Jane Street in 1969 and 2003
Some Greenwich Village New York City History

By

Warren Allen Smith
(Listed in Contemporary Authors, he moved to Jane Street in 1990)

In 1969 “The Greenwich Village Historic District Designation Report” was published. At that time August Heckscher was Administrator, Parks, Recreation, and Cultural Affairs Administration; Harmon H. Goldstone was Chairman of the Landmarks Preservation Commission; and John V. Lindsay was the Mayor.

The study focused on New York City's designated Historic District, which included Jane Street from Greenwich Avenue only to Washington, not to West Street. At that time, two garages and several businesses were on the street, and an electrical substation had been remodeled as an apartment building.

In earlier days, it is believed that a cow path (rather than a cobblestone road) led to the Jaynes (or Jayne) farm, where tobacco was grown in the area. The street’s name might have been altered from Jaynes or Jayne to Jane by a Villager, Mrs. Jane Gahn. Later along the street one could find carriage houses, coachmen’s quarters, stables, and a stoneyard. At one time, according to nonagenarian Jean Verral, who once was an editor for pulp magazines such as Police Blotter, silent movies were shown for a time in a lot at the corner of Jane and Washington Street (site of a small garage owned by painter Jasper Johns in partnership with Julian Lethbridge that is adjacent to the Furniture Store on WashingtonIf a movie were to be shown on any day, a red light announced it. No red light, no movie!
 
First, some views of the 5-block-long Jane Street, which The New York Times once described as having more published authors of books per block than any other place in the city, leading some to call the street "authors' row."

 
    
Looking west from Greenwich Avenue                                                                    






Looking east from 4th Street


             

Jane Street is in the west part of Manhattan's Greenwich Village.  As the above map shows, it is only five blocks long, from Greenwich Avenue to the Hudson River. Across the Hudson River is New Jersey.

The following facts are from the 1969 “Greenwich Village Historic District Designation Report,” cited above. 
[Comments by the present author in 2003 are in brackets. All photos were taken by the author in November 2003.]



#1    The Archbishopric of New York hired architect Charles Kreymborg to build a simple six-story brick apartment here in 1938-1939. The structure replaced a late Federal house at the corner of Jane and Greenwich, in addition to the two town houses next to it on the Greenwich Avenue side.
[Entrance to the Soy Luck restaurant is on Greenwich Avenue.]

#2    A six-story apartment building, it is one that features rounded bay windows at the corner. It was erected in 1903 and replaced houses built in 1842 for the DeKlyn Estate.
[Benny’s Burritos, a restaurant, has an entrance on Greenwich Avenue.]


#4-8    The three Greek Revival brick houses, each three stories high, were built for speculative purposes in 1843 by the heirs of Leonard DeKlyn, a merchant who had purchased the land. Dr. David M. Halliday, whose wife Mary was a DeKlyn, owned #4. Buildings #6 and #8 retain their original appearance.
[When the warehouse at 247 West 12th caught fire in 1922, #8 Jane was damaged and two firemen died in the fire.]


#5 & 7    Robert J. Gray, a machinist, erected these early apartment buildings in 1871.

#9    The four-story building was erected in 1844 as an investment for Walter H. Mead, a tinsmith. An arched gateway affords access to a three-story house (#9 1/2) built in 1854.

#10-14    At this site was a six-story garage that extended through to 247-251 West 12th St.
[It was called the Castle Garage, had been built in 1910 as a warehouse to store paper, rubber products, whiskey, and photographer’s flash powder. The structure supposedly was fire-resistant, but Terry Miller’s Greenwich Village and How It Got That Way (Crown, 1990), describes how it burned for five days and nights, exploding when whiskey or flash powder caught fire. The garage was replaced by condominiums, and the Jane Street side was closed.]

#11-19    In 1921 a two-story garage was erected for the New York Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Formerly it had been the site of the Jane Street Methodist Episcopal Church, which had established itself here in the mid-1840s. Two 3-story townhouses once stood at each side of the lot.
[The name of the present garage is Value Management Corporation. Adjacent is P. E. Guerin Bronze Manufacturers and on the corner of 4th Street and Jane is the 18-story Rembrandt co-op.]



#16    A five-story apartment house, it was designed originally in 1887 for Robert Dick and completely altered in 1939. Two Tony Sarg murals, just inside the entrance door, decorate the entrance hall.

