New York Songlines: 10th Street

South:

Block (394 West): Bongo, seafood lounge, Was The Ramrod, gay leather bar. In 1980, a former transit cop shot into the bar with a semi-automatic weapon, killing two and injuring six. He was found not guilty by reason of insanity.

Corner (650 Washington): Built in 1964

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305 (corner): Uguale, Italian-French. Was Peter Rabbit's, bar catering to young black gay men.

Site of Newgate State Prison

Block: At the foot of 10th Street (then Amos Street) was Newgate State Prison, opened in 1797 as New York's first prison and the second prison in the country. Despite some progressive policies--the co-ed convicts were taught trades, a physician and a pharmacist were hired, and the first warden lived in the prison along with his family--the institution was plagued by overcrowding, riots and smallpox epidemics. It was closed in 1829 when its inmates were sent "up the river" to the newly opened Sing Sing. In its day, the prison was apparently a tourist attraction; it's memorialized in a mosaic in the Christopher Street subway stop.

South:

272: Villlage Community School (K-8)

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277 (corner): Shephard House was built c. 1894 as the Shephard Warehouse, converted to apartments in 1978.

South:

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259 (corner): The Village Landmark is a converted early 20th Century warehouse. Not actually a landmark, but it does have nice arches.

Corner (519 Hudson): Cowgirl Hall of Fame, fun Western kitsch bar

South:

Corner (518 Hudson): Part of a row of houses put up in 1826 by Isaac Hatfield, this recently housed the Blind Tiger Ale House, famous for its extensive selection of beer, bourbon etc.; before that it was One Potato.

250: Was Boys Town, a gay-oriented boarding house that in 1972 was home to John Wojtowitz, whose attempt to rob a bank to pay for his boyfriend's sex change was the basis of the film Dog Day Afternoon.

246: Built 1826.

240: Tangerine, orange-decored Thai

228: L'Artusi, Italian small plates, Was Eighty-Eights, gay piano bar

218 (corner): Village Apothecary. Playwright Terrence McNally has lived here.

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233: NYPD's 6th Precinct is the Village's police station; there were no murders reported here in 2003. The AIA Guide calls it a "visual catastrophe." Speaking of catastrophes, this is home to the NYPD's bomb squad.

Corner (350 Bleecker): Was Kim's Video and Audio, the West Village incarnation of the city's best video chain. This was also the home of Craig Rodwell, founder of the Oscar Wilde Bookshop, the U.S.'s first gay bookstore. He helped organize the Stonewall Uprising and the first Gay Pride Parade.

South:

Corner (347 Bleecker): Details, gifts.

210: Westville--hamburgers, hot dogs and wine. It's got an East Village sibling called Westville East.

204: In the 1960s was The Inn, which "looks like a hideaway...for vampires"-- New York Unexpurgated. By 1972 it was Carr's, neighborhood gay bar.

188 (corner): The Warwick, a red-brick building dating to c. 1870, houses Empellon Taqueria, which was Chow Bar, pan-Asian; was Formerly Joe's, named for Joe Stanziani's legendary Italian restaurant, opened at this spot in 1933.

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Corner: Nusraty Afghan Imports

211: Formerly The Snake Pit, a gay after-hours club. When police raided in 1970, they arrested not only the employees but some 167 customers--a breach of standard procedure. One arrestee, Argentine immigrant Diego Vinales, tried to escape by jumping out of the police station's second floor, impaling himself on the wrought-iron fence. Rushed to St. Vincent's (along with part of the fence), Vinales survived, but his ordeal prompted a wave of angry protests.

189: Chez Ma Tante, French bistro opened in 1984

185: Was Voila, gay-oriented 1960s restaurant. By 1972 it was known as the Glory Hole Restaurant.

Corner (228 W 4th): The Fairfax, cafe/wine bar, was Absolutely 4th Street, bar whose name plays on the Bob Dylan song; was Jack the Ripper, serial killer-themed pub.

South:

Block (223 W 4th): The only address remaining on this block truncating by the pushing of 7th Avenue South through the village.

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183 (corner): Bar Sardine was I Tre Merli ("The Three Blackbirds"), bistro that has another branch on West Broadway.

At the same address was Lenny's Hideaway, infamous cellar dive. In 1994, it became Smalls, a funky, affordable jazz club-- closed in 2003, but recently resurrected.

Also here is While We Were Young, New American.

181 (corner): Bobo, French, was the 181 West jazz bar; before that the Psychic Cafe, Italian with tarot readings.

South:

178: In an address now replaced by Seventh Avenue was the New York Pasteur Institute, a facility founded in 1890 that treated 300 cases of human rabies a year.

Corner (117 7th Ave S): Gourmet Garage is part of a mini-chain of upscale groceries. NY Sports Clubs above. Night Gallery Cafe was here.

