“This is the most pretentious of the houses on our string, because my better judgment was over-balanced by my sentimentalism and my longing to do something better here than I ever did before” — Marcus Loew You’d never know by looking at it now, but the intersection of East 5th St. and Avenue B in […]
We at GVSHP were deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Romana Raffetto of Raffetto’s Fresh Pasta, located at 144 West Houston Street. She was a great friend to GVSHP over the years, supporting South Village preservation efforts and providing us with an oral history, along with her son Andrew. We remember and honor Romana, […]
Today, 105 Second Avenue is a bank. The city moves on and overtakes what used to be at a given spot pretty quickly, but maybe you know that 105 Second Avenue was the home of the legendary Fillmore East from 1968 until 1971. It’s a narrow building with a brick facade and a domed roof, […]
On January 3, 2017, GVSHP launched our Civil Rights and Social Justice Map. Something in the air told us there might be a hunger and need for this kind of information. But even we would not have guessed that the map would receive over 70,000 views in that time, with its praises sung in BrickUnderground, […]
On April 29, 1996, playwright Jonathan Larson’s Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize winning musical “Rent” made its Broadway debut at The Nederlander Theatre. As many Broadway show-goers and longtime East Village residents already know, “Rent” takes place in the heart of the East Village during the AIDS epidemic in the mid-to-late 1980s. This legendary rock […]
The history of Broadway is a diverse one. In our neighborhood, this famous thoroughfare has seen upscale townhouses be replaced by store-and-loft buildings, many of which have since been converted to apartment buildings. For a long period of time, clothing manufacturing was prevalent here. And where there was clothing manufacturing there were always sewing machines. […]
Today, the building that houses the Salmagundi Club at 47 Fifth Avenue is a bit of an odd duck. At four-and-a-half stories, the 1853 Italianate style rowhouse is sandwiched by taller apartment buildings on either side. To someone walking by, the stately old brownstone may almost look like the Little House from the Stuart Little […]
Earlier this month the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) approved a revised design for a new building at 192 7th Avenue South, corner of West 11th Street. It will replace a one-story structure. This is the second of two new buildings that the LPC has approved on 7th Avenue South this past year, no. 130 being […]
The produce spilling out into the street and the haphazard awnings in the above 1925 photo of Bleecker and Christopher Streets is quite different from the Bleecker Street scene of today. Though the commercial tenants on the street have certainly changed, the corner building, with its interesting window design, has a long history.
Located at the corner of West 10th and Washington Streets, the imposing building at 277 West 10th Street was built between 1894 and 1896 to the designs of Martin V.B. Ferdon. Now residential, it lies within the boundaries of the Greenwich Village Historic District Extension in the Far West Village. No. 277 West 10th Street […]
The image above was taken in 1933. It’s a view looking across Seventh Avenue South, northwest toward Grove Street. In addition to the price of gasoline (eight gallons for $1.05 at the ‘Sheridan’ Shell gas station in the photo), some other changes have occurred to the view from this location over the past eighty-one years.
At the southeast corner of Bowery and East 3rd Street, within the recently designated Bowery State and National Register of Historic Places District, sits the Bowery Hotel, designed by Matt Markowitz Architect, PC and built in 2002-2004. Maybe you’ve stepped in for an event, or maybe you’ve enjoyed a meal at Gemma, the hotel’s Italian […]
At 293 and 297 West 4th Street, between Bank and West 11th Streets in the Greenwich Village Historic District, sit two new townhouses that, at first glance, look like three. The façade of no. 293 was designed to resemble two three-bay wide rowhouses that are prevalent in the neighborhood, but in actuality it is one […]
For today’s post in our Then & Now series, we thought we’d feature a few locations in our neighborhoods as they looked in the 1980s. Similar to last week’s post on using historic maps, the City of New York’s 1980s tax photos are an invaluable resource in helping us understand our built past. As with […]
We’d like to share GVSHP staffer Amanda Davis’ “Then & Now” post about a delightful block just west of the High Line. On the other side of the High Line, just outside the Gansevoort Market Historic District, sits two old three-story rowhouses at 53 and 55 Little West 12th Street. Now home to the Brass […]
In the Far West Village, along the Greenwich Village waterfront, sits a block of West Street between 10th and Charles Streets. Of the buildings on this block, only 396 and 398 West Street sit within the Weehawken Street Historic District, which the Landmarks Preservation Commission designated in 2006. The Greenwich Village waterfront is one of […]
