New York Songlines: Perry Street

West St | Washington St | Greenwich St | Hudson St | Bleecker St | West Fourth St | Seventh Ave S | Waverly Place | Greenwich Avenue

Named for Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, who commanded the U.S. fleet in the Battle of Lake Erie during the War of 1812. After the battle, he sent the famous dispatch: "We have met the enemy and he is ours." His brother was Commodore Matthew Perry, who forced Japan to open itself to foreign trade.





HUDSON RIVER

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

South:

Perry Street Towers

176 (corner): This and the other glass building across the street were designed by modernist Richard Meier in 2003. Celebrities like Nicole Kidman, Martha Stewart and Calvin Klein have bought apartments here, but the project was marred by shoddy construction.

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North:

173 (corner): The other Perry Street Tower.








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

South:

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North:

143: Otheroom, lounge








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

South:




116: Frank Serpico, NYPD officer who went public about police corruption, lived here.



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117: Caribe, "hot and spicy music, hot and spicy people." Used to be the International Stud, a gay bar opened in 1969 that attracted a butch crowd; immortalized in the title of the first act of Torch Song Trilogy. Also the address of Papivore, fancy stationery shop.




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

South:

106: Novelist Dawn Powell lived here 1928-31, where she wrote Dance Night and the play Big Night, and began Turn, Magic Wheel.









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93: When the narrator of H.P. Lovecraft's story "He" returns from a terrifying vision of Greenwich Village's past and horrible (non-Anglo-Saxon) future, he emerges from "a little black court off Perry Street." According to Lovecraft biographer S.T. Joshi, the horror writer was thinking of an archway at this address that leads to a little lane to the interior of the block.


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

South:

80-82: The Hampton; Moorish-style apartments built in 1887.

72: Anthropologist Margaret Mead lived here 1939-55. Earlier, this was briefly Dawn Powell's address.

70: This 1867 Second Empire brownstone is "the architectural gem of the block," according to the AIA Guide.

66: This brownstone served as the exterior of Carrie Bradshaw's apartment on Sex in the City--though the character lived on the Upper East Side.

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73: At this address in 1960, author Norman Mailer stabbed his then wife Adele with a penknife. They divorced two years later.

63: The McKinley apartments

61: Poet Elizabeth Bishop was living here in 1967 when her Brazilian lover, Lota de Macedo Soares, took an overdose of tranquilizers and died a few days later at St. Vincent's Hospital.


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

South:

46: Poet Kenneth Patchen lived here in 1935-36.

38: In 1932-37, writer James Agee lived in the basement here. He researched Let Us Now Praise Famous Men in 1936.

30: This was the address of Squarcialupi's restaurant, a speakeasy where Hart Crane ate frequently.

22: Headquarters of the Village Independent Democrats, a political club founded in 1956 that helped bring down Tammany Hall.

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43: This converted 1850s stable bears the curious motto, "Dogs of the Ilk."

31: Perry Street Theater









S <===           7TH AVENUE S/WAVERLY PLACE           ===> N

S <===           WAVERLY PLACE/7TH AVENUE S           ===> N


South:

4: Margaret Sanger moved into this building in 1914, about the time she founded the National Birth Control League. She also launched The Woman Rebel, a feminist newspaper, while living here.






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5: This was the address of Calvary House, a hospice for terminally ill women started around 1900--said to be the first such institution in the United States. Relocated to the Bronx, it eventually grew into what is now Calvary Hospital.



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


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

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