Exploring Lost Greenwich Village Through Historic Images
Our Historic Images from Landmarks Applications collection is one of the most extensive in our historic image archive. It is regularly updated with additional historic images that are included in local Certificate of Appropriateness applications to the Landmarks Preservation Commission. These provide invaluable documentation of our neighborhoods, and the newest batch includes several images of buildings that are no longer extant.
These images were taken by Sailors’ Snug Harbor, a charity established in 1801 to serve elderly sailors. It was established as a bequest in the will of Robert Richard Randall, son of wealthy merchant and entrepreneur Thomas Randall, which gave the charity a large swatch of the Randall Estate to develop a hospital. This piece of land encompassed nearly ten blocks of modern Greenwich Village, bound by by Fifth Avenue, 9th and 10th Streets, Fourth Avenue, Astor Place, 8th Street, University Place, and Washington Square North.
By 1823 the value of this property had skyrocketed, and Sailors’ Snug Harbor decided it was best to develop and lease these landholdings, and instead construct their facilities elsewhere. Their Greenwich Village property was divided, and the leases were auctioned. The profit from this was used to construct a new hospital and housing for Sailors on the North Shore of Staten Island, these facilities opened in 1833, and remains known as Sailors’ Snug Harbor.
Back in Greenwich Village, Sailors’ Snug Harbor continued to own and lease their properties. Between 1895-1905, they commissioned a survey of their landholdings, which provide a detailed glimpse into the neighborhood at this time. Several of these images have been added to our archive, and some of them include buildings that are long gone.
These buildings previously stood at the corner of University Place and East 8th Street. They, along with the adjacent Hotel Martin, pictured below, were demolished in the 1950s.
The Hotel Martin, which later became the Hotel Lafayette, opened in the 1880s, out of an amalgamation of three townhouses. When this hotel and the adjacent buildings were were demolished in the 1950s, they were replaced by the Lafayette Apartments.
Another hotel included in the archive, the Brevoort, holds a similar story.
The Hotel Brevoort opened during the 1850s, after three rowhouses, nos. 9-13 Fifth Avenue were combined. Later, No. 15 Fifth Avenue, also a rowhouse, was added to the site. The hotel remained at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 8th Street until 1954, when it was replaced by the Brevoort Apartments, pictured below.
Learn more about the history of this site, and development of lower Fifth Avenue by checking out our Fifth Avenue: 1824 to Today map.
Also added to the collection is the image below, which features a row of no longer extant rowhouses on East 9th Street.
This row of houses was replaced by 35 East 9th Street, a nine-story neo-Renaissance apartment building was constructed in 1925. This building, pictured below, was designed by designed by Helmle, Corbett, & Harrison and is part of our proposed South of Union Square Historic District.
Click HERE to check out the entire Historic Images from Landmarks Applications collection. To explore more images of buildings that have been demolished, use the no longer extant to tag to explore the more than 4,000 images in our historic image archive.