He specializes in architecture of the 18th and 20th centuries and teaches. He is best known throughout new his video walking tours presented by channel 13 including the emmyaward inated shows 42nd street harlem. And this is where all of these great architects come from, from berries classes. If you have a cell phone or electronic beeper, please turn it off. We ask for no photography. Ase welcome me in joining pleasecome me in join me in welcoming barry lewis. thank you for ordering the book at the end of the lecture. Were looking at Greenwich Village. For those of you who grew up in new york, you have your memories like i did. Village that is why it is my favorite lecture. Exist until about 100 years ago, but we will see that in a moment. It is about 1819, we are looking past the new city hall. In about five minutes, if you walked past broadway, you would be in the country. That is how small it was in 1819. If you want further up the river, the hudson river, you would see where christopher street started out at hudson river. It is one of the all roads in manhattan. Most of the old roads are actually American Indian roads. In the early 18th century apparently, some of the buildings went up at the west end of christian street by the river. They called their Little Village greenwich. Really, you know what greenwich, england, is like. Indigo jones, christopher wren, a floridian goes through it. Burg. As a tiny little they finally got a great building in the 1790s. The city built its new prison, newgate prison. If you got into trouble you ended up down at the battery. You got sent up the river to newgate. When this area finally started inting middle class people the 1820s and 1830s, they immediately closed newgate and renamed it sing sing. They are still being sent up there. Map, obviously Lower Manhattan is on the left. The yellow shaded area is the builtup city between the battery on the left and city hall park. Is the road they carved out of the waterfront on the west side of the island in the 18th century so it could finally reach the greenwich. It was called the road to greenwich. Some of it was filledand land. We call it greenwich street today. Not greenwich avenue, greenwich street. Streets wester, to of greenwich. Notice the blue line. That is broadway. It starts out at Bowling Green and runs up past city hall parking and moves into a vast swamp. This is a swamp that extended from the hudson river about two thirds of the way across the island. Was washed out. If you wanted to get out of town, you went to the east up what we call park row, up what we call the boundary, and you wind up the east side of the island. If you were coming from greenwich, the top of the map, the blue line through it is christopher street. You have to go all the way across the island get to the northsouth road because the northsouth road had to go andnd the swamp any 1800s 18 tenths. In the 1820s, they drained the canal. They called it a canal and they would extend it. See thethis map, we the blue sorry of 1811. The grade after 1811, they are going to build after the 1820s and 1830s. The grid basically starts at house and street but we know instinctively as new yorkers that in fact west of broadway, it is not houston street that is the beginning, you have to go way up actually, the northern end of this green area, that is greenwich avenue at the northeast quarter of this green area. Area was a series of street systems laid out by different Property Owners and they got together and fought the city because they did not want the grand to rip down their street lines. It is ironic that this section of town has already started fighting city hall but they did. Got their way, but it worked against them in the later 19th century. Moveddle class new york into the grade, people began not wanting to go to lower greenwich avenue or 4th street, they said no, narrow streets, different street systems, it is always getting lost. We like it, we find it to ask. He did not find its wheat. They found a dangerous, uncomfortable. They gave this area over to the irish by the 1850s and 1860s. The 1890s, the italians move in and stay there for the century and most of them have moved on by now. You notice in this map, broadway has been cut by the meadows and it runs north. That allows developers to build suburban housing. You notice that broadway finally, the yellow road is the bowery. The main road out of town. Meet and unite broadway and the bowery. And bowery unite and that is where we get union square. It has nothing to do with war or anything, it has to do with the union of broadway and bowery. What they called the lower east side, we call Greenwich Village. The creek still runs under there in a culvert. That is why you have so many street systems, the creek. Streetsre a number of and places called minetta. It became one of the first areas where africanamericans moved in. Blacks one of the oldest neighborhoods in the city. By the 1820s, the 1830s, 18 left the old city and moved up to these new london style squares. Union square, Madison Square, Washington Square. Gramercy park. You can imagine these were the northern suburbs of the city. This is where the wealthy moved to. This is what is known as middle class flight. The 1930s city of to commerce, to industry coming in. They are getting out of there and moving to different parts of town. The north side of Washington Square, we see what is still there today. Belton 1831. One of the finest residential complexes in the country at that time. When they built this and 1831, a few blocks north was in the country. That is how small the city was. East of fifth avenue was the road. West of fifth avenue this is what Washington Square looked like until about 1951 when in at the bottom of fifth avenue, they demolished these buildings. Demolished these two greek revival mansions and these brownstone houses. It gives you an idea of how long this area was there. It stayed a posh area for quite time. Had you