Three Lives & Co.

154 (corner): Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Cunningham called it "one of the greatest bookstores on the face of the Earth." Appears on the cover of Jonathan Franzen's How To Be Alone. Named for Gertrude Stein's book; formerly Djuna Books, for Djuna Barnes. In 1972, Stimulated Man, a gay porn store, was here.

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165: Novelist Theodore Dreiser wrote The "Genius" while living at this defunct address. Its honest portrayal of Village sexuality led to threats of arrests against bookdealers and the novel's suppression for 10 years.

163 (corner): Otto's Tacos was Tanti Baci Caffe, affordable Italian. Also Te Company, tea.

Julius'

159 (corner): Originally a speakeasy where Fats Waller sometimes played -- check out the peephole in the side door. Later became a low-key gay bar -- the oldest in the Village -- where people like Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams and Rudolf Nureyev hung out. Edward Albee met a young man here, an archaeologist married to the daughter of his college's president, who inspired Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?.

In 1966, three members of the Mattachine Society held a "sip-in" here, declaring themselves to be gay before ordering a drink. The bar's refusal to serve them led to the overturn of laws forbidding serving homosexuals. Three years later, patrons here are said to have sympathized with police during Stonewall riots.

South:

150 (corner): Highlands, Scottish gastropub

142: Was Lowcountry, before that the minimalist Bar Blanc, which used to be The Place on West 10th, sibling to The Place (on West 4th--a popular little Mediterranean). Earlier was Casey's, a French restaurant in the 1970s whose New Orleans jazz brunch often featured Charles Mingus.

138: Jack's Stir Brew features acclaimed coffee.

132: FDNY Squad 18, organized as Engine Co. 18 at this site in 1863. The headquarters, built 1892, features a bay door mural painted during the U.S. Bicentennial.

130: Was Almanac House (1941-42), communal house for Woody Guthrie and the Almanac Singers, led by Pete Seeger. Hootenannies galore in the basement. In 1947, the building was bought by former ice skater Alan E. Murray, inventor of the Space Shoe, which is still advertised on the doorway; once fashionable, the ultra-comfortable footwear was worn by Danny Kaye, Steve McQueen, Lillian Gish and Arthur Godfrey. In recent years the building has been home to Sonic Uke, a ukelele supergroup, and the stoop has been the site of uke-i-nannies.

Corner (21 Greenwich Ave): Quality Foods, steakhouse, was Grano Trattoria, Italian noted for wild game

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139: DeSantos, unmarked basement bar, used to be Janis, named for the fact that Janis Joplin used to live in this building.

Earlier was Caffe Torino, and before that Ninth Circle, hip coffeeshop/bar opened by Mickey Ruskin in 1962, after he left Les Deux Magots; he sold it in 1964 and opened Max's Kansas City in 1965. The Ninth Circle is, of course, the deepest level of Hell. Here supposedly Janis jammed with Jimi Hendrix, and Diana Ross had her first show ever; Frank Serpico met his contacts. Edward Albee saw graffiti in the bathroom: "Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?" By the 1980s, it was a gay pick-up joint; Rock Hudson was a customer.

Previously was Renganeschi's Old Place, an Italian/French restaurant founded in 1898; then the Colledge of Complexes, a bar & grill and debating society.

141: Bell Book & Candle, American with roof garden, named for a 1958 witchcraft comedy

Corner: Saint Germaine Apartments are 15 unfortunate stories of white brick that went up in 1962. St. Germaine (1579-1601) was a pious shepherdess who lived near Toulouse, ill-treated by a wicked stepmother, whose body was said to be miraculously preserved after her death.

South:

Jefferson Market Greening

Jefferson Market Library

Corner (425 6th Avenue): Built 1877 to a Calvert Vaux design. Originally a courthouse and fire tower-- a market and prison, originally connected, now demolished. Courtroom held 1907 trial of millionaire Henry K. Thaw, who shot architect Stanford White, his wife's former lover; insanity plea was successful.

Preservationists, including e.e. cummings, succeeded in turning the abandoned courthouse, slated for demolition, into a branch library, 1967. Sherlock Holmes did his research here in the film They Might Be Giants.

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Corner (18 Greenwich Ave): This 1954 building housed Sutter's French Bakery, an esteemed pastry shop, until 1972. Later Village Paper and Party was here, until it was burned out in a 2010 fire. Now it's Rosemary's, Italian that cooks with ingredients grown in a rooftop garden.

121: Two bars, The Happiest Hour and Slowly Shirley (downstairs), are at this address. Used to be Kingswood, Australian, and earlier Jefferson, Asian-inflected American.

117: Pinto Garden was Cafe Asean, affordable Southeast Asian from the owner of Jefferson. Garden is ''one of the city's best little outdoor eating areas''--Unknown City.

