American architecture of the 18th and 20th centuries and teaches at cooper union forum. He is best known throughout new york for his video walking tours presented by channel 13 , including the emmyaward , nominated shows 42nd street, broadway, and harlem. He has lectured at numerous venues, including Columbia University ofe pennsylvania, and the Smithsonian Institute and the Harvard Graduate School of planning and architecture. That is where all of these great architects come from, from barrys classes. If you have a cell phone or electronic beeper, please turn it off. We ask for no photography. And now, please join me in welcoming barry lewis. [applause] barry lewis you are ordering a special hook at the end of the lecture. We are taking a look at Greenwich Village. For those of you who grew up in new york, you have your memories of Greenwich Village like i did. That is why it is my favorite lecture. It did not exist until about 100, 110 years ago, but we will see that in a moment. We are in new york on broadway. It is about 1819, we are looking past the new city hall. If you had walked up broadway in about five minutes, you would be in the country. That is how small it was in 1810. If you want further up the river, the hudson river, you would see where christopher street started off from hudson river. Christopher street is one of the oldest 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, that is a bit of what hootzpah. You know what greenwich, england, is like. It is a real suburb. It has magnificent buildings by indigo jones, christopher wren, a floridian goes through it. But this was a tiny little burg. They finally got a great building in the 1790s. The city built its new prison, newgate prison. If you got into trouble you wound up down at the battery. You got sent up the river to newgate. When this area finally started getting middle class people in the 1820s and 1830s, they immediately closed newgate and renamed it sing sing. And now, you are still getting sent up the river to sing sing. With this map the yellowshaded , area is the builtup city between the battery on the left and what is now city hall park. The red line is the road that 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 filledin land. We call it greenwich street today. Not greenwich avenue, greenwich street. Please remember that today, there is washington street and west street. By the way, in this map you , notice the blue line in the center of the map. That is broadway. It starts out at bowling green, and runs up past city hall park, and ends in a vast swamp. This is a swamp that extended from the hudson river about two thirds of the way across the island. From that, broadway was washed out. So, if you wanted to get out of town, you went to the east up what we call park row, up what we call the bowery , 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 notice you would have to go all the way across the island get to the northsouth road, because the northsouth road had to go around the swamp in the 1800s and 1810s. In the 1820s, they drained the swamp. They turned it into a canal, and they called it can now street. And then, they would extend broadway. Now, in this map, we see the blue lines sorry the blue lines are the grid of 1811. They are not going to build after the 1820s and 1830s. The grid basically starts around houston 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 border of this green area. That green area was a series of street systems laid out by different property owners. They got together and fought the city, because they did not want the grid to rip down their street lines. It is ironic that this section of town already started fighting city hall in the 18th century but they did. They got their way, but it worked against them in the later 19th century. Throughout the 19th century as , middle class new york moved into the grid, people began not wanting to go to lower greenwich avenue or 4th street, they said no, narrow streets, different street systems, we are always getting lost. That is what we do today. We like it, we find it sweet. He did not find it sweet. They did not find it sweet. They found a dangerous, they found it dangerous and 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 then they are mostly moved , on by now. You notice in this map, broadway has been cut through the meadows and it runs north. This allowed developers to build suburban housing. You notice that broadway finally the yellow road is the bowery. The main road out of town. Remember, it is on the eastside. They both meet and unite broadway and the bowery. They unite at 14 street, and that is where we get union square. It is nothing to do with labor unions, nothing to do with civil war. It has to do with the union of broadway and bowery. By the way, kind of important. You notice the blue line . What they called the lower east side, we call it today Greenwich Village. The creek still runs under there in a culvert. But that is why you have so many street systems. They had to fit them around that creek. There were a number of streets and places called minetta. By the mid19th century, it became one of the first areas where africanamericans settled in. That is one of the oldest black neighborhoods in the city. Now, by the 1820s, the 1830s, 1840s, 1850s, precivil war new york, the rich left the old city and moved up to these new london style squares. What am i talking about . Union square, Madison Square, Washington Square, stuyvesant square, gramercy park. You can just imagine these were , the northern suburbs of the city. In the years before the civil war this is where the wealthy , moved to. This is what is known as middle class white. This is what is known as the middle class flight. They were leaving the city of the 1930s to commerce, to the industry coming in and of the immigrants. They are getting out of there and moving to different parts of town. On the north side of Washington Square, we see what is still there today. Built in 1831. It is probably one of the finest residential complexes in the country at that time. When they built this in 1831, a a few blocks north, and youre in the country. That is how small the city was. By the way, west of fifth avenue, the