Seventh Avenue South’s Shifting Streetscape
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 a number of images of buildings along Seventh Avenue South.
Seventh Avenue South contrasts markedly with surrounding streets. Unlike other streets in the neighborhood, which mainly date to the 18th or early 19th century, the construction of Seventh Avenue South was not approved until 1911. It extended Seventh Avenue from its previous southern terminus at West 11th Street to Clarkson Street, where it connected to Varick Street, to allow automobile traffic to more easily connect from Penn Station to the Financial District, and to allow for the construction of the Seventh Avenue IRT subway line underneath. Cutting through dozens of existing blocks, when Seventh Avenue South was completed in 1917, many buildings along its route had to be demolished, or in some cases, sliced in half. The construction resulted in a number of small, awkwardly shaped triangular lots. These lots have all been developed in different ways, and some of our new historic image archive additions help tell the stories of how these sites have changed.
A number of lots along Seventh Avenue South were developed to have small one and two story buildings, commonly referred to as “taxpayers” (just big enough to generate income necessary to cover the cost of property taxes), like the one pictured below. Many were built around the time of the Depression; that, and the limited size and off shapes of the lots, often determined their modest scale.
At the corner of Seventh Avenue South and West 4th Street, the triangular lot is occupied by a one story utilitarian structure built during the 1920s. When photographed above in 1937, it was home to a location of Riker’s, a defunct New York City chain of affordable sandwich shops.
The structure is now home to a location of Little Ruby’s, a popular Australian restaurant with a few locations around New York City. For nearly 50 years the building was home to the Riviera, a restaurant and sports bar considered by many to be a neighborhood institution.
Another taxpayer lot along Seventh Avenue South was previously located at 192 Seventh Avenue South, at the corner of West 11th Street. This one-story commercial building was constructed in 1920.
This site has since been redeveloped and replaced by a four story residential building with a commercial ground floor that was completed in 2018, and pictured below.
Other sites have an even more complicated history. The image below from 1933 shows a gas station at Seventh Avenue South and Perry Street.
This station has since been demolished, replaced with a building used for subway ventilation, and a two story restaurant, both pictured below.
Click HERE to see more images from our historic images from landmarks application collection.