Brevoort Hotel Entrance, January 1954.

In the 1840s the Brevoort family a large plot of land from 5th Avenue to the Bowery and Greenwich Village, extending north of 14th Street. They built a mansion on Fifth Avenue (no. 24) in 1834 and in 1845 they constructed a large hotel call the Brevoort Hotel. The hotel was purchased in 1902 by restaurateur Raymond Orteig (who also bought the nearby Hotel Lafayette) and remodeled both into more French style establishments. The Brevoort Cafe, which opened in the ground floor and basement, was popular with the local literary set, including Mark Twain, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Eugene O’Neill. The hotel itself was frequented by European elite and royalty, politicians, and cultural bohemians.

The building was demolished in 1954 (seen here as the nameplate is being ripped off) to make way for a modern 19-story apartment (now co-op) building. The new building's owners called the building The Brevoort, after the Dutch family whose name had been attached to this land since the early 18th century.