New York Songlines: Vandam Street

South:

100 (corner): An attractive six-story red-brick building, built c. 1920. Offices of RDA, advertising agency for the Empire State Building and The Beatles, among others.

90: Compleat Sculptor, tools and materials for statue-makers

80 (corner): FEGS Health and Human Services System--FEGS being the Federation Employment Guidance Service, a Jewish philanthropy founded in 1934.

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North:

99 (corner): This loft building appears as 199B Vandam Street in the detective novels of Kinky Friedman, where it is the home of his eponymous hero--including in the book Prisoner of Vandam Street. This building is also 101 Vandam, as well as 533 Greenwich Street.

89: This was the address of Harris Lieberman Gallery, which moved in 2011 to West 26th Street.

83 (corner): Kate Werble Gallery

South:

Corner (315 Hudson): William Paper, stationery

68: Mae Mae Cafe is affiliated with the high-end catering firm Great Performances.

50: This striking red-brick structure--two stories, with the first floor made of a series of arches--is the offices of Rafael Vinoly, an internationally renowned architect, responsible for such New York City projects as Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Brooklyn Children's Museum expansion and the Bronx County Hall of Justice.

Corner (155 Varick): City Winery, restaurant/ music venue where you can make your own wine

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North:

Corner (157 Varick): This 16-story building from 1922 is a Manhattan Mini Storage facility.

South:

Corner (150 Varick): This 10-story building that went up in 1926 is the home to Greenhouse, an eco-friendly nightclub made from recycled materials, with organic vodka and LED lighting. It's in some sense a reinvention of Club Shelter, a long-running House party that moved here from 39th Street into what was Club Standard, and before that Flow, pricey nightclub.

20: Nanz Custom Hardware is in the back entrance to 233 Spring Street.

12: Vandam Diner has a lot of non-fans on Yelp. I've never seen more warnings about food poisoning anywhere.

The diner is housed in the Butterick Building--aka 161 Sixth Avenue--a 16-story office building built in 1903 (Horgan & Slattery, architects). It was built for and still houses the Butterick Co., the company that pioneered the graded sewing pattern. When opened, this building had the nation's second-largest printing plant, after the government printing office in D.C.

Corner (169 6th Avenue): A tenement building, its airshafts now exposed to the avenue.

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North:

Corner (160 Varick): A 12-story commercial building from 1927 that is home to the Varick Street Incubator, an attempt by NYU to foster start-up businesses.

29: The beginning of a stretch of buildings that are included in the Charlton-King-Vandam Historic District. Nos. 23-29 are a group of Federal-style rowhouses, built c. 1820, in close to their original condition, with pitched roofs, dormers and iron work.

17: Noted for its handsome door frame.

Soho Playhouse

15: In the late 19th/early 20th centuries, this was the Huron Club, a hangout for Democratic politicians like Mayor Jimmy Walker and "Battery" Dan Finn, namesake of Finn Square (though technically the square is named for Finn's son Philip, who was killed in World War I with the 69th Regiment). The ground floor became a theater in the 1920s; in the 1960s it was known as the Village South, where Edward Albee's Playwrights Unit Workshop produced original work by such writers as Terrance McNally, Sam Shepard, John Guare, Leroi Jones Lanford Wilson. Among other things, the theater is currently home to Baby Wants Candy's weekly improv musical. The cabaret in the basement is now called, appropriately, The Huron Club.

9: The last house in the historic district.

Corner (2 Charlton): Charlton House, a 17-story red-brick building from 1966.