.

299 West 12th Street ca. 1932 Built in 1929-31, this 16-story apartment house is clad in multi-colored brick set in Flemish bond creating an interesting texture to the exterior. Randomly cut and placed stones of varying colors are placed at the window and door openings and at the corners of the building. Along with 59 West 12th Street, this was one of two collaborations between Emery Roth and the development team of Bing & Bing and exemplified the elegant interwar style of New York apartment building for which both came to be known.

New York Savings Bank, ca. 1921. The New York Savings Bank has occupied the northwest corner of 14th Street and Eighth Avenue since the middle of the 19th century. By the turn of the century the bank deemed themselves in need of a new building. Robert Henderson Robertson designed a white marble Roman temple topped by a striking copper dome. The building, which remained a bank through the 1960s, was designated an exterior and interior landmark in 1988. As such each of its ensuing tenants (including a carpet shop, grocery store, and currently CVS) have has to abide by the rules governing interior landmarks (such as not attaching anything to walls or floors).

Wood-frame house at the corner of Grove and Bedford Streets, May 12, 1936. This house was built by window sash-maker William Hyde in 1822, the year of a yellow fever outbreak which drove New Yorkers to the safety of rural Greenwich Village. Originally a two-story structure in the Federal style, a third floor and new cornice were added in 1870. No. 17 Grove Street is the Village's largest remaining wood-frame structure, predating Manhattan’s 1866 ban on new construction of wooden homes. In addition to the main house, Hyde’s workshop at 100 Bedford Street (rear, at left) has survived to the present day.

30 Christopher Street ca. 1933 30 Christopher replaced three smaller buildings when it was constructed in 1907 to the designs of the well-known firm Jardine, Kent & Jardine. (This was only a few years after they were commissioned to design the Van Tassell & Kearney Auction Mart, an East Village building we were thrilled to see landmarked last May!) Owned by the Waverly Realty Company, 30 Christopher Street was built to house The Fellows Company of New York, formerly known as The Fellows Medicine Manufacturing Company. According to medical journals of the time, the company produced the “famous” Syrup of Hypophosphites. The advertisements at left tout the syrup as a cure for several illnesses (note: the ads use the address of 26 Christopher). If you happen to be suffering from bronchitis, your ancestor 100 years ago with the same condition might have benefited from the syrup being produced right here in the Village. It’s not clear how long the company stayed in the building, but it did remain in use as a factory and office space for many decades. A 1974 Certificate of Occupancy reveals that, by that time, the building had been converted to residences. The building itself has an irregular floor plan, which is not surprising given the irregular shape of the block as a whole. This is the Village after all! It employed steel frame construction, an engineering feat that allowed for taller buildings without compromising the square footage of the lower floors, and reinforced concrete. For over 100 years, this elegantly-designed building has served as a wonderful contribution to the streetscape, and it’s nice to learn a bit more about it on this cold and blustery day.

Nos. 14-16 Gay Street, October 16, 1937. The provenance of the Gay Street name is unclear, but the name is mentioned in records as early as 1827 before the street was declared official in 1833. No 16 (right) was built for merchant Francis Barretto in 1828. No. 14 was built around the same time for plough manufacturer Curtis Hitchcock. Ruth McKenney published a series of stories in the New Yorker depicting her family’s life in the basement apartment of 14 Gay Street. These stories would be adapted into a 1953 Broadway musical, “Wonderful Town.”

“Twin Peaks” house at 102 Bedford Street, 1932. In its first incarnation, 102 Bedford was an 1830s Federal style wood-frame house. In 1925, Clifford Reed Daily — with financial backing from financier Otto Kahn — bought the house and undertook a whimsical renovation, adding its distinctive peaks and subdividing the interior into small and unusual living quarters. Stranger still was the building’s dedication ceremony, originally reported in the Herald Tribune, reproduced in the New York Times in 2003: “The actress Mabel Normand stood on a platform on top of one of the gables and shattered a bottle of Champagne over the roof. Next to her, Princess Amelie Troubetskoy (an American novelist who had married a Russian prince in czarist days) burned acorns in a charcoal brazier in honor of the Greek god Pan. Holy water, flowers and other rites also inaugurated the building.”

8 Grove Street ca. 1936 When Abbott photographed an old-fashioned milkwagon in 1936, New York City’s milk industry was rapidly changing. Distribution was dominated by Sheffield Farms and Borden Company. One-third of their daily three million quarts of milk and one million quarts of cream was still delivered by horses, the rest by truck. In 1938, Sheffield Farms opened a $2.5 million plant and replaced horse-drawn wagons with motorized vehicles. Abbott took this photograph on Grove Street, a few blocks from her Commerce Street home.

Grocery store at the corner of Christopher and Bleecker Streets, June 18, 1936. One of Greenwich Village’s oldest buildings, this corner store was built as a grocery in 1802. Its top floor was reputedly the office of the commission that laid out the 1811 grid plan for the development of Manhattan Island. The structure was itself a victim of urban planning: in 1828, when a bend in Bleecker Street was eliminated to facilitate the smooth flow of traffic across Christopher Street, the store lost 20 feet of its width. Abbott’s photograph shows the brick wall, extending behind and above the old clapboard structure, which marks the building’s truncation. The grocery was run by a single owner for 25 years and remained remarkably unchanged until 1997. It is currently under renovation as a pizza shop.

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

Music is an integral part of the cultural legacy and impact of our neighborhoods! In March 2019 we explored the iconic music venues and punk meccas of the East Village through East Village Building Blocks. Today we’re venturing west into the Greenwich Village Historic District for another musical tour.