113: Was Common Ground, Native American crafts

Patchin Place

Like Milligan Place around the corner, built as housing for Basque workers at 5th Avenue's Brevoort Hotel. Has had a number of famous residents, mainly literary: No. 1: John Reed and Louise Bryant (1895-1920); No. 4: e.e. cummings (1923-62); No. 5: Djuna Barnes (1940-82). Also here were Theodore Dreiser (1895) and Marlon Brando (1943-44).

107: Was Heartbeat Records, dance music.

103: Kinsman Barber Shop

101: Bombalulu's, cool children's clothes, toys

South:

Corner (434 6th Ave): Joffrey Ballet School, founded in 1953 by Robert Joffrey and Gerald Arpino.

Patchin Post Office (10011)

64: Was Peter's Backyard, a "well-established Greenwich Village spot" noted in the 1939 WPA Guide. It was started in 1905 by Peter Galotti, and was still going strong in 1959. In the 1980s, this was Texarkana, a Cajun restaurant trendy enough to make it into the film American Psycho--though when the title character thinks he sees Ivana Trump there, another remarks, "Why would Ivana be at Texarkana?" Today it's Alta, a romantic Mediterranean.

58 1/2: Site of Tile Club, artists' club in the 1880s that included Stanford White, Winslow Homer, William Merritt Chase and Augustus Saint-Gaudens.

56: Well-preserved 1832 house. Note pineapple ironwork--symbol of hospitality.

54: Author Hart Crane lived here briefly in 1917.

52: Federal style (1830); designer Isamu Noguchi once lived here.

50: Playwright Edward Albee and Hello Dolly writer Jerry Herman lived in this converted 1869 stable.

48: Federal style (1829)

44: The John Alden, a nine-story apartment building that dates to 1917, is named (like two buildings across the street) for a character from a Longfellow poem.

40: 1890s house was home and studio (1911-51) of sculptor Charles Keck, whose Father Duffy is in Times Square. House reworked in 1980s; check out penthouse terraces.

English Terrace Row

20-38: Townshouses designed by James Renwick (1856-58). No. 38 was the home of actress Kathleen Turner. Surrealist Marcel Duchamp moved to No. 28 in the late 1950s--to be near the Marshall Chess Club; the same house was earlier lived in by detective novelist Dashiell Hammett (1947-52)--an occupation interrupted by his 1951 prison term for refusing to name names. Columnist and Algonquin Roundtable member Franklin Adams moved to No. 26 in 1929. No. 20 was home to sculptor Frederick MacMonnies, whose Civic Virtue is at Queens Borough Hall; from 2011-15 it was owned by Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick.

18: 1856. Poet Emma Lazarus ("Give me your tired...") lived here.

16: Banker James F.D. Lanier, who built English Terrace Row, lived here. Now the Center For Modern Psychoanalytic Studies.

Mark Twain House

14: This 1856 Gothic Revival townhouse, where Twain lived from 1900-01, is reportedly haunted. Six-year-old Lisa Steinberg was killed here in a notorious 1987 child abuse case.

12: Built 1846, renovated 1895. Etiquette maven Emily Post lived here with her sisters. Muralist Isabel Whitney also lived here.

Corner (30 5th Ave): This 15-story brick apartment building designed by Schwartz & Gross was completed in 1923.

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61: Priscilla, a 1920s apartment building named, like two others on the block, for a character in ''The Courtship of Miles Standish.''

59: Standish; the building, unlike the character in the Longfellow poem, ends up with Priscilla.

57: The Marlborough Arms, seven stories built in 1915, houses Osteria 57, which used to be Piadina, named for an Italian flatbread.

51-55: Site of Studio Building (1858-1956), where artists like Winslow Homer, William Merritt Chase, Albert Bierstadt, John La Farge and Augustus Saint-Gaudens worked. Richard Morris Hunt, who designed the building, as well as Carnegie Hall and the Statue of Liberty's base, had his office here. Poet Kahlil Gibran lived here (1911-31). When Frederic Edwin Church exhibited his monumental painting Heart of the Andes here in 1859, 12,000 people paid 25 cents apiece to see it. The spot is now occupied by Peter Warren House, 1950s apartments named for Admiral Peter Warren, an Irish-born Royal Navy captain whose captures made him a rich man and the owner of much of what is now Greenwich Village.

37: Author Sinclair Lewis and journalist Dorothy Thompson lived here from 1928-29.

23: Marshall Chess Club, founded 1915 by Frank Marshall, U.S. champion 1909-36; here since 1931. Marcel Duchamp was a leading member; Bobby Fischer used to play here regularly. Stanley Kubrick was a member in the early 1950s, when he was working as a chess hustler in Washington Square Park.

