Bank Street: The Living Legacy of Jane Jacobs’ Vision

A half block north Perry Street, on Hudson Street in the heart of Greenwich Village, sits a rather plain, mid-19th century brick townhouse with large white-paned windows. This perhaps otherwise unremarkable looking building offered Jane Jacobs a front-row seat to a perpetual performance of what she called the New York City street ballet, her observations of which fundamentally changed notions of cities, neighborhoods, and urban planning.

Throughout her work and writing, Jacobs praises city streets and their adjoining sidewalks as a city’s most vital organ. As the title of her debut book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities suggests, Jacobs compares the city to a living organism, capable of life and death rather than success or failure. She highlighted the value integrated mixed-use neighborhoods hold within urban landscapes and how they allow for a safe, enjoyable life.

Today we travel to the West Village and turn down Bank Street, which Roberta Brandes Gratz, author of The Battle for Gotham: New York in the Shadow of Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs, cites as “…the quintessential Jane Jacobs Greenwich Village block, the quintessential urban street.”

Stretching six blocks from West Street along the Hudson River to Greenwich Avenue, Bank Street is full of charm, cafes, and even celebrities. What’s notably absent, however, is what the street is named for! Ironic as it is, there are no banks on Bank Street — anymore, that is. This, however, was not always the case. In an effort to escape a late 18th century outbreak of yellow fever, the Bank of New York fled Wall Street, landing north in Greenwich Village where they purchased eight lots of land on what’s now Bank Street.

Over the years, the street has amassed an impressive roster of residents and travelers. At No. 105, John Lennon and Yoko Ono rented their first New York apartment in the early 1970s from Joe Butler of the Lovin’ Spoonful, before the couple found a longer-term (but ill-fated) residence uptown at the Dakota. Infamous Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious briefly lived with his girlfriend Michelle Robbins at 63 Bank until his untimely passing at only 21 years old. And the real-life Auntie Mame, Marion Tanner lived at 72 Bank Street.

While the block leans mainly residential, the eateries and boutiques (which, mostly, are of more recent vintage) offer vibrancy and variety to the street that is otherwise dominated by apartment buildings and historic rowhouses. 

The original building of the Bank Street College of Education still exists at 69 Bank, though now it has been converted to an apartment building. Originally known as The Bureau of Educational Experiments, founders Lucy Sprague Mitchell, Wesley Mitchell, and Harriet Johnson aimed to improve educational systems by implementing a psychological and democratic approach. The school operated out its Bank Street building from 1930 until relocating to West 112th Street in 1971. 

Heading eastward, at the intersection of Waverly Place and Bank Street is the renowned Waverly Inn at 16 Bank Street, which opened in 2006. The street corner’s red brick townhouse has been a West Village staple since its construction in 1844. Over the years, the establishment has undergone many variations, and at one point operated as a tavern, a bordello, and a teahouse. In 1919, the building transformed into the Ye Waverly Inn where writer Willa Cather was said to have dined for lunch daily. Other notable regulars included poet Robert Frost and playwright Edna St. Vincent Millay (both of whom are caricatured in Edward Sorel’s mural that famously graces the walls of the current inn). For centuries now, bohemians and artists have flocked to the tucked-away corner of Waverly and Bank.

With sites like Westbeth and HB Acting studios, the street is canonically Greenwich Village, catering to and for the creative. Bank Street is a physical manifestation of what Jane Jacobs advocated for throughout her career: a block where neighbors and strangers can coexist, and homes are juxtaposed with businesses—all of which reinforce a crucial sense of community and place.