Tag Archives: Cable Building

Greenwich Village signs

Greenwich Village

Work In Progress: This neighborhood gallery is not yet complete.

New York’s Greenwich Village preserves two centuries of architectural treasures. These photos only hint at the historical architecture protected by the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1969.

Although “the Village” usually includes West Village, NoHo, and East Village, this gallery excludes those subdivisions – which have their own galleries.

As befits the district’s bohemian/counterculture image, the streets here ignore (because they predate) Manhattan’s street grid. Hence, you’ll find West 4th Street and West 10th Street intersecting, when they should be parallel, six blocks apart. Getting lost may be fun, but first-time visitors will want to bring a map!*

Wikipedia summarizes:

Greenwich Village, often referred to by locals as simply “the Village,” is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan, New York City. Greenwich Village has been known as an artists’ haven, the Bohemian capital, the cradle of the modern LGBT movement, and the East Coast birthplace of both the Beat and ’60s counterculture movements. Groenwijck, one of the Dutch names for the village (meaning “Green District”), was Anglicized to Greenwich. New York University (NYU) is located in Greenwich Village.

Greenwich Village has undergone extensive gentrification and commercialization; the four zip codes that constitute the Village – 10011, 10012, 10013, and 10014 – were all ranked among the ten most expensive in the United States by median housing price in 2014, according to Forbes, with residential property sale prices in the West Village neighborhood typically exceeding US$2,000 per square foot ($22,000/m2) in 2016.

Highly recommended: NYC Landmarks Map

* P.S., the West Village’s Gay Street has nothing to do with sexual orientation. Go ahead, Google it!

Greenwich Village Recommended Reading
Greenwich Village Architecture Photos
Building / Address Year Architect
1 Fifth Avenue 1927 Helme & Corbett, Sugarman & Berger
37 Washington Square West 1928 Gronenberg & Leuchtag
39 Fifth Avenue 1922 Emery Roth
Beauclaire / 25 E 9th Street, 26 E 10th Street, 40 University Place 1926 Sugarman & Berger
Cable Building / 611 Broadway 1894 McKim, Mead & White
Devonshire House / 28 E 10th Street 1926 Emery Roth
Lockwood de Forest house / 7 E 10th Street 1887 Van Campen Taylor
The New School / 63 Fifth Avenue 2014 Skidmore Owings & Merrill
Novarre / 135 W 4th Street 1860 Charles Hadden
Roosevelt Building 1894 Stephen D. Hatch
Wordsworth / 21 E 10th Street 1926 Sugarman & Berger

Google Map Note: Google’s definition includes the West Village; this gallery encompasses only the area east of Sixth Avenue (Avenue of the Americas).

NYC Landmarks Map

Cable Building

Cable Building

Cable Building, at the southwestern corner of the NoHo Historic District, is the last remnant of a San Francisco-style cable car system that once served lower Manhattan. The nine-story* Beaux Arts building housed the massive steam engines and winding wheels that pulled 40-ton cables at 30 mph. Alas, the cable system was uneconomical. The last cable car ran just seven years after the first.

For architects McKim, Mead & White, this was their first all-steel-frame building. The four-story-deep basement held the machinery. Above ground, it was a doughnut of offices built around a central light court. Both of the building’s Houston Street corners are chamfered. Light orange brick and terra cotta rise above the two-story limestone arcade base.

While Broadway’s Bowling Green-to-36th Street cable cars did not survive, Cable Building did. Metropolitan Traction Company reorganized as New York Railways Company, and sold the building in 1925. For the next six decades the structure housed small businesses and manufacturers. Then in the late 1980s it went back to being an office building.

Angelika Film Center took up residence in 1989, using the four basement floors.

* The building appears to be eight stories, if you count the floors of large windows. But tiny square windows tucked under the cornice – and larger windows in the north facade – reveal an attic ninth floor.

Cable Building Vital Statistics
Cable Building Recommended Reading

Google Map