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South Village At Stake in Hudson Square Vote Tomorrow, Pt. II

Posted March 12, 2013

By Andrew Berman

Yesterday, in anticipation of the vote on the Hudson Square rezoning, we took a look at some of the sites currently threatened or recently lost in the South Village.

Today, we thought we’d take a look at some of the wonderful buildings which still survive in the area of the South Village not yet landmarked, which we are fighting to protect and preserve.

As previously noted, if the City Council votes to approve the Hudson Square rezoning without getting the City to move ahead with landmark protections for the South Village, this already endangered area will be rapidly destroyed by increased development pressure.

Here are just some of the great buildings in the proposed South Village Historic District we hope to see preserved.

St. Anthony of Padua Church (1886), the oldest extant Italian Church in the United States, and streescape down Sullivan Street south of Houston

Little Red Schoolhouse buildings at 200-202 Bleecker Street. The groundbreaking educational institution was founded in 1921, but these houses date to 1826.

Mills House No.1, 159 Bleecker Street, designed by Ernest Flagg (1896). Revolutionary reform housing for single men.

10 169 Sullivan St Tenement — Beaux-Arts style 1904 new law tenement at 169 Sullivan Street.

Terra cotta tenement facade detail, Bleecker Street

Intricately detailed tenement facade entrance at 140 West 4th Street.

Bleecker Street west of 6th Avenue; for much of the early to mid 20th century, this street and intersecting MacDougal Street were the center of literary and musical innovation in the United States.

13 MacDougal Street streetscape — MacDougal Street, between Bleecker and West 3rd Streets. From the 1920’s through the 1960’s, this stretch of MacDougal Street was lined with clubs, cafes, and performance spaces which attracted the most innovative figures in literature and music at the time.

07 - Intact historic tenement storefronts — Intact original wooden and cast iron storefronts on tenements on Sullivan Street below Houston Street.

Minetta Tavern and Cafe Wha?, two of the storied gathering spaces from the 20th century.

Old law tenements on Sullivan Street south of west 3rd Street.

“French flats” at 39 1/2 Washington Square North.

Ornate fire escape balconies, tenement, Sullivan Street north of Spring Street.

Second Empire Style rectory, St. Anthony of Padua Church, Thompson Street south of Houston Street.

130-132 MacDougal Street, owned by Bronson Alcott, where his daughter Luisa May Alcott stayed. She is said to have written parts of “Little Women” here.

132 and 134 West 4th Street — Greek Revival rowhouses with artists studios added on the top floors in the early 20th century.

Tenement facades, Sullivan Street below Houston.

Early 19th century houses, Minetta Street at Minetta Lane.

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