[Tony Sarg (1880-1942) was a producer of puppet shows and with his wife Margo creator of “Howdy Doody.” One of his students was Bill Baird. Part of one of the murals was saved when the entrance was re-painted. Following is his "Fish Footman," described by one person as "almost too proud to speak to anyone," from a 1930 production of "Wonderland."]





[John Schroeder - jazzola@prodigy.net - sent the following on 23 Dec 2005: 


#20    Originally a five-story house built in 1872 for Charles Guntzer, the building’s stores at either side of the entrance were converted to apartments in 1952.

#21-25    The building was erected in 1868 for the Bronze Works Manufacturing Company.
[The name of the present business is P. E. Guerin Bronze Manufacturers.]


#22    The two-story-high building was erected in 1868 for Calvin Demarest and served originally as a stable with living quarters for the coachman on the second floor.


#24 & 26    Two five-story stone buildings were erected in 1885-1886 for two brothers, James and Isaac Lowe, who lived here.

#28    The one-story building was erected originally in 1913-1914 and altered by the addition of a rear extension in 1921 for Charles Fitzpatrick.
[Leo Design Studio occupies part of the ground floor.]

#30    Formerly a stable with living quarters above, the small two-story structure was occupied for a number of years by a printer. Linus Scudder, who built other houses in the Village, constructed it in 1870.
[The Gottleib Corporation owns the building, in which is a food catering business.]

#31    In 1959, The Rembrandt, a seventeen-story apartment house (42-46 8th Avenue) was built by the Irman Realty Company and occupies the corner site on 8th Avenue. The main entrance is at 31 Jane. The co-op rents space to a store and a dry cleaner on the 8th Avenue side. A Russian-born sculptor who had studied in Paris, Gleb W. Derujinsky, resided here and became known for his busts of Lilian Gish, Mrs. Henry Hammond, and Theodore Roosevelt.   “This eighteen-story apartment house . . . represents a breaking away from the scale, the quality, and the beauty that we have come to associate with The Village. The windows are still articulated as individual entities but are already being grouped in ever-larger multiples unrelated to anything which adjoins the building. This block, with its three tiny houses flanked by apartment houses, is an example of the fate awaiting The Village if such new construction is permitted without any preliminary review of its design." 
[Novelist and member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters Ed Hoagland lived here, as did Robert McKinley, an eminent maker of dolls, who died here in 1994. Another resident was Linda Stone Davidoff, the executive director of the Citizens Union and a leader in parks advocacy and progressive political causes for four decades.]
   
[Adjacent to 31 Jane Street is 21-25, the P. E. Guerin Bronze Manufacturers building.]


#32    In 1829, Richard Cromwell, a merchant, purchased this and the adjoining properties (331-327 West 4th) from David Bogert. His building had an English basement entrance but now retains little of its original character and has been completely smooth-stuccoed.


#33    This three-story building faces both on Jane Street and on Eighth Avenue (#31). Built for Alfred A. Milner five years earlier than #35, it has been completely altered and smooth-stuccoed.

#34    A corner house (331 West 4th St.) was originally built in 1828. The one-story extension at the rear was a later 19th century addition, replacing a stable at the back of the lot.
[A bar, the Corner Bistro, has its entrance on 4th Street. Across the street on the corner of 8th Avenue is a delicatessen, 38 Market, which went out of business in 2003. Catercornered across the street at 31 Eighth Avenue, which has an entrance partly on Jane, the Tavern on Jane was the setting of a feature film, “The Tavern.”]


the triangle where West 4th Crosses Jane Street

[Triangle at Jane, West 4th, and 8th Avenue - A Pink Triangle was anonymously painted here to commemorate those who, from the 1980s on, had died of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. In the 1990s the AIDS triangle disappeared - despite bitter complaints by many - when changes were made in the configuration of the triangle, and through traffic was detoured from West 4th to Jane and across 8th Avenue to the remaining 4th Street block that ends on West 13th Street.]

[#31 Eighth Avenue  The Tavern on Jane is operated by Horton Foote Jr., whose father is the Academy Award screenwriter of To Kill a Mockingbird and Tender Mercies. The corner building can be entered with one foot on Jane and the other on Eighth Avenue.]

