New York Songlines: Morton Street

West Street | Washington Street | Greenwich Street | Hudson Street | Seventh Avenue South | Bedford Street | Bleecker Street

Named for Gen. Jacob Morton, who commanded the first division of the New York Militia for 20 years in the early 19th Century. When George Washington's first inauguration was short a Bible, it was Morton who went to fetch another one.



HUDSON RIVER

S <===     WEST STREET     ===> N

South:

One Morton Square

1 Morton Square I, by Edenpictures on Flickr

Corner: This glassy 2002 midrise has been home to Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen, Daniel Radcliffe and Amy Poehler.





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

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95 (corner): A 1911 building that used to house the New York offices of PayPal and Venmo, among others.



Corner (636 Greenwich St): Greenwich Hall, NYU dorm in a 1911 building.


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

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Corner (435 Hudson): EN Japanese Brasserie, a stylish multi-level Michelin-star restaurant that opened in 2004. A hangout for fashionistas. Hudson Garden Center was here.

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75 (corner): 75 Morton, a public middle school (MS 297) opened in 2017.


447 Hudson Street

Corner (447 Hudson): The front door of the Hudson Clearwater restaurant, on Hudson Street, used to look like it was boarded up, with the real entrance an unmarked green door on the Morton side of the block. They are no longer playing hard to get.


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

South:

Corner (436 Hudson): Dot Reeder, clothing store, was Angelica Flowers and Events from 2011-23. Before that it was a farmhouse-style restaurant called Treehouse, which replaced Village Attelier. 66 Morton Street

66: 1852 house with a notable bay. Harrison Ford lived here in Working Girl, Winona Ryder in Autumn in New York, and Matthew Broderick in The Night We Never Met.








64: Comedian John Belushi was living here at the time of his death in 1982. 46-52 Morton Street

46-52: A row of Anglo-Italianate townhouses from 1852. No. 46 has been owned by Sofia Coppola.

44: Greek Revival building from 1844 was a set for the TV show Naked City. Nobel Prize-winning poet Joseph Brodsky lived here in the 1970s and 1980s.

42: An 1889 building with charming caryatids.






32 Morton Street







32 (corner): An eight-story building from 1920. Robert DeNiro bought an apartment here in 2014 for $2.8 million.

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Corner (438 Hudson): Henrietta Hudson, popular lesbian bar founded 1991. NYC - West Village: 65 Morton Street

65: This is where Julius and Ethel Rosenberg allegedly had their "spy den." While Julius apparently was involved with some kind of low-level espionage, most people now acknowledge that Ethel was not—which means that the government killed an innocent woman.

61: Novelist Henry Roth lived here from 1928-38, in the home of poet and NYU professor Eda Lou Walton. He wrote most of Call It Sleep here. Later, in the 1940s, experimental filmmaker Maya Deren lived here. 59 Morton Street

59: Outstanding late Federal-style house (1828) with "one of the finest Federal doorways in the Village" (AIA Guide)

55: Art Moderne apartment building was home to playwright Charles Ludlam. Marlon Brando is also said to have lived here with his lover Wally Cox--best remembered today as the voice of Underdog.

35: Crime novelist Patricia Highsmith had a sublet here in 1940, trying to get away from the one-bedroom apartment she shared with her mother and stepfather on Grove Street. 63 Bedford Street

Corner (63 Bedford): Snack Taverna was Shopsin's General Store, longtime Village hangout said to be wary of strangers. Calvin Trillin wrote about it in The New Yorker, but initially declined to give its name or address out of fear of being barred. When it lost its lease, a film was made about owner/chef Kenny Shopsin called I Like Killing Flies. The restaurant moved down the street from here to the corner of Carmine, and eventually to Essex Market.


S <===           BEDFORD STREET           ===> N

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Greenstreets-landscaped traffic island















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27 1/2 Morton Street, by edenpictures on Flickr

27 1/2 (block): AKA 60 Bedford Street. An odd-shaped six-story building from the 1910s. On the ground floor is Breakfast at Salt's Cure, a great pancake joint. It replaced Doma na Rohu ("Home on the Corner"), a Czech restaurant with Old World charm. From 1997 to 2011, this was Hercules Fancy Grocery, which stocked 400 kinds of beer.

S <===           7TH AVENUE SOUTH           ===> N

The block of Morton Street between 7th Avenue and Bleecker street was transformed into the Turn-of-the-Century Lower East Side for the 1975 film Hester Street.

South:











10: Was Bosie Tea Parlor; at the same address from 2015-24 was The Doughnut Project, acclaimed female-led doughnut shop.




4: The address of the Paradise Inn, a speakeasy opened in 1929 by Marie Du Mont (of Marie's Crisis fame), where Admiral Byrd, Sinclair Lewis and Bill Paley are said to have been customers. Kitty Ursula Parrott is said to have written here her strikingly modern 1929 best-seller The Ex-Wife (later made into The Divorcee, for which Norma Shearer won an Oscar).

Corner (270 Bleecker): Was Risotteria, acclaimed rissoto; later Clay Pot.

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Corner (47 7th Ave S): Kook Burger & Bar, sports bar

5: This was Phoebe's apartment on Friends; she was the only friend who didn't live on Grove Street.

3: In the basement here from 1941 until 1945 was the Beggar Bar, a cabaret/restaurant founded by experimental dancer Valeska Gert, a refugee from Nazi Germany. It's said that the staff here included Jackson Pollack, Living Theatre founders Julian Beck and Judith Malina, and Tennessee Williams, who was fired for refusing to pool his tips.

1 (corner): In the basement of the building with Bleecker Farm was Studio Henry, where members of what came to be known as the Downtown Scene rehearsed and performed from 1976 to 1984—musicians like Bill Laswell, Fred Frith, Henry Kaiser, John Zorn, Arto Lindsay, Anton Fier, Ned Rothenberg, Bob Ostertag, Wayne Horvitz, Elliott Sharp, Anthony Coleman, Robin Holcomb and many more. Writes John Zorn: "At the time a pet store was above it called Exotic Aquatics, and crickets were always escaping into the basement. This gave all the shows and the live recordings in the space a unique quality.... Every silence was filled with the sound of crickets."

Corner (272 Bleecker): Bleecker Farm, grocery


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


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

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