Church of the Ascension

Corner (36-38 5th Ave): This Episcopal church was designed in 1841 by Richard Upjohn, architect of Trinity Church. The interior, remodeled by Stanford White in 1889, features John La Farge stained glass and an altar by Augustus Saint-Gaudens. President John Tyler secretly married Julia Gardiner here (1844); the bride was 30 years his junior. The funeral of globetrotting journalist Nellie Bly was held here in 1922.

South:

Corner (33 5th Ave): Fifteen-story building by Sugarman, Hess & Berger completed 1923

4: Gothic revival

8: Donald Ogden Stewart, screenwriter of The Philadelphia Story et al, had an apartment in this 1848 building. In 1947 he subleased it to his friend John Garfield, the year the actor starred in Body and Soul. Both Stewart and Garfield were later blacklisted.

Pen and Brush Club

16: A women's arts organization founded in the 1890s; among its members have been muckraker Ida Tarbell, Eleanor Roosevelt, Ellen Wilson (Woodrow's wife), Marianne Moore and Pearl Buck. Offers lectures, workshops, exhibits, concerts etc. Its clubhouse since 1923 has been this 1848 Greek Revival townhouse.

18: More gothic revival

26 (corner): The Beauclaire is a block-long Spanish-flavored apartment building built 1927. The name comes from a 1925 film, based on a Booth Tarkington story, about a French duke posing as a barber. Richard Gere and Cindy Crawford used to live at this address; actors Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins have lived in the building as well.

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Rubin Hall

Corner (35 5th Ave): This NYU dorm (acquired by the school in 1964) was built in 1925 as the Grosvenor Hotel. It was the most expensive hotel in New York City south of 28th Street in 1939 (according to the WPA Guide), with rooms starting from $4 a night. Novelist Willa Cather lived here from 1927 to 1932; Mark Twain stayed here as well, in an earlier incarnation of the hotel.This was the dorm (at least in exterior shots) of the title character of the TV show Felicity.

Bronfman Center

7: NYU's Bronfman Center for Jewish Student Life has amazing teakwood bay windows; Lockwood De Forest, an artist who worked in teak, lived in and built this 1887 house. Kipling, whom Lockwood knew from India, visited him here.

9: More teakwood on a house designed by James Renwick's firm (1888). Novelist Dawn Powell lived here 1931-42 , where she wrote Turn, Magic Wheel, The Happy Island, Angels on Toast and A Time to Be Born, and began My Home Is Far Away.

15: Mayfield, a 1920s ''collegiate Georgian'' building.

21 (corner): University House, neo-Renaissance apartments built in 1923 as The Wordsworth, is home to Amorino, super-rich Italian hot chocolate. (Used to be Spice, styley Thai.) Perfect Storm author Sebastian Junger is said to have lived here. It was also where Ann Sothern's character lived in The Ann Sothern Show, which ran from 1958-61.

South:

28 (corner): Devonshire House is a 1928 apartment building designed by Emery Roth in a ''Hispano-Moresque'' style. University Floral Design has been on the ground floor since the building opened; Tudor Rose Antiques is also here.

30: L'Epoque Antiques

32: Ristorante Il Cantinori, credited with bringing Tuscan-style Italian to New York. I ate here once with a group that included a well-known magazine editor, who brought along a rather odd gentleman. After his guest left, the editor explained that he was a former CIA officer who had a falling out with the agency when they wouldn't let him blow up an apartment building. I was a little freaked out to have unknowingly eaten lunch with a would-be mass-murderer. Carrie from Sex and the City celebrated her 35th birthday here by herself.

34-36: Karl Kemp & Assoc. Ltd. Antiques

Randall House

60 (corner): Apartments named for Capt. Robert Richard Randall, whose house was near the southeast corner of this block. Randall owned most of the land from Tenth Street to Waverly Place between 5th and 4th avenues; he left it to establish Sailor's Snug Harbor, old folks' home for sailors; the trust still owns the land, 21 acres of prime Manhattan real estate. (From 1833 until 1875, Snug Harbor used to be in Staten Island, where for a time Herman Melville's brother was its governor; now it's in North Carolina.) The trust has aggressively maximized the profit from its land, which is one reason the central Village is so much uglier than the neighborhood to its west.

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Albert Apartments

23 (corner): Formerly Hotel Albert, named for painter Albert Pinkham Ryder, whose brother owned it. Visiting novelists Robert Louis Stevenson and Leo Tolstoy both stayed here. Novelist Thomas Wolfe lived here (1923-26) when he first moved to New York to teach English at NYU; he wrote much of ''Look Homeword Angel'' here and fictionalized the place as the Hotel Leopold in ''Of Time and the River''. Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention, Lovin' Spoonful, Michael Bloomfield and electronica pioneers the Silver Apples all lived here at the same time c. 1966, when the place was a flophouse. John Phillips wrote "California Dreaming" here; James Taylor wrote "Rainy Day Man." Paul Butterfield Blues Band formed here, Lovin' Spoonful wrote "Do You Believe in Magic?" in the basement recording space, which was also used by Cream and Canned Heat. Byrds, Frank Zappa, Jim Morrison, Muddy Waters, Joni Mitchell, Tim Buckley

25: The Albert Chambers is a 10-story building from 1883—pretty tall for those days.