#35    Here is a four-story house built in 1847 for Alfred A. Milner, a baker. Later it was remodeled as a store. Sculptor Abron Ben-Schmuel lived here in the mid-1930s.
[Bonsignor, a pastry shop, is at this address now.]

#36    [At this un-numbered site, the Jane Street Garden in 1973 was begun by members of the Jane Street Block Association. The lot had been owned by St. Vincent’s Hospital. The garden was started on what was a burned area of land. In 1975, after a developer bought the site and was denied permission by the Landmarks Commission to build, the city took over the property and charged the Jane Street Block Association to use it. When the association became unable to pay, it was turned over to the West Village Committee, which negotiated a new lease and has cultivated and cared for the garden through volunteer labor and contributions. It contains two varieties of crabapple trees; a range of roses; and shrubs such as dogwood, firethorn, crape myrtle, yew, hydrangea, smoke tree, rose of Sharon, boxwood, jasmine nudiflorum, red bud, Chinese and American holly. Its flowers include violets, narcissus, tulips, bleeding heart, columbine, peonies, alyssum, lilies, foxglove, mint, astilbe, iris, hosta, dahlias, hollyhocks, and asters. . . . At the Jane Street Fair in 1999, baseballer Sandy Koufax visited one weekend, but equally noted celebrities are and have been full-time residents. . . . .Since 1988, Billy Romp, a tree farmer from Shoreham, Vermont, has sold Christmas trees on the corner. Christmas on Jane Street (1998) describes his, his wife Patti’s, and their three children’s annual trips to Greenwich Village. Sleeping in their tiny camper parked nearby, they became known as “the tree people.”]



#37 & 39     Here was an electrical substation building erected in 1924 by and for the Edison Electric
Illumination Company. It was an addition to its building at 30-32 Horatio Street and stands on the site
of a church erected in 1836, one occupied by successive Presbyterian church groups, first by the village
Presbyterian Church, then the Jane Street Church, and finally the Fifth Associate Reformed
Presbyterian Church. In 1966-1967 it was remodeled as an apartment house, the upper floors of which
have central triple windows flanked by single windows.



#38-40    Here are three-story houses built in 1845 for John Marsh of Mendham, NJ.

#41 & 43    These two five-story apartment houses were built in 1888 for Robert Dick. The cornices reflect the influence of the Queen Anne style popular at his period.

#42-50    Here is a fine row of Greek Revival houses, all built on land which was sold by the estate of Richard Townley in 1845 and dates from 1846. People who lived there were Ira Crane, a mason, at #44; Thomas Crane, who owned a granite company, at #46; and Gustavus A. Conover, a builder, at #48.



#45    The number was not used in the present numbering system.

#47 & 49     These two four-story brick town houses were built in 1837-1839 for Alexander Mactier, a merchant and a large property owner in the neighborhood. A fourth story was added to #49 after 1858. In 1870 the front of #47 was extended forward for J. W. Johnston. Both houses were altered in the 20th century to provide basement entrances.

#51    Here is a five-story building built in 1870 for William H. Aldrich, owner-architect

#52 & 54    It is likely that in 1848 Gustavus A. Conover, who had purchased the land and paid the taxes, built #52, a simplified version of the Gothic Revival style. In 1851, #54 was built for an agent of the Merchants Exchange, John M. Patterson.
[In 1997 #52 was renovated with a 400 square foot addition.]

#53 & 55    These three-story brick houses were built in 1846 for George Schott, a tobacconist who also owned 624 and 636 Hudson Street around the corner.
[In the original 1971 movie, “Shaft,” Shaft’s apartment was at #55.]

#56    A four-story corner house, it was erected in 1852 for Leonard Appleby.

#57    The building was built for George Schott in 1846.
[Mi Cocina, a restaurant, has its entrance on Hudson Street.]

#58-66    The five brick Greek Revival residences were erected in 1848-1849 by Stacey (Stacy) Pitcher, a mason at 117 Crosby Street, as a part of his development of the block. #62 and 64 have fine craftsmanship and design of the ironwork of their handrailings at the stoops. The stair rails are wrought iron with castings set between the vertical spindles. #62 displays square openwork panels of wrought iron that make the transition from the stair handrailings to the more widely spaced railings of the landing itself. #62 retains its original wrought iron areaway railing with modified Greek Revival fret design at the base. #64 has ornamental latticework cast iron porch at its landing and respects the design of the original ironwork. The stone basement of this three-unit row is handsomely rusticated.  [Greenwich Cleaners Inc. is now at #66, its entrance being on Greenwich Street.]