been in that area in the late 19 1820s or 1830s, were looking west. The street that runs across it is broadway. At houston and broadway. The church is st. Thomass. Built in 1827. Posh people lived around that area. Later was wayon uptown. St. Thomas gave up and moved to 83rd street where they still are today. When st. Thomas moved in the 1870s, this would be the upscale shopping and the other district. St. Thomass was probably replaced by a fancy store. By the 1890s, they rebuilt it on that site. Mckinley and white was asked to do the building on the corner. When they built it in the 1890s, in the basement of the building they had a huge room which house the cable machinery for the cable cars which ran along runway. They called it the cable building and today the angelic theater is in the building where the cable machinery was. On the west side of Washington Square, very posh, upscale Washington Square, and the 18 on the western side in 1830, up goes the first second university. The first was columbia. Olumbia dates back the men gave their males a classical education. Leptin, they could target to cicero if they could dig them up. They went home to their business fathers who said, i need you to speak latin. I need you to make money. I do not need you to speak latin, i need you to make money. Firm who built it. A fellow in the firm got the idea of wrapping this brandnew university in a running country, they wrapped it in a gothic revival style that remind you, is supposed to remind you, of cambridge or oxford. I love the way we americans think and by the way the chaplain the middle is actually modeled on kings chapel in cambridge. Remember, it is going up the posh new part of town. When he goes up, the stock market crashes and the posting ,rea canal boom is over and nyu a single building and they could not dealt it up. We know nyu is on the way to being the 51st state, so how could this be . One building and they cant fill it up . They could not. There was a depression. So they went to the classrooms to artists and it became de one of theccident, first in new york. You had a j davis, the architect, another architect from paris. His first studio was in there. Do i have to, explain them . He is in there. , nyu. Epstein morris we know him from the morse code. Pioneer of photography takes his to the takes a sister to the roof, photographs or, creates the worlds first outdoor photograph portrait. This building was alive with a artist. The identified with the building. Remember, around them, including the people who owned the house on the left, was wealthy upside eastern new york. The building is identified with artists. You are is a photograph. It was taken away in the 1890s. Our galleries are now in that building. When they replaced it in the 1890s, industry was moving into thought the they Main Building would eventually be some kind of a factory and they were concentrating on their new campus in the 1890s, 1900s. It is now called community college. Inn this building came down the 1890s, Richard Morris hunt had a studio in there. He was heartbroken. Heartbroken because this was his youth coming down. Wanted to say, richard welcome to new york. You know, i where you hang out when you are young is probably not there anymore because that is how the city works. View of justter how pre1811 that part of the city is. I lived in new york all my life. I never know where i yam, it is part of being in the village. You notice west of greenwich avenue, there is guns worth street. Greenwich avenue. That represents one of the old eastwest roads and you see it becomes the Northern Frontier of pre1811 new york. It is ironic that the high line begins at guns worth street. It is ironic you are standing in, you are standing over here, post1811anding in new york and looking into pre1911. Washington square was east of 6th avenue. The Lower Westside was west of sixth avenue. Never did they mean. If you grew up in Washington Square, he lived in Washington Square. You know how it works. I have never got past washington avenue. [laughter] they just would not know. 1857, a new center of phoneme in his somewhat up on 10th street just east of 6th avenue on the north side. And is now a red brick apartment building. This was a studio building. Richard morris hunt designed it. The first building built in the United States for Artist Studios. Are a puritan country and the visual arts in this country were frowned upon. Said, haha you are not his, you just want girls to take their close off. Their clothing. These studios wrapped around a central room that ran the height of the building with a huge skylight and you can use that central room for art shows, expositions, wine and cookies, that kind of thing. There were doors between these studios and on the weekends it was open house for people to shop for art. The doorss opened all and people can circulate around the entire building so it is not just for making art, it is selling art. A very yankee building. It,ou saw the front of redbrick, 1857. This was a hunt building. Hudson river brick. Slab of plaster of rent make it look marble and then my verizon and everyone whipping was marble. Not this building. Brick. Wn hudson river look at those decorations. It is almost like a precursor to 1930s architecture and the streamlining of the 1930s. It was turned down in the 1950s. Torn down in the 1950s. Here is one of the studios. It might be richard more sense but i am not sure. The architect of the building moved to studio to this building. Look at this ceiling height. Remarkable twostory height. There was a fashion in the into studiorn them apartments. Twostory high rooms. Kitchensbalconies with underneath. Here on 77th there is one, 60 seven st a lot of them. Buildings. T studio today, what they call a studio apartment is basically a oneroom closet. You are supposed to be happy you are living in new york, you know. Probably the idea for the original studio apartments came from the studio building