29: Reymer-Jourdan Antiques

35: Readers stationery

35-41: The Lancaster (1887), designed by James Renwick's firm.

43: Cathers & Dembrosky American Arts & Crafts is in an 1890s building the AIA Guide calls "grand."

49: Was The Pilgrim, a gay-friendly restaurant in the 1960s that featured "good, cheap, lavish meals."

51: Hostler Burrows gallery used to be Raymond Waites antiques, which had a quotation in its window: "Modern man associates himself with the ancient world, not to reflect like a mirror, but to capture its spirit and apply it in a modern way.—Palladio, A.D. 1564." O'Sullivan Antiques is downstairs.

53: An 1899 building by Schickel & Ditmars. In 1967, Apostolic Records opened here, the nation's first 12-track recording studio. Frank Zappa made Uncle Meat here; the Grateful Dead and The Fugs were among other clients. Antique store Maison Gerard Art Deco has been around since 1974.

Brittany Residence Hall

55 (corner): NYU dorm was formerly Brittany Hotel, which has housed columnist Walter Winchell, actor Al Pacino and rocker Jerry Garcia. The penthouse, now a study lounge, was once a speakeasy. The ground floor features Broadway Windows, displays of student art—often interesting.

South:

Stewart House

70: Apartments built on site (and named for) A.T. Stewart's Cast-Iron Palace, in 1862 the first large store on Ladies' Mile, of which it was the southern endpoint. Stewart, called "one of the meanest men that ever lived," died 1876, and his body was kidnapped from St. Marks' graveyard in 1878 and held for ransom; they were returned by parties unknown in 1881 in exchange for $20,000. In 1896, the store was purchased by rival John Wanamaker (whose main store still occupies the next block south—now a K-Mart). It was closed in 1954, and burned down 1956 in an inferno that injured 208 firefighters.

These apartments were home to Leon Klinghoffer, the man in a wheelchair on the Achille Lauro cruise ship who was shot and pushed overboard by Palestine Liberation Front hijackers, October 8, 1985.

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Grace Church

Corner (800 Broadway): This beautiful landmark was architect James Renwick Jr.'s first work, having won a contest to design it. Calvert Vaux, co-designer of Central Park, landscaped the garden. Circus star Tom Thumb was married here, as well as Newland Archer in The Age of Innocence; David Duchovny married Tea Leoni in the backyard here in 1997. The funeral for Commander Henry Honeychurch Gorridge, a naval officer who became a celebrity for transporting Cleopatra's Needle to New York, was held here in 1885.

The churchyard was the site of Fleisch- mann's Vienna Model Bakery, whose daily donations of unsold bread gave rise to the term "breadline"; it appears in the novel Sister Carrie.

Corner: Grace Church School playground

South:

80 (corner): Ten-story modular glass building, built 2018. The lot was vacant for a decade; before that it was Green East grocery.

78: Used to be the Tenth Street Coffeehouse, an artists' hangout when this block was the center of the art scene. This was Mickey Ruskin's first restaurant, before he opened Les Deux Magots. Poets like Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso used to read here, in a reading series that after several moves became the Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church.

80: Was Atlas Barber School

84: Zundo-Ya, ramen; Turntable Lab audio. Was 99X, limited-edition sneakers.

86: Black & White, hipster bar. Until 2014, this was the address of Wiz Kid Management, which represented The Strokes; Ryan Gentles was the booker at Mercury Lounge before he started working for the band.

88: Was Jillery gifts before it moved to Avenue B. Willem de Kooning lived here in the 1950s, making this block an avant garde art center.

90: Montauk Salt Cave, salt spa; Iknari, Japanese steakhouse (formerly Danal tea). Used to be Tanager Gallery, an important 1950s art gallery started as a co-op by de Kooning et al.

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Corner (85 4th Ave): Tim Ho Wan, dim sum, used to be Spice, local Thai chain, and before that Rosie & Ting, pleasant Chinese

79: City of Saints is an outlet for coffee roasted in Bushwick.

77: Was Academy LPs, used records-- moved to 12th Street.

85: Johnny Ramone lived here for about 10 years in the 1980s/early 1990s. He was almost killed in a fight on the sidewalk here with another punk musician over Johnny's girlfriend, Cynthia "Roxy" Whitney; he went to St. Vincent's with a fractured skull.

89: Was the address of Coda Galleries, described in 1966 as featuring "dances, dancing, showings, plays, poems, exhibits, the works."