#59    This number is not used in the present numbering system, but at the site was a bricked-up doorway, which once served as the rear entrance to 624 Hudson Street.

#59-63    A huge nineteen-story apartment house was erected in 1962-1964. At one time seven houses stood here facing Hudson. “The Cézanne rises to a height of 19 stories. Built in 1962-1964, it has not attempted to band or streamline the windows horizontally in the manner which was so unusual in the 1930s and carried over to the 1950s. The windows, which have wood sash, are grouped in twos and threes and, in the wider grouping of threes, a picture window is inserted in the middle. More attention to neighborhood fenestration might, at no extra cost, have produced a more compatible building.” [When The New Republic published his first story, writer John Cheever (1912-1982) was a teenage dropout who lived on the corner where #61 now is .]





#65-67    A charming courtyard with a simple wrought iron railing, it is the entranceway for #809-813 Greenwich Street.
[It now is an entranceway to the Greenwich Street houses only by way of Jane Street.]


#68    A seven-story factory and loft building, it was designed in the tradition of McKim, Mead & White (architects of the New York Herald Building and the Boston Public Library) by David H. King Jr.  It was built in 1897 for Helene M. Cavarello. “Although not in character with the residences in the area, this is an unusually fine commercial structure and set a standard for this area which was never surpassed.”
[Its entranceway now is on Greenwich Street.]


#69    Where once a two-story corner house with a rear lot and a stable once stood, now there is a parking lot at the corner of Jane and Greenwich streets.
[It now is a design studio adjacent to the Furniture Company, with an entrance on Greenwich Street. The garage, a workshop on the corner, is owned by painter Jasper Johns in partnership with Julian Lethbridge. According to the street’s oldest resident, Jean Verral, silent movies were sometimes shown in that vacant lot.]


#70-80    The six brick Italianate residences here are similar architecturally, but the house at #80 was built in 1849 while the remaining five were erected in 1855. The row was built for Joseph Harrison, a merchant and real estate speculator.


#71-81    The six brick Greek Revival residences here were developed in 1846-1847 by Peter Van Antwerp, an attorney at 33 Pine Street who resided at #75. The other houses were built as residences for two lumber merchants, William Foster (#73) and William Dunning (#79); and a planer, Daniel D. Clark (#71). Stephen H. Williams (#81), a carpenter-builder at 105 Bank Street, likely planned and built this row.
[Alexander Hamilton died at a physician’s home near but closer to the middle of the area between #81 Jane and Horatio Street. Someone named Jaynes is said to have built a house at 81 Jane in 1750, but it was torn down in 1800.]


#80 1/2, 82    Built in 1886, the pair of five-story brick apartment houses tower over the nearby buildings. The architect was M. Louis Ungerich for John Totten.
[A plaque installed in 1936 at #82 erroneously states that Alexander Hamilton died here after his fatal duel across the Hudson River in Weehawken with Aaron Burr. He had been brought, still alive but paralyzed from the waist down, to the William Bayard House, close to but not specifically at #81 Jane, except that the street then was curved in the direction of Horatio Street. According to Greenwich Village and How It Got That Way, by Terry Miller, the William Bayard House never stood at #82 but, instead, was “just below the present Gansevoort Street. . . close to the present Horatio Street—possibly even in its path, as Horatio wasn’t mapped until 1817 or opened until 1835.”]


#83    Robert H. Bayard in 1853-1854 had this four-story brick residence built. It is Anglo-Italianate in style, with an English basement. The house is crowned by an Italianate cornice with vertically placed, paired console brackets and paneled fascia.
[Gay historian Jonathan Ned Katz and MacArthur Fellow Allen Bérubé once lived here.]


#84 & 86    Built in 1858 in the local vernacular of the period, the two brick houses were originally only two stories in height but later another story was added. #86 retains its stoop, which is enhanced by a simple iron hand railing. Both residences, erected for Samuel D. Chase as part of a row of three, are crowned by bracketed Italianate cornices of identical design.

