New York Songlines: Jane Street

South:

Corner: A parking lot.

124-132: Harbor House started out as a factory that was gutted in an 1891 fire; later a paper warehouse, it was converted to residences in 1978.

100 (corner): An eight-story apartment building put up in 1995 by Rockrose Development Corp.

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North:

The Jane

113 (corner): This 1908 building, designed by Ellis Island's William A. Boring with a distinctive octagonal tower on the corner, was originally the American Seamen's Friend Society Institute, intended as a berth "for seamen of all ranks and all nationalities visiting the Port of New York" and "a temporary refuge for 'seamen in distress.'" Accordingly, surviving crew members from the Titanic were taken here in 1912. It became a YMCA in 1944, and later a hotel known variously as the Jane West, the Hotel Riverview and, starting in 2008, The Jane. Also houses the Jane Street Theatre, formerly the hotel ballroom.

111: A six-story apartment building.

99: An 11-story apartment building from 1999, designed by Fox & Fowle and built by the Rockrose Development Corp., is one of the largest post-war buildings in the West Village. Considered a more attractive building than 100 Jane across the street.

Corner: Washington Commons, a patch of green with a small waterfall, created by Rockrose in exchange for permission to build a parking garage.

South:

94 (corner): A two-story industrial building from 1948.

92: A three-story Italianate house from 1858.

88-90: A 1919 four-story brick structure, once a warehouse and garage, now residences. Composer David Diamond lived here.

84-86: These brick houses were built with two stories in 1858, with a third story and an ornate Italianate cornice added later.

82: A five-story brick apartment building from 1886. This was the home of John J. Harvey, the pilot of a fireboat who was killed fighting a blaze in an ocean liner at Pier 42. A plaque misidentifies this as the William Bayard House, where Alexander Hamilton was taken to die on July 11, 1804 after his duel with Aaron Burr. The actual house was torn down many years ago, but it was somewhere around here.

80 1/2: A similar 1886 apartment building.

80: This brick Italianate house was built in 1849 for real estate speculator Joseph Harrison.

70-78: Five houses similar to No. 80, built for Harrison in 1855.

68 (corner): A seven-story loft building built as a factory in 1897, designed by David H. King Jr. A very handsome building. Actor Philip Seymour Hoffman has lived here.

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North:

95 (corner): A three-story 1849 building that was home to Moore's Wholesale Meats before being vacant for many years; renovated in 2003.

89-93: A one-story garage built in 1919 had two more stories added in the 1960s. Now home to Industria Superstudios, commercial photographers.

85-87: A two-story brick building that was converted into a carriagehouse in 1885. Later serving as a factory, it now houses Pro Piano, an instrument rental shop.

83: An Anglo-Italianate townhouse from 1853-54. Sexual historians Jonathan Ned Katz and Allan Berube have lived here.

81: This was the address of a house built in 1750 by someone named Jaynes, which gave its name to the street. The current building here, a brick Greek Revival house, dates to 1846-47 This may be the closest address to the house where Alexander Hamilton died--the streets are different now.

71-79: Five more Greek Revival brick houses from 1846-47. Christopher Gray has written about these rowhouses.

69 (corner): The little garage here is owned by painter Jasper Johns, who apparently has used it as a workshop.

South:

66 (corner): Greek Revival house built in 1848-49. The rest of the block, 58-66, was built at the same time, all by mason Stacey Pitcher.

62-64: Noted for their ironwork. Memory prodigy Harry Lorayne has lived at No. 62; Mel Brooks, a friend of Lorayne's, gave his address to Franz Liebkind, the Producers character who wrote Springtime for Hitler.

58 (corner): Piccolo Angolo, Italian restaurant that has been a favorite of Frank Sinatra and Mike Piazza, was featured in the original Shaft as the No-Name Bar, John Shaft's local hangout.

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North:

Corner (809 Greenwich St):

65-67: A courtyard that serves as an entranceway to 809-813 Greenwich Street.

61 (corner): Writer John Cheever was living in a former building here, a teenaged dropout living on bread and buttermilk, when The New Republic published his first short story. Earlier on this site was the headquarters of the Hudson Dusters, a criminal gang whose territory was Manhattan below 13th Street and west of Broadway. They were shut down by police in 1916.

Actor Jason Robards, musician Richie Havens, playwright Thomas Meehan and writer Susan Brownmiller have lived in the current building, a 17-story building put up in 1962-64, once known as The Cezanne.

South:

56 (corner): This four-story house was built in 1856.