95: Sundaes & Cones has really good ice cream.

Corner (48 3rd Ave): Element Beauty Lounge was Galaxy Delicatessen. I'm oddly fond of this building—I like the arched windows and the brickwork.

South:

Alumni Hall

Corner (33 3rd Ave): NYU dorms built 1986, housing mostly sophomores. Note "aerodrome" on roof.

106-110: Italianate rowhouses built 1867

Renwick Triangle

112-128: These 1861 rowhouses (and others around the corner) were designed by James Renwick Jr..

118: Architect Stanford White was born here on November 9, 1853.

120: Photographer Diane Arbus lived here (1968-70).

122: Actors Molly Ringwald and Karen Allen have lived here.

128 (corner): This was Nicole Kidman's apartment in The Interpreter.

Abe Lebewohl Triangle

Tiny park named for 2nd Avenue Deli's murdered owner.

W <=== STUYVESANT ST

Peter Stuyvesant's farmhouse was on Stuyvesant Street, approximately where 10th Street is now.

Corner (48 Stuyvesant): A seven-story apartment building that dates to c. 1900. Until recently, A. Fontana Shoe Repair was on the ground floor; now it's Third Rail Coffee.

Corner (159 2nd Ave): This corner was Rectangles, long-running Yemenite restaurant.

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Corner: Used to be Bendiner & Schlesinger, medical lab. Torn down and replaced with a School of Visual Arts dorm, after negotiations with NYU fell through. There used to be a plaque here mis-marking the site of the Stuyvesant Pear Tree--because the person who rescued the memorial put it up on his own building and then refused for many years to return it. The plaque is now back at its proper location, at 3rd and 13th.

109-117: Italianate rowhouses built 1856

119: A Greek Revival rowhouse from 1845

121: This 1899 apartment building with Romanesque Revival and Neo-Classical influences was the longtime home of writer T.C. Gardstein.

123: An Anglo-Italianate townhouse from 1854. Indie queen Parker Posey has lived at this address.

125: This building is a twin to No. 123.

127-129: Built in 1854, these buildings provided housing for New York Mission and Tract Society workers from 1903-33.

St. Marks West Yard

The space between St. Marks' rectory and the church was to be filled in by a 18-story apartment tower designed by Frank Lloyd Wright; with all due respect to Wright, it's a blessing that the Great Depression scuttled the plan. Some of the ancient maples in the yard were lost to the Asian Longhorn Beetle in 2000.

St. Marks-in-the-Bowery Church

Originally a church of Manhattan's elite, St. Marks became a progressive force in the neighborhood both socially and culturally. Supportive of immigrant, labor and civil rights, the church was a meetingplace for Black Panthers and Young Lords, and launched the first lesbian healthcare clinic.

Poets like W.H. Auden (who was a parishioner), William Carlos Williams, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Amy Lowell, Carl Sandburg, Kahlil Gibran, Allen Ginsberg, Patti Smith and Jim Carroll have all read here; since 1966, the St. Marks Poetry Project has organized poetery events. The Danspace project has featured dance legends like Isadora Duncan, Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham. Sam Shepherd's first two plays were produced here, and Andy Warhol screened his early films. The church served as the setting for a wedding and a funeral in the film The Group, and for another wedding in A Beautiful Mind.

St. Marks Churchyard

Department store pioneer A.T. Stewart, whose store filled the block between 9th and 10th streets east of Broadway, was buried here in 1876, but on November 6, 1878, his body was snatched and held for $200,000 ransom. The widow eventually regained possession of the corpse in 1881, after bargaining the kidnappers down to $20,000. He now rests elsewhere.

South:

Corner (156 2nd Ave): The former home of the Second Avenue Deli, opened 1954, closed in late 2005. Comic Jackie Mason was a big fan; has-been pornographer Al Goldstein worked here as a greeter. Note stars of Yiddish theater immortalized on sidewalk; point out Sholom Secunda and say, "Hey, he wrote 'Bei Mir Bist Du Schon!'" Deli founder Abe Lebewohl was murdered in a still-unsolved 1996 shooting.

200: United Shipping and Packaging, dependable shippers

204: Chikalicious, dessert bar. Was Tracey Garet, East Village art gallery.

206: Note terra cotta monsters

212: Madame Vo, Vietnamese, was Iron Sushi; before that 10th Street Lounge, with a front wall that opened to the street.

214: Curry-Ya, Japanese curry; Hi-Collar, Japanese cafe, was Rai Rai Ken, ramen bar

216: Shabu-Tatsu specializes in shabu-shabu, a Japanese beef soup you cook at your table. Very fun. Also Rai Rai Ken, ramen, which I think used to be a few doors down.

220: The Lodge menswear; The Millinery Shop

222: Director Stanley Kubrick lived here in the mid-1950s, in the apartment of his second wife, dancer Ruth Sobotka.