#85-87    A low two-story brick building, it was erected after the middle of the 19th century on the site of a former stone yard. In 1885, the two original houses were altered to a stable and carriage house. It now serves as a garage and factory building.
[At the site now is Pro Piano, which rents upright and grand pianos.]

#88-90    Replacing a row house at #88 and a stable at #90, this one-story 1919 brick structure serves as a warehouse and garage for the building on the corner, #94 Jane Street.
[#88 is now a four-story building owned by the 88-90 Jane Street Corporation. Composer David Diamond once lived here.]


#89-93    Built in 1919 as a one-story garage, this brick building was raised to two stories in the early 1960s.
[#89 is now a studio belonging to Industria Superstudio, a commercial photography company at 775 Washington Street.]

#92    Italianate in style, this three-story house with basement is all that remains of several houses built in 1858 for John B. Walton.


#94    The corner two-story brick industrial structure was erected in 1948.
[The entrance to a commercial photography company is on 777 Washington Street.]

#95    A three-story vernacular structure with a completely incoherent design, it was erected in 1849 as a residence. “A one-story extension at the rear of the lot was a later addition. Not the slightest effort was made to reconcile window sizes to each other or to relate them to the large door. The building serves a useful purpose in the community but, at no extra cost, the varied window sizes might, in the hands of a skillful designer, have been made exceptionally attractive, befitting its location in an Historic District.”
[The building, once listed as Moore’s Wholesale Meats, has been boarded up and not in use for years. In November 2003, however, it ihas been completely renovated.]


#97 - 99    [A public park with a small waterfall is now at #99, between Washington and West streets. It is gated in the evenings.]

#99    [An eleven-story luxury building with 175 units of 2-, 3-, and 4-bedroom apartments, #99 was completed in 1999 by architects Fox and Fowle.]


#100    [An eight-story apartment building, #100 is operated by 100 Jane Street Lic.]

#101 – 109    [A garage at this site extended through the block to 100-108 Horatio Street. In 1986 the Horatio Street side was demolished, according to The Architecture of The Greenwich Village Waterfront (NYU Press, 1989).]

#111    [A six-story apartment building, #111 is operated by Jane Street Condo.]

#113 - 115    [Originally the Seamen’s Institute of the American Seamen’s Friend Society (1910), according to Stuart Waldman in Maritime Mile (2002), it had an octagonal tower that housed a beacon light. Later, it became Jane West Hotel and is now called Hotel Riverview. First described as a home-away-from-home “for seamen of all ranks and all nationalities visiting the Port of New York” and “a temporary refuge for “seamen in distress,” in 1912 it housed surviving crew members of The Titanic. It is a six-story hotel that includes on the ground floor, where the hotel’s formal ballroom once was, The Jane Street Theatre, which seats 280 and has a small balcony.]


#118    [The NY Central Railroad’s elevated freight line from West 12th to Jane Street was completed in 1934. The empty lot below became a parking lot.]

#124-132    [Originally a factory, it was gutted by fire in 1891. In 1978, it was converted from a paper warehouse to a six-story multiple dwelling, Harbor House.]

#140-142    [A parking lot operated by Icon Parking Systems covers the area from Harbor House westward to West Street.]


In March 2004, the Gansevoort Hotel opened at 9th Avenue and 13th Street.  Following are some photos taken from its roof.



31 Jane is the tallest building just to the right of the light-colored building on West 4th and Gansevoort, which once housed RCA Institutes.


The tall building is 61 Jane Street, looking downtown from the Gansevoort Hotel's rooftop.


This was taken from the Gansevoort Hotel's roof looking southeastward toward 99 Jane.  That's Newark across the Hudson River. 

Gansevoort was Herman Melville's family name on his mother's side. Starting in 1865 for nineteen years he worked in the Custom House that was at the Hudson River end of Gansevoort Street.  Of his other seven siblings, Herman's oldest brother was Gansevoort Melville.


Some Books About Greenwich Village



Some References to Jane Street

                Crow, Kelly, "Sailors' Quarters, Once 25 Cents" (The New York Times, 22 April 2001)



                   Upham, Ben, "A Rich History Lurks Behind the Sides of Beef" (The New York Times)

                   Wilson, Claire, "Hipsters, Meatpackers and Families, Too"  (The New York Times 7 December 2003)
                           




Contact the Author