Often overlooked, doors are perhaps the most important feature of a building. They are the means by which we escape the often crowded and chaotic streets of the city. Every building has one (well, maybe except for the Raymond Street Jail which was accidentally constructed in 1836 sans front door), but some outfit this largely utilitarian feature with more panache than others. This collection highlights some the city's loveliest historic doorways, from the simple but classic columns of early 19th century Federal rowhouses to the gloriously geometric brickwork of Art Deco apartment houses, and everything in-between.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.