Siegel-Cooper ca. 1975 When the Siegel-Cooper store opened its doors on September 12, 1896, 150,000 people attended for a glimpse of what the New York Times called "a shopping resort." The store, which ran from 18th to 19th street on Sixth Avenue, and could be reached by the new El, sold everything from feather boas to feather dusters, abdominal bands to zephyrs, as well as live animals and birds, on four selling floors and a basement. The fifth and sixth floors were stockrooms, and a conservatory could be found on the roof where plants were for sale. Adjacent to the conservatory was a photography studio and a staircase which led to a public observatory on the roof. The tower at the top of the building housed a searchlight with a lens thirty-six inches in diameter, "the largest ever made," whose light could be seen for 30 miles and was used "for the benefit of the public in signaling the results of elections and like matters, and for the benefit of the Big Store by throwing advertising announcements upon the lower surface of clouds by night." Services included a bank, telegraph office, dental parlors, a barber shop were "especial attention is paid to children's haircutting," and a restaurant which could seat 350 people.

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.

(1875, Mortimer C. Merritt; expanded 1895) As early as the 1860’s, the West 20s above Union Square had a reputation as a shopping district for a new class of retail consumer, primarily women with disposable income and leisure time to spend on shopping for ready-made clothing and goods. The Hugh O’Neill Dry Goods Store is perhaps the most visible department store on this stretch of Sixth Avenue. With its domed corner towers and central pediment, it is among the finest examples of cast-iron architecture in the city. The original fourstory, French-inspired Renaissance Revival design was expanded in 1895 with a fifth floor. The domes and pediment were temporarily removed and then reinstalled on top of the addition. Adding stories or whole new bays on cast-iron fronted buildings was a fairly frequent occurrence, and pointed up the advantages of cast iron as a modular construction technology in which standardized, mass-produced facade components and ornament could be replicated and installed with relative ease.

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.

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.

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

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

The time-honored tradition of window shopping truly comes alive during the holiday season, when retailers pull out all of the stops to make their window displays ever more eye-catching, festive and uplifting. Countless visitors and New Yorkers alike participate in this yearly ritual, which has its roots in the Gilded Age. That era of rapid economic growth and industrialization, which began in the 1870s and lasted until around 1900, generated the building technology that made window shopping in the city possible.

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.

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.”

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

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

"Sixth Avenue, north from and across West 18th Street, showing mainly the west side of this Avenue, 1939. The corner building with the A. Shulte store was formerly part of Altman's Department Store. This bears No. 615-9 Sixth Avenue and is at the N.W. corner of W. 18th Street. The store covered the entire block front from 18th to 19th Streets. The New York Times of March 7, 1939 reports the 1st transfer of this holding since 1817 when it was acquired as farmlands by John Tonnele." (text from the photographer P.L. Speer) The neo-Grec structure was opened in 1877 as the B. Altman store and within the next decade additions were added on 18th and 19th Streets to house the expanding department store. This store was a mainstay of the Ladies' Mile, a section of the Flatiron neighborhood that became a prime shopping district (with most of the larger stores on 6th Avenue) during the late 19th and early 20th century. Interesting features of the building when it opened included an ornate cast iron facade, pneumatic tubes for the movement of money and paperwork, and electric lights.

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.

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.

Third Cemetery of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue, June 11, 1933. This cemetery is one of the burial places of the oldest Jewish congregation in North America, Congregation Shearith Israel. While the exact location of the first cemetery for the congregation has been lost (it might have been near the African Burial Ground), two other graveyards for this community pre-date this one and remain extant. They are located at Chatham Square and just east of Sixth Avenue on West 11th Street, established 1682 and 1805, respectively. Due to the encroaching city development and changes in the law regarding burials in Manhattan, both of these cemeteries were unfit for the community's needs by the 1820s. Referred to as the 'Third' Cemetery or the 21st Street Cemetery this plot was established in 1829 to move the disinterred graves from the 11th Street location. The active period of this cemetery was brief, as the city banned burials below 86th Street in 1851. The congregation looked to the outer boroughs (a popular cemetery locale by that time). Joining with two other Jewish congregations they founded the Beth Olam Cemetery in Ridgewood, which is still active today.

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.

