New York Songlines: Charles Street

West St | Washington St | Greenwich St | Hudson St | Bleecker St | West Fourth St | Seventh Ave S | Waverly Place | Greenwich Avenue
When Charles Christopher Amos acquired the estate once owned by Admiral Peter Warren, he gave one of his names to three successive streets. (Amos Street was later renamed 10th Street.)



HUDSON RIVER





S <===           WEST STREET           ===> N

South:

162 (corner): Studios of Mark Seliger, photographer for Rolling Stone.




150: This 15-story building, built over the objections of neighbors in 2014, has attracted celebrity buyers like Ben Stiller, Jon Bon Jovi and supermodel Irina Shayk.

144: Was the offices of the radical Catholic Worker newspaper in 1935-36.

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North:

165 (corner): A new residential building by modernist Richard Meier. Burned by cost-cutting at his nearby Perry Street Towers, Meier insisted on substantial control over the construction of this project. Star Wars star Natalie Portman bought a condo here.

163: A building from 1832 was recently demolished here.

145: Was Waterloo Brasserie, Belgian; now Midway, American


S <===           WASHINGTON STREET           ===> N

South:

140 (corner): The Memphis Downtown—1986 apartments.











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North:

135: Le Gendarme apartments; from 1897 to 1971, this was the Village's police station. In March 1970, when police arrested 167 customers at The Snakepit, a gay bar on West 10th, they were brought here. One panicked patron, Diego Vinales, leaped from a second-story window and impaled himself on a fence. He lived, but he became a cause celebre that led to protests here against police harassment of the gay community.

131: The AIA Guide calls this 1834 landmarked house a "Federal gem."

129: Converted stable bears the name "H. Thalman."


S <===           GREENWICH STREET           ===> N

South:




120: There's a book called 120 Charles Street, The Village, a journal by playwright, poet and artist Holly Beye, who lived here in 1949-50.



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121 1/2: Photographer Diane Arbus lived here in a converted stable, 1959-68.

121: This centuries-old farmhouse, known as Cobble Court, was moved here from East 71st Street in 1967. In its earlier location it was the home of Margaret Wise Brown, where she wrote Goodnight Moon, among other works. It can be seen in the illustrations of her Mister Dog.

115: Palazzo Greco, a five-story apartment building c. 1890


S <===           HUDSON STREET           ===> N

South:





The NYPD's Bomb Squad is found here, based in the 6th Precinct.




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Corner: There's a customizing/detailing shop here that's popular with cabbies.









S <===           BLEECKER STREET           ===> N

South:

92: Author/illustrator Maurice Sendak lived here early in his career--in his Little Bear phase.

74: Folksinger Woody Guthrie lived here in 1943, where he and Leadbelly would often stay up late singing with friends.


64 (corner): Mary's Fish Camp, seafood

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North:

91 (corner): Hue, French-Vietnamese owned by East Village restauranteur Frank Prisinzano; was Cucina Della Fontana, baroque Italian.

79: Writer Hart Crane lived here in 1920.

75: Poet Delmore Schwarz lived in this building (1948-51), when he taught at the New School.

69: Writer Sinclair Lewis lived in this building (1910-13).


S <===             WEST 4TH STREET             ===> N

South:

62 (corner): Sevilla, a well-regarded Spanish restaurant, opened on this corner in 1941; it's been under the same family's management since 1962. From 1923 it was Talk of the Town, an Irish tavern; in the late 1800s there was a hansom cab stand here.

48-54: These 1840 houses are "among the Village's most riotous and picturesque groupings of brick row houses"--AIA Guide






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55: Anne Barton, an artist's model who was E.E. Cummings' second wife, lived here before their marriage-- which broke up over Anne's constant affairs. "She was a woman into whom many men might go as many breaths inflate a balloon," Cummings wrote.

53: Congregation Darech Amuno; The Charles Street Schul. Noted for American roots music concerts.

39: Future mayor Fiorello La Guardia lived here from 1914-21; he was elected to the U.S. House in 1916.

29: This six-story building with heraldic designs is The Carolus--Latin for Charles.


S <===             SEVENTH AVE S/WAVERLY PLACE             ===> N

S <===             WAVERLY PLACE/SEVENTH AVE S             ===> N


South:



16: Poet Elizabeth Bishop's first Manhattan home was here, in an apartment she described as "on the verge of the Village, unfortunately,"

4: El Charro, old-school Spanish




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North:

15 (corner): Village Towers, 18-story building that replaced No. 13, a brownstone that novelist Richard Wright bought in 1947 shortly before moving to France.

11: Crime novelist James Cain lived here (1925-27).





S <===           GREENWICH AVENUE           ===> N









Is your favorite Charles Street spot missing? Write to Jim Naureckas and tell him about it.

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