224: Graffiti Food & Wine Bar, Persian/Indian/French/American; Atelier Muse, boutique

228: Site of St. Marks Memorial Library. Later housed Miss Williamsburg, the East Village outpost of a great Brooklyn restaurant. Now Dieci, Japanese-style Italian food.

242: The bar Pinks was Company, and before that NW3, named for London's hip zip code. Until the early 1980s, Dee Dee Ramone lived in apartment 21 upstairs.

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Corner (160 2nd Ave): Nicoletta, fancy pizzeria that opened in 2012 to unkind reviews. Replaced Cafe Centosette; the name meant "107" in Italian, not 160--because it used to be located at 107 3rd Avenue (where Kiehl's is).

203: Former home of Gus Florist became Chikalicious, dessert bar now also across the street.

213-217: Note terra cotta monsters. Feminist author Shulamith Firestone lived at No. 213 for about 30 years until her death in 2012.

221: Limited to One Records, Computer Answers. Was Amon Ra Showroom, boutique named for an Egyptian sun god

223: Was Azaleas, a lingerie store with polaroids of eligible bachelors in the dressing rooms--now on Second Avenue.

229: Strange allegorical faces

231: Minimalist faces

241: Snowdays is the place to go for shaved cream, which is like fluffy ice cream. Vinyl Market, techno and trance records, and Kung Fu Tea were here.

Corner (163 1st Ave): Taralluci e Vino's name means "cookies and wine," but sells sandwiches and espresso--go figure. Formerly Sassy's Sliders, tasty White Castle-like burgers. Upstairs used to be Princess Pamela's, a secret apartment/restaurant "where you could eat great homecooking, served by the hostess often wearing scuffy slippers."

South:

Corner: The deli here was where Dee Dee Ramone used to get his morning coffee after he got his morning heroin. Recently spiffed up.

254: The address of the Fun Gallery, which popularized graffiti art with exhibitions by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, etc.

266: Liquids lounge

Russian-Turkish Baths

268: A neighbor- hood institution since 1892. Birch flogging optional.

280: Was Obscura Antiques and Oddities, a fascinating curiosity shop now on Avenue A. Also and/or used to be Lake, handcrafted animal "fabric companions," and Design, greeting cards.

286: The view from the roof of this building is posted online.

St. Nicholas of Myra

288 (corner): Carpatho-Russian Greek Orthodox Catholic Church, named for the original Santa Claus. Built in 1883 as St. Mark's Memorial Chapel, a mission church for St. Marks-in-the-Bowery designed by Grace Church architect James Renwick Jr. and sold to immigrants from the Rusyn region of Slovakia in 1925. A beautiful Gothic Revival building; note St. Mark emblem (a lion) on north side.

Both north and east walls have faces made of leaves--a romanesque motif known as a foliate mask--that is believed to be a pagan survival, and is interpreted as representing the Green Man, a vegetation god.

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245 (corner): Beronberon, Japanese, carries on the tradition of Sapporo East, which did much here to introduce Japanese cuisine to the East Village.

247: Was Pasta Place from 1909 until 2005, a remnant of the former Italian community here. Now Gaea's Garden--flowers and crystals.

249: Alpha Pet City

251: Jazz musician Henry Threadgill has lived here.

253: This building was profiled in a U.S. News & World Report cover story comparing lives in 1900 and 2000.

257: Tenth Street Church of Christ

261: Kavasutra, bar serving kava, a Polynesian intoxicicant. Was Live Live, raw-food snacks and books

263: Quintessence, raw-food vegetarian restaurant. The former address of Obscura Antiques and Oddities; the two-headed calf has been sold, unfortunately. Musician Rob Zombie used to live at this address, as did actor Steve Buscemi; in Buscemi's Trees Lounge, Chloe Sevigny says she's going to live here when she runs off to the city.

265: This address was the boyhood home of mobster Charles "Lucky" Luciano, who moved here from Italy in 1906 when he was nine. The next year he was already charging neighborhood kids a penny a day not to beat them up.

More recently was Moustache, Middle Eastern.

267: Ro, high-fashion man-bags

269: The first home to have a Christmas tree with electric lights was here, in 1883, owned by Edward Johnson, an Edison associate.

277: Brindle Room, noted for fancy burgers, was P. Sweet Millinery

279: Praxis/Open Arms Project: "Feel free to drop off your prayer requests as we continue to pray for you daily. Free: Hugs, Foot-Washing, Band-Aids & Money (while supplies last). Coming Soon: Miracles."

Boys Club of New York

Corner: The nation's first Boys Club, founded in 1876 by railroad tycoon Edward H. Harriman; at this location since 1901.