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

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

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

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

253 West 16th Street adjoining the N.E. corner of Eighth Avenue, showing the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. November 26, 1927.

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.

"Sixth Avenue, at the N. E. corner of West 20th Street, showing the P. E. Church of the Holy Communion. 1940."

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

"Sixth Avenue, east side, north from West 19th Street, 1939." View of the same corner just after the removed of the elevated train infrastructure.

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.

Siegel-Cooper department store, ca. 1975. The crowds at the opening of Siegel-Cooper department store on September 12, 1896 were so crushing the police had to call in for back up. Eleven thousand pushed inside the doors within just the first ten minutes, and there was a solid wall of people stretching along Sixth Avenue, from 14th to 23rd streets. By the time doors closed at 10:30pm, 150,000 shoppers had been inside. Siegel-Cooper was the largest retail space in New York, occupying the entire block between 18th and 19th streets on Sixth Avenue. It quickly became a spectacle on a par with museums, theaters, and other cultural attractions. It felt like a small city, with aisles as wide as streets. Inside, shoppers were greeted by a 10-foot high fountain with a statue of The Republic in marble and gilded bronze- a replica of the one Daniel Chester French had designed for the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. After dropping their children at a nursery, women could wander through the store's 125 departments on six floors, admiring goods as diverse as canned food, feather boas, live animals, and sheet music. They could then lunch on lamb stew or chicken pot pie in the restaurant and head up to the roof for a view of the city from the observatory. Before picking up their kids—and without ever leaving the building—they could visit the dentist, send a message from the telegraph office or deposit a check at the bank. Department stores, epitomized by Siegel-Cooper, were unlike anything shoppers had experienced before. Over the course of the 19th century there were dramatic changes in what retail stores looked like, what they sold and how they sold it. Before the Civil War, shops mostly specialized in one type of item, such as books, purses, or carpets. Or there were dry goods stores that sold ready-made items, fabrics, and other sewing materials. Window displays and interiors were cluttered and customers went in to negotiate the best price for just the items they needed. A.T. Stewart and Macy's ushered in the era of New York City's department stores—building marble and cast-iron palaces with window displays that lured passersby. They had dozens of departments with ready-made goods from corsets and parasols to furniture and toys. They had lounges and lunchrooms that fortified customers to stay and buy items on impulse. And throughout the store, scores of shop girls, trained in the art of selling offered merchandise at a fixed price.

17 West 16th Street, Manhattan (ca. 1846) NYC IL, NHL From 1930 to 1973, this Greek Revival style townhouse was home to the clinic of birth control pioneer Margaret Sanger (1879-1966). Sanger moved to New York City in 1911 and began working as a nurse on the Lower East Side, where she treated women with frequent births, miscarriages and self-induced abortions. At the time, birth control, a term she popularized, was not available in the United States, and the federal Comstock law of 1873 prohibited the distribution of information on the topic. She founded a monthly newsletter entitled The Woman Rebel in 1914, and was indicted for sending “obscene” material through the mail. In 1916, Sanger opened her first clinic in Brownsville, Brooklyn, and in 1921 she helped found the American Birth Control League, which later became known as the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. In 1930, she established a more permanent home for her Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau here at 17 West 16th Street, where research was performed, patients were treated and instructed on contraceptives, and medical professionals from across the country were educated about sex, contraception and disease. The building, today a private residence, still stands as a reminder of Margaret Sanger’s groundbreaking work to advance women’s health and quality of life. Photo from Wikipedia

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

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

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

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

Northwest corner of Seventh Avenue and 21st Street, January 25, 1914. The newspaper stand on the corner has a poster which reads: "Why I shot Wm. E. Annis. Capt. Peter C. Hains Jr. USA lays bare for the first time the full facts of the surprising domestic tragedy which reached its climax when he shot Annis dead. In the next Sunday's American." This flashy headline refers to an event that had occurred eight years earlier. Believing that Annis, a magazine publisher, was having an affair with his wife while he was stationed in Manila, the Army captain shot the man six times at a regatta in Little Neck Bay. Hains was found guilty and served only two and a half years of his 8-16 year sentence. Presumably he was telling his story so many years later to cash in on the fame.