Happy New Year! And what better way to kick off a brand new year than by sharing one of our favorite series with you: Then & Now. Let’s turn the clock back almost 100 years ago to a time when bohemians roamed the Village. Until the early 1920s, the buildings around Sheridan Square were a […]
Today we take a look back at a piece written by former GVSHP staffer Dana Schulz about an interesting piece of history on Fifth Avenue involving scandal, cigarettes, and urban policy. Read more from our Then & Now series on Off the Grid! In 1847, on Bond Street in London, a young man named Philip […]
Near the southern end of the High Line, the Meatpacking District bustles with designer clothing stores, outdoor cafes, and trendy hotels. Tourists in particular flock to this area, and it can often be a source of amusement to watch club-goers navigate the bumpy Belgian block (aka cobblestone) streets in their fashionable stilettos. Many New Yorkers, […]
It’s always fun to look at then and now photos of buildings and streetscapes we’ve long come to admire here on Off the Grid. Today, just ahead of the Labor Day weekend, we wanted to check in on the Hebrew Actors’ Union building at 31 East 7th Street in the East Village. With its stark […]
The middle of the 19th Century saw an influx of wealthy New Yorkers moving north of Washington Square. To cater to this growing population, lavish new developments began to spring up around Union Square. Gothic Revival religious institutions such as the James Renwick-designed Grace Church and the Richard Upjohn-designed Church of the Ascension (a […]
Warm, sunny days in the Village have us here at GVSHP looking forward to our annual house tour, which takes place this Sunday, May 5th. There’s still time to buy tickets! They can also be purchased the day of the tour at a higher rate. The forecast for Sunday calls for a beautiful day — […]
A new application for storefront work at a gas station on the corner of Eighth Avenue and 13th Street has us reaching into the GVSHP files today on Off the Grid; below is a “Then & Now” post written by former GVSHP staffer Dana Schulz about another gas station site in the Village. The odd, […]
Do you recognize this location? The building partially visible at left is the only part of this scene that has survived nearly 120 years after the photo was taken in 1895. The Germania Theatre (center) was demolished a few years later, as was every other building on that block. The horse-drawn carts have long been […]
The New School’s new building at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 14th Street is getting closer and closer to being completed. After topping out back in May, the patinated brass and glass cladding has been steadily climbing the sides of the new sixteen-story building (full view below) which will house dorm units and library and […]
When I was home recently I looked through one of my parents’ photo albums and happened to find this photo of Seventh Avenue South taken at some point in the 1970s. I thought it would make for a great then and now. Even though not that much time has passed, there have been a number […]
The familiar view above, taken in 1933, looks north on Greenwich Avenue (at Horatio Street) toward 14th Street and features the striking art deco Substation 235 of the New York City Transit Authority.
The East Village is renowned for its avant-garde, Off-Off Broadway theaters. One of the great examples is the Theater for the New City. Founded in 1971 by Crystal Field, George Bartenieff, Lawrence Kornfeld, and Theo Barnes, TNC was an offshoot of the Judson Poets Theater. Then-Mayor John Lindsay had recently given a speech envisioning a […]
Standing where Broadway begins its curve to the west at 10th Street, the landmarked Grace Church has been a fixture of Broadway’s landscape for over 160 years. James Renwick Jr.’s gothic masterpiece was consecrated in 1846 after the congregation moved uptown from its original location at Broadway and Rector Street. The 1890s photo above shows […]
Yesterday we explored some of the history of elevated train lines in the Village. Today we’re going to take a quick look at another elevated part of our neighborhood’s history.
Last week we talked about the history of the building at 48 3rd Avenue and left you wondering about the rest of the block of 3rd Avenue between 10th & 11th Streets. As a reminder, this started when we came across a great picture of the block taken by Berenice Abbott in 1937. Using information […]
Last week we tantalized you with an incredible photograph of 3rd Avenue between 10th and 11th Streets taken by Berenice Abbott in 1937. Today, we revisit that block to take a look at some of its history. In case you have forgotten how much the block has changed, this is what it looks like today. […]
We are very fortunate that photographer Berenice Abbott captured images of New York City in the 1930s and 1940s (Abbott, by the way, lived off and on in Greenwich Village, including in the Provincetown Playhouse and Apartments, recently demolished by NYU). With an almost singular focus on streetscapes and architecture, her images, like the one below, provide unparalleled […]
Though the character of Gansevoort Market has certainly undergone many changes over years, there are certain buildings and views that have remained remarkably intact. One such location where you can peer back in time is at Gansevoort Plaza, where Greenwich Street/9th Avenue, Gansevoort Street, and Little West 12th Street intersect. Though much new development has […]
