New York Songlines: Stuyvesant Street

Bowery | 2nd Ave | 1st Ave | Avenue A | E Houston St
Stuyvesant Street was once the main drive of Peter Stuyvesant's farm. Later it was part of a separate street grid for what is now the East Village, and the only street in that grid that wasn't demapped when the main Manhattan grid was put through. (Its survival was justified by its serving as the route to St. Mark's Church, but the fact that the neighborhood's most powerful family lived on it couldn't have hurt.) It's sometimes said to be Manhattan's only street that truly runs east/west; I haven't surveyed them, but it seems like some of the streets in the West Village run pretty much on the same angle.


Cooper Union Engineering

Part of the tuition-free university founded by inventor/philanthropist Peter Cooper. This site used to be the American Bible Society, which distributed bibles by the tens of millions. Cooper Union is scheduled to replace the present less-than-inspiring structure with a high-rise, despite some community opposition.


S <===                 3RD AVENUE                 ===> N

South:

Corner (31 3rd Ave): Cooper Union Building houses undergraduates. On the ground floor is St. Mark's Books, a famous bookstore that has an extensive literary selection--and how many bookstores have a full shelf labeled "Anarchism"?

29 3rd Ave: Sunrise Mart, a Japanese supermarket. I've heard it said that this business is responsible for the surrounding cluster of Japanese businesses, as Japanese visitors would come here to get their hometown papers. The door is to the east/north of the bookstore, so I'm not sure how it gets a lower 3rd Avenue address.

8: You have to go through an unmarked door in Village Yokocho, a Japanese snack restaurant, to find Angel's Share, a teeny-tiny bar with expertly made drinks and a romantic vibe. A great place to show your date that you're a New York insider.

Downstairs at this address is Round the Clock, a long-standing 24-hour eatery. It's like a hip diner with unhip diner prices.

10: Panya, bite-sized Japanese pastry shop.

14: Sharaku, noted for its truly Jumbo Sushi.

Corner (206-208 E 9th): Beautiful red-brick building

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North:

George Hecht Viewing Gardens

1999 gardens are supposed to allude to the vegetation of Peter Stuyvesant's farm, which this was the front entrance to. Compass refers to the true east/west orientation of Stuyvesant Place. The fence needs to be painted a different color.

Hecht was a electronics manufacturer and a supporter of Cooper Union. The garden is named after him because he paid for it--nice of him, but a terrible precedent.




















E <===             9TH STREET             ===> W

South:

34 (corner): NYU's Barney Building was the Hebrew Technical Institute, a Jewish vocational school from 1884-1939; it's named for Edgar S. Barney, the Institute's principal for more than 50 years. Now houses NYU's Department of Art and Art Professions.
























42: A Greek Revival townhouse built in 1845

Nicholas William Stuyvesant House

44: Very few Manhattan buildings are as old as this 1795 Federal Style house, built for a great-grandson of Peter Stuyvesant (and brother of Petrus).

46: This Anglo-Italianate rowhouse was built in 1854 on a triangular lot.

48 (corner): A seven-story apartment building dating from the turn of the 20th Century

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North:

Alumni Hall

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

Stuyvesant/Fish House

21: This Federal Style house was built by Petrus Stuyvesant, great-grandson of Peter Stuyvesant, in 1803 for his daughter Elizabeth upon her marriage to Nicholas Fish. Fish was a Revolutionary War officer and a good friend to both Lafayette and Alexander Hamilton, for whom Nicholas and Elizabeth named their first son. Hamilton Fish grew up to be governor of New York, as well as a U.S. representative and senator, and served as President Grant's secretary of state. His son, grandson and great-grandson were all named Hamilton Fish and all were elected to the House of Representatives. ( Ham Fish III, unfortunately, was the most prominent, remembered for his Nazi sympathies.) The fifth Ham Fish was publisher of The Nation, much to his grandfather's horror; his attempts to be the fifth Rep. Hamilton Fish were unsuccessful.

The house is now used as housing for Cooper Union's presidents.

Renwick Triangle

23-35: These 1861 Anglo-Italianate rowhouses (and others around the corner) were designed by James Renwick Jr.. The houses are designed to be seen as one continuous structure. Nos. 25-31 served as brothels in the early 1900s.

Corner (128 E 10th): This was Nicole Kidman's apartment in The Interpreter.

Abe Lebewohl Triangle

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


E <===             10TH STREET             ===> W

St. Marks-in-the-Bowery Church

"The Bowery" was Dutch governor Peter Stuyvesant's farm, and his private chapel used to stand on this site--making this the oldest site of continuous worship in Manhattan. This church was erected 1795-99-- one of the few surviving 18th Century structures in Manhattan--with a Greek revival steeple added 1828 and an Italianate portico completing the structure in 1854.

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, Yoko Ono, Patti Smith and Jim Carroll have all read here; since 1966, the St. Marks Poetry Project has organized poetry 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 in 1964, 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.



What's missing from Stuyvesant Street? Write to Jim Naureckas and tell him about it.

Forgotten NY has a page on the street called Mr. Stuyvesant's Garden.

The Big Map has a Stuyvesant Street page as well.

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Sources for the Songlines.