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

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

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

Chickering Hall, ca. 1888. Chickering Hall was New York headquarters and concert hall of the Chickering & Sons piano manufacturing firm. Architect George B. Post’s design made use of brick, marble, and brownstone and included a tiled hipped roof and massive, two-story arches on the building’s 18th Street and Fifth Avenue frontages. Indoors, Post’s 1,450-seat performance hall hosted its first event on November 1875. Events at Chickering Hall included an early telephone demonstration by Alexander Graham Bell (1877) and a lecture by Oscar Wilde (1882), among many musical performances showcasing Chickering & Sons instruments. In 1901, Chickering & Sons lost their lease for the property and the building was demolished in early 1902.

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.

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.

"6th Avenue between 18th and 19th Street. Westerly block front, looking S.W., B. Altman store, cast iron architecture, 1948"

30-32 West 21st Street, ca. 1985. The second location of Danceteria had four floors of dancers hidden behind this dour facade. In its short-lived location it was known for new wave and post-punk music as well as early hip-hop. Madonna, New Order, Duran Duran, Billy Idol, The Smiths, Cyndi Lauper, Depeche Mode, Sonic Youth, the Violent Femmes, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Beastie Boys, and LL Cool J all played here. If you missed hanging out with Madonna here, watch Desperately Seeking Susan. Danceteria reopened in the Martha Washington Hotel ballroom from 1989 to 1992 and a Hamptons outpost ran from 1984 to 1995.

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

“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.

Church of the Holy Communion Complex ARCHITECT: Richard Upjohn DATE: 1844-46 STYLE: Gothic Revival The Church of the Holy Communion and Sisters House and Chapel form a remarkably attractive homogenous architectural group of buildings executed in the Gothic Revival style of architecture. It was the first “free” church in the City. It had the first boys choir, and it was the home of New York’s first Anglican Sisterhood. The Sisters founded St. Luke’s Hospital in the Sisters House, destined to become one of the great hospitals of New York City.

"Sixth Avenue, east side, north from West 19th Street, 1933. Appearing progressively are the former Alexander and Cammeyer Buildings, the Protestant Episcopal Church of the Holy Communion, the Masonic Temple building and the Hotel McAlpin. Towering above the church is the dominant Empire State Building." (text from the photographer P.L. Speer)

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.

249 West 17th Street, ca. 1910. Built in 1902, this six-story structure was the former warehouse for the Siegel-Cooper Dry Goods Store. The company got its start in Chicago in 1887 and expanded to New York City in 1896. At the time of its opening, the storefront was the largest store in the world. The building was designed in the Beaux-Arts style by DeLemos & Cordes, who later went on to design the R. H. Macy's store in Herald Square.

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

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

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

The same, a year and a half later. The church is about to be demolished and replaced by an apartment building, Chelsea Hall. May 30, 1929.

Atrium of the Simpson-Crawford Company decorated for Easter, 1904. Simpson-Crawford Co. began as a small dry good store opened in the 1860s at Sixth Avenue and 19th Street. Through a series of new partnerships, the store grew and prospered (and changed names a few times), catering to a very high end clientele. At the turn of the 20th century, the owner selected architectural firm, William H. Hume & Son, to expand the large store to a full block width on Sixth Avenue. The building, complete in 1902, was stately and conservative, rendered in an understated Beaux Arts style. The building included the first escalator (called “moving stairs”) on Sixth Avenue and used a new marketing device, the mannequin. The interior featured a soaring cast iron atrium with a colored-glass skylight. This space was perfect for over the top holiday displays, such as the Easter one depicted here.

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.”

Church of the Holy Communion ca. 1928 Rarely does such a complete ecclesiastical group survive intact from the Gothic Revival. Although this diminutive church, parish house, and rectory represent that style pared down to its bare essentials, the general effect is delightful and sincerely religious in its lack of pretentiousness.

"127-123 West 20th Street, north side, just west of Sixth Avenue. No. 123 adjoins the Partola Building, which is on Sixth Avenue at the N.W. corner of 20th Street, 1931." The Partola Building was originally the the O'Neill-Adams department store building. After an extensive renovation in 1920, the building became home to the Partola Manufacturing Company, a chemical company.

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

"Seventh Avenue, east side, from 20th to 19th Streets,1931." Notice the police officer on horseback, and the two different types of ornamental light poles.

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

Seventh Avenue, west side, from 20th Street to 21st Street, ca. 1920.

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

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

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

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.

Asociación de Arte Latinoamericano (ADAL), 682 Sixth Avenue. For nearly 40 years, gay artistic director Max Ferrá led INTAR, a Latino theater company first known as Asociación de Arte Latinoamericano (ADAL) when it was located in this building from 1966 to 1971. Under Ferrá, who was also a co-founder, the company became a major force in developing Hispanic-American theater talent, including original works by several notable LGBT playwrights.

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

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

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!).

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

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

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

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

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

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.

In 1750, British naval officer Thomas Clarke bought a Dutch farm to create his retirement estate, named “Chelsea” after the Royal Hospital Chelsea in London. His property extended from approximately Eighth Avenue to the Hudson—its shore ran roughly along today’s Tenth Avenue—between 20th and 28th Streets. The estate was subdivided in 1813 between two grandsons; Clement Clarke Moore received the southern half below 24th Street while his cousin, Thomas B. Clarke, inherited the northern section. The two halves developed distinctly different characters due to the split. Today, Chelsea contains a variety of historic architecture, including some of the city’s most intact nineteenth-century residential blocks, significant commercial buildings, and industrial complexes near the Hudson River.

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

149 Eighth Avenue ca. 1938 During the Depression, New York City was home to 135 pawnshops and claimed more than half the nation’s pawnbroking business. Like peddling, pawnbroking catered to the poor and was subject to strict regulation. Abbott was drawn to the attention-grabbing storefronts of pawnbrokers, with their profusion of merchandise and hard-sell advertisements. She exposed several negatives of “Uncle” Rothman’s to capture just the right window-shopping gesture. Rothman’s remained on Eighth Avenue until the 1960s. Heavily remodeled, the building now houses the Food Bar, one of Chelsea’s many chic restaurants.

Church of the Holy Communion, date unknown. The Gothic Revival church was constructed between 1844-1845. Designed by well-known church architect Richard Upjohn, it was the first asymmetrical Gothic Revival church building in the United States. The architect designed it to resemble a small medieval English parish church. Though the church was an influential building in the 19th century, it is the building's later 20th century history that is most well known. In the mid-1970s, the church was the Lindisfarne Association's headquarters, which created a cultural center, hosting poetry readings, concerts and lectures. Oddysey House, a drug rehabiliation program, next occupied the church. Then, from 1983 until 2007 the church housed the Limelight, a notorious nightclub. First a disco and rock club, it would evolve into a place for techno, goth, and industrial music. It was frequented by the club kids of the 1990s and was closed and reopened a number of times during its history due to police raids. The Limelight finally closed in 2007 (by that point it had been renamed Avalon). Today the 1840s church is occupied by an upscale Chinese restaurant and a branch of the David Barton Gym chain.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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).

The Hudson Building, Union Square, May 18, 1942. This 1908 Beaux-Arts building by Buchman & Fox included both retail and office space. Though it was advertised to business clients, by the 1930s tenants included leftist groups like International Workers Order (IWO), who operated its own birth control clinic out of the building.

7 East 15th Street, ca. 1970. Founded in 1906 by devotees of the Socialist Party of America, the Rand School of Social Science was created as an educational institution for worker, focused on a knowledge of class structure. The school consisted of evening courses and lectures in history, economics, and philosophy. The school's programming was originally housed in a series of converted homes on 19th Street. In 1912 the school moved into the 1887-built, Romanesque Revival, former Y.W.C.A building at 7 East 15th Street.

With the onset of the Gilded Age, New Yorkers began looking for the best places to outfit themselves and their home. Department stores served that need and few did so better than Siegel-Cooper. This story is a preview of our Spring Retail exhibition.

90 Fifth Avenue, ca. 1914. Designed by 1902 by Robert Maynicke, the loft building was one of a number commercial building constructed on Fifth Avenue by the Cooper Union-educated architect. The eleven-story, cast-iron building with classical details included 140,000 square feet of space. In the 1980s the large industrial building was gutted and converted into the headquarters for the Research Institute of America. Forbes became a longterm tenant in the 1990s (leaving in 2013), and today the 3rd through the 11th floor is home to the brokerage company, Compass.

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.