54: Built in 1851 for John M. Patterson, an agent of the Merchant's Exchange.

52: Built in 1848 in a simplified Gothic Revival style.

42-50: A row of Greek Revival houses built in 1846.

38-40: Three-story townhouses dating to 1845.

Jane Street Garden

Corner: The Jane Street Block Association started this garden here in 1973, when it was a burned-out property owned by St. Vincent's Hospital. After many fights internal and external, the land is now owned by the city and the garden with its flowering crabapple trees is maintained by the West Village Committee. A windmill was installed in 1982 in commemoration of the 1782 Treaty of Amity and Commerce between the U.S. and the Netherlands; it later burned down after being occupied by a homeless poet.

The book Christmas on Jane Street, by Billy Romp, tells the story of how he has sold Christmas trees on this corner every season since 1988.

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North:

57 (corner): Mi Cocina, Mexican; "The real thing," says Ruth Reichl. Building dates to 1846, when it was built for tobacconist George Schott.

53-55: Schott also built these three-story brick houses in 1846. Shaft lived at No. 55 in the original 1971 movie.

41-43: Five-story apartment houses built in 1888 with Queen Anne-style cornices. Felice Picano, pioneering gay author and publisher, began his writing career at No. 43.

37-39: This three-story building was a substation of the Edison Electric Illumination Company, built in 1924 and turned into an apartment building in 1966-67. Previously on this site was a Presbyterian church built in 1836, variously known as the Village Presbyterian Church, the Jane Street Church and the Fifth Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church.

35: This four-story townhouse was built for baker Alfred Milner in 1847. Later, in the mid-1930s, it was home to sculptor Ahron Ben-Schmuel, who was Jackson Pollack's first art teacher in New York. Now home to the pastry shop Bonsignor.

Corner (31 8th Ave): Tavern on Jane, a neighborhood bar, owned by Horton Foote Jr. (son of the playwright), that was the setting of the feature film The Tavern, made by Walter Foote, the owner's brother.

South:

The Corner Bistro

34 (corner): A cozy pub that is often said to have the best cheeseburger in New York. It's been a bar since the 1870s; during prohibition, it masqueraded as a butcher shop, with patrons entering the drinking area through the refrigerator. The building dates to 1828.

32: An 1829 building that has been defaced by stucco.

30: A two-story coachhouse from 1870.

28: A one-story building built in 1913-14 and expanded to the rear in 1921. Leo Design Studio is on the ground floor.
24-26: These five-story stone buildings were put up in 1885-86 for two brothers, James and Isaac Lowe.

22: Two-story coachhouse built in 1868.

16: This five-story apartment building went up in 1887 and was completely remodeled in 1939. Two murals by Tony Sarg, illustrator and puppeteer who created the first Macy's Thanksgiving Parade balloons, used to decorate the lobby; apparently only part of one survives. The rooftop's ventilation hardware was transformed into whimsical animal sculptures in the 1940s or '50s, which may or may not still be there.

10-14: The site of the Castle Garage, a 1910 warehouse storing whiskey and flash powder that burned for five days in 1922, killing two firefighters. Now condos that do not open on Jane.

4-8: Three three-story Greek Revival buildings from 1843. 8 was damaged in the 1922 fire ; 4 is somewhat altered in appearance.

2 (corner): Six-story apartments with rounded bay windows were built in 1903; on the ground floor is Benny's Burritos, tasty local chain.

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North:

31 (corner): The Rembrandt apartments, an 18-floor co-op from 1959, cited in 1969 as an example of the kind of architecture the Greenwich Village Historic Distric would prevent. Sculptor Gleb W. Derujinsky, writer Ed Hoagland, activist Linda Stone Davidoff and dollmaker Robert McKinley have lived here.

21-25: Built in 1868 for the Bronze Works Manufacturing Company, it still housed the P. E. Guerin Bronze Manufacturers into the 21st Century.

11-19: This was the site of the Jane Street Methodist Episcopal Church; the church's New York parent body replaced it with a two-story garage in 1921, which is still here.

5-7: Five-story apartment buildings from 1871.

1 (corner): The six-story apartment building here, built in 1938-39 by the Archbishopric of New York, was in the 1940s the site of Jane Street Chemists, a drugstore/luncheonette that was a hangout for folksingers like Richard Dyer-Bennet and Millard Lampell, a co-founder of the Almanac Singers who was blacklisted during the McCarthy Era. Now home to the Soy Luck restaurant, which serves lactose-free sandwiches and coffee. .