road is east of fifth avenue. East of fifth avenue, this is what Washington Square looked like until about 1951 when in order to build at the bottom of fifth avenue, they demolished these buildings. They basically demolished these two huge, greek revival mansions and these brownstone houses. It gives you an idea of how long this area was poshy. It stayed a posh area for quite a long time. Now, had you been in that area in the late 1820s or early 1830s, we are standing on houston street. Were looking west. The street that runs across it is broadway. We are looking at basically houston and broadway. The church you are looking at by the way is st. Thomass. It was built in 1827. It was built to serve the posh people that lived around that area. By the 1870s the congregation was way uptown. St. Thomas gave up and moved to 83rd street where they still are today. By the way, the st. Thomas site when st. Thomas moved in the 1870s, this would be the upscale shopping district and upscale 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 at the corner. When they built it in the 1890s, in the basement of the building, they had a huge room that housed the cable machinery for the cable cars which ran along broadway. 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, we are talking very posh, upscale Washington Square, on the west side of it in 1836, 1837, up goes the Second University in new york. The first was columbia. Columbia dates back. Columbia dates back to colonial days. Gave their male students a classical education. They cut them into greek, latin, they could talk to cicero if they could dig them up. Dig him up. They went home to their business fathers, who said, i do not need you to speak latin, i want you to make money. The merchants of new york decided they wanted a more modern university and what he what they built was nyu. Davis was the 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 reminds you, it is supposed to remind you of cambridge or oxford. , i love the way we americans think. By the way, the chapel in the middle is actually modeled on kings chapel in cambridge. Remember, it is going up the in the posh new part of town. When it goes up, when you know wouldnt you know it the , stock market crashes and the posting area canal boom is over and nyu, a single building and they could not dealt it up. Fill 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 out to artists. It became de facto, by accident, one of the First Centers of bohemianism in new york. You had a j davis, the architect of the building. Another architect from paris. His first studio was in there. Winslow homer, do i have to explain Winslow Homer . He is in there. Samuel epstein morris, he was the art professor at nyu. We know him from the morse code. Don draper, pioneer of photography takes his sister to the roof, photographs her, creates the worlds first outdoor photograph portrait. So, this building was alive with artists. They, of course they identified with the building. Remember, around them, including the people who owned the house on the left, was wealthy Upper East Side new york. This single building is identified with artists. Here is a photograph of it. It was taken down in the 1890s, and replaced either building that is there today. Some great Art Galleries in that building. When they replaced it in the 1890s, industry was moving into broadway and lafayette street and they thought the main , building would eventually be some kind of factory. They were concentrating on their new campus in the 1890s, 1900s. They were concentrating on their new campus in the bronx, which is now Bronx Community college. When this building came down in the 1890s, Richard Morris hunt , who i mentioned had a studio in their, he was heartbroken. He was heartbroken because this , was his youth coming down. I wanted to say, richard, welcome to new york. Right . You know, i where you hang out here is a better view of just how pre1811 that part of the city is. I lived in new york all my life. I never know where i am, it is part of being in the village. You notice west of greenwich avenue, there is gunsworth 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 gunsworth street. It is ironic you are standing in, you are standing over here, you are standing in post1811 new york and looking into pre1911. Pre1811. Now, remember Washington Square was east of 6th avenue. The Lower Westside was west of sixth avenue. Never the twain did meet. If you grew up in washington Washington Square, you know how it works. I have never got past washington avenue. [laughter] they just would not know. And, in 1857, a new center of ism and this somewhat up on 10th street, just east of 6th avenue on the north side. It lasted and is now a red brick apartment building. This was a studio building. Richard morris hunt designed it. He was a wealthy new york businessman, one of our first art patrons. It was the first building built in the United States for Artist Studios. Remember, we are a puritan country and the visual arts in this country were frowned upon. Most americans said, haha you are not an artist, you just want girls to take their clothes off. This was devoted to serious art and was really only designed. Studioswo stories high 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 artists opened all the doors and people can circulate around the entire building so it is not just for making art, it is selling art. A very yankee building. If you saw the front of it, redbrick, 1857. This was a punk building. In those days, this is hudson river brick. It tould put plaster on make it look marble and then my not this building. Roughhewn hudson river brick. Look at those decorations. It is almost like a precursor to 1930s architecture and the streamlining of the 1930s. It was torn down in the 1950s. This is a building that should have survived. By the way here is one of the , studios. That might be Richard Morris hunt but i am not sure. , the architect of the building moved to studio to this building. Look at this ceiling height. Remarkable twostory height. About 40 or 50 years later, there was a fashion in the cities to turn them into studio apartments. Twostory high rooms. Sweeping balconies with kitchens underneