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156 Bleecker Street

Posts & Stories(3)

Freewheelin': Bob Dylan's Village image

Freewheelin': Bob Dylan's Village
Walk

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

Bleecker Street Walking Tour
Walk

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.
158-160 Bleecker Street image

158-160 Bleecker Street
Post

The Village Gate, 158 Bleecker Street, on the ground floor and basement of the Atrium building, ca. 1975. Designed by Ernest Flagg, Mills House No. 1 (today called the Atrium Building) was completed in 1897. The building was the brainchild of Darius Ogden Mills. His idea was to develop clean, "healthful" hotels which would allow struggling men to get a leg up. Between 1897 and 1904 he built three single-room-occupancy hotels as alternatives to slum housing. The Mills House No. 1 was the largest. While the rooms were tiny by any standards, only five by seven feet, each one looked out onto either the street or one of two 50 by 50-foot courtyards. According to the New York Times, "each room had an iron bedstead, a hair mattress and pillow, a feather pillow, a chair and a clothes rack; there was no room for anything else. The walls stopped about a foot short of the ceilings, apparently to assure good ventilation." A stay here cost 20 cents a night. In the 1970's the building was reconfigured into regular apartments, although the airy courtyards, glass skylights, and most of Flagg's exterior survive. Between 1958 and 1996, the Village Gate, a nightclub, occupied the first floor and basement of the building at the corner of Thompson and Bleecker Streets.

Photos(2)

160 Bleeker Street image

160 Bleeker Street

158-160 Bleecker Street image

158-160 Bleecker Street

\[The Village Gate, 158 Bleecker Street, on the ground floor and basement of the Atrium building.]
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