South:

Tompkins Square Park

Named for Daniel Tompkins, governor of New York (1807-16) and U.S. vice president (1817-25), a populist who abolished slavery in New York.

Once a salt marsh owned by Peter Stuyvesant, the park was drained and developed in 1834. After being the site of bread riots in 1857 and draft riots in 1863, it was leveled in 1866 and turned into a National Guard parade ground. Neighborhood protests resulted in the re-establishment of the park by 1879; part of the redesign was by Frederick Law Olmstead, but most of his plan was not implemented. Reconstructed by Robert Moses in 1936.

The bandshell erected in 1966 was a venue for concerts by Jimi Hendrix and Grateful Dead. When 38 people were arrested for playing conga drums, a judge threw out charges, citing "equal protection for the unwashed, unshod, unkempt and uninhibited.

Struggle over homeless encampment in 1980s led to the August 1988 police riot, when 44 were injured by cops with tape over their badge numbers. After Memorial Day Riot in 1991, Mayor David Dinkins closed the park for 14 months' of renovations; bandshell destroyed. The park now has a midnight curfew.

The blacktop in the northwest corner of the park is one of Manhattan's prime skateboarding spots.

General Slocum Memorial

Through the gates is an area set aside for families, with sprinklers, picnic tables and a small pool (the East Village's best-kept secret).

There's also a pink marble monument commemorating the June 15, 1904 disaster when a boat on a picnic excursion caught fire, killing 1,021 people. Most of the victims were mothers and children from the German-American community that used to live around Tompkins Square. Until September 11, 2001, this was considered the worst disaster in New York City history.

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Corner: Horus Cafe, part of a mini-chain of Egyptian coffee- houses. Named for Osiris' hawk-headed son. Was Spectra Photo/Digital. In the 1960s, there was a sandwich shop called The Something here with a two-story vertical sign. The building says Chas. J. Smith on the cornice-- presumably the builder.

297: Tenth Street Tots (now East Village Tots) was my daughter's first daycare. "We play hard-- we get dirty!"

315: Project Contact

321: St. Marie apartments, c. 1890

323: Bonsall apartments, c. 1890

331: The Tompkins Square Branch of the New York Public Library started out in 1887 as the Fifth Street Branch of the Aguilar Free Library. It moved here in 1904 into a building paid for by Andrew Carnegie and designed by McKim, Mead and White.

337: Gnocco, which imports its chefs from Italy. Terrific pizza. The site of Gracie Mansion, an East Village art gallery.

339: The Blind Barber is a bar/club hidden behind a functioning barbershop; the space used to be Plan B and Drinkland; before that the gay dance club Crow Bar.

341: Ninth Street Espresso is a branch of a coffeeshop at 9th and C. Was the Tompkins Square Bakery. Illustrator Elliott Banfield has lived in this building for 30 years.

Site of Life Cafe

343 (corner): An East Village fixture from 1981 until 2011. The tables were decorated with Life magazine photos; the "Life" logo on the door seen backwards said "Art." Featured in the musical Rent (both stage and screen, though the exterior for the movie is the bar Vazac's, and the interior is a set).

The restaurant there is Maiden Lane, which apparently is not named for the one downtown but \ for the one in London. They serve seafood.

South:

Formerly the back of the Charas community center, shut down in 2001 by its greedy landlord after much protest; now being threatened with demolition and replacement with a for-profit "dorm." See Stop the Dorm for more info.

380: Cafe Floral Delight, cupcakes

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371: Former child star Bobby Driscoll (he was in Treasure Island and Song of the South, and the voice of Peter Pan) was found dead of a drug overdose in a then-abandoned tenement here on March 30, 1968.

377: A squat that got legal title to its building in 2002.

381: Tuli Kupferberg of The Fugs used to live here.

383: A building at this address was the Peace Eye Bookstore, a hippie landmark owned by The Fugs' Ed Sanders.

Corner (163 Avenue C): Urban Vets Animal Hospital

South:

404: Was Betsy's Kitchen, American Spanish Italian

406: Rinconcito Restaurant, Dominican

408: Consuelas Grocery; poet Allen Ginsberg lived above here from 1965-75.

410: Kraman Iron Works, established 1913

414: Folk/blues legend Leadbelly lived here from 1936, shortly after he got out of prison, until his death in 1949. Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger and other folk musicians would often come here to play.

444: Keepers III Self Service Storage Center; nice loft building

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Corner (170 Ave C): This 21-story residential building went up in 1967.

411 (corner): Village East Towers, a 25-story Mitchell-Lama co-op built 1967.

Dry Dock Park

South:

Jacob Riis Houses

A large public housing complex built in 1949. Named for a Danish-born photojournalist whose work documenting New York tenement life, especially his book How the Other Half Lives, helped inspire slum-clearing.

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Jacob Riis Houses

Footbridge to East River Park (under reconstruction, 2002-03)