itself. This was up until 1953. Lived in it. Ne who they were thrown out when the building came down. Here are prince of uptown middleclass people coming downtown to 10th street in the 1870s. These people are shopping for on 42nd,ably living 57th street. Coming downtown, probably inside esqueurstory glass ceilinged main room. Here they are looking in the studio. I am sure the art is probably provided them with plenty of sherry and port to make the art look better. I know know if this is an artist or this ladys husband, but the artist that these people are dealing with, respectable artists. An artist, bute they came from respectable families and respectable people. A few blocks away worthy not respectable artists. Walt whitman, openly gay. Minkin, not exactly his girlfriend. Out in 1857,d hang 1858. A swiss german opened a bar underground. The west side walk of broadway. These characters, walt whitman was openly gay. Ada minkin, these actually were a lot of clothing or her. Pantaloons. Wear pants and the in 1930s, smoked cigars long before marlena dittrich did. She was quite a girl with quite a career. Identified not with the neighborhood. Above them was the luxury shopping district in the 1850s. They did not identify with that, they were literally underground. L train opens. E like in chicago and philadelphia. A true lsubway system. Little cars. A twotrack line. Took forever to get you to harlem but it was better than the street for sure. It gave us what we already understood. East of 6th avenue was Washington Square. West was the lower west side. Nobody ever crossed that line. West of 6th avenue mike ross the avenue to work as a servant in Washington Square, but believe me, the people in Washington Square never went on the other side of Washington Square. Believe that. On the lower right, opened in 1878, going past the practically brandnew jefferson architecture house. In 1870 six, they put up a courthouse. Courthouses all over new york city and those days because the court served whenever crime was committed in their district. This courthouse in 1876, by the way because of where was located in 1906 is where the trail was for the murder of stanford white. Because he was murdered at Madison Square garden when it was in Madison Square, which was nearby. Jefferson market, the farmers farmers aey gave the 24hour american hall market hall. Then they had a fourphase clock in the day when nobody had watches. A pocket watch was expensive. A public service. That was a fire watchtower, by the way. Then there was a Police Precinct and a jailhouse. Whenever i look at this, i think of rudolph giuliani. I picture him shoving the perpetrator. He is a happy man. [laughter] this complex came down except for the courthouse which was still in operation in the 1920s and up went, on the site of the prison, the womens house of detention. I do not know how many of you have found memories of the womens house of detention but i know i was on greenwich avenue in the 1970s and the love letters of the girls on the sidewalk was one of the colorful aspect of being in the village back in the 1960s and 1970s. When they toured on the house of detention fought back and this became a garden as it is today. The Jefferson Market course else itself, one of courthouse, one of my favorite buildings. Part of american architectural history. The codesigner of central park did this 10 or 15 years after central park. This is a punk building. Brickhudson river red just like the Artist Studio but this is a court house. Plain red brick. Plain white limestone. Like a woman going out without her underscore. The route ofbecame modern design in the 20th century, form follows structure. Decorations, mindy she medici gothic decorations. This would later be demolished. Get a nearby, in the future she is going to found the french architecture and fight to save so home. Her first fight was to to save soho. Saved it does and it turned into the library. A wonderfulture was man but people thought he was crazy because in america you do not recycle old buildings. That is ridiculous. Ofsaid no and did a number projects but one of my favorites is the courthouse. You how different these populations were, bleecker street when i was the main street of the italian Greenwich Village. He 419 30s, before mayor laguardia took away the pushcarts and made them in illegal. He hated the pushcarts. Street was always, for years the main street. If you go along bleecker street on sixth or seventh, you can still find a little bit of the shops left. Remember, those italians who shopped on bleecker street, they lived in these act streets. This is minetta street, and 1890s, early 1900s. None of us wouldve gone there back then. You will went there if you are looking for trouble. Drugs or prostitution. Few years, the new generation of middleclass young people are going to discover this neighborhood and start moving in and they are going to debit with a new name, Greenwich Village that none of the people photograph ever heard. In the 1900s and 1910s in this tenement apartment, this young couple would be there and in the next apartment, and italian them who thought they were the lower west side. You are looking at jefferson courthouse. Patchin place is in this photograph. Slum alley. Only a few years later, it becomes a center of residence. I think judah barnes actually lived in patchin place. Louise bryant probably came over. Maybe it does st. Vincent delay, maybe evident goldsmith. Ande were a lot of women Greenwich Village. They gave the man a run for their money. Look how different the world is a few blocks away. Believe me, people who lived in a street and 5th avenue never went to patchin place. Cummingss a kid, e. E. The poet was there. We would always recognize him. We were new york kids. Only tourists and people from jersey went there. The whole of the world from patchin place. If you looked away, it was so new york. Paris is like that, that is why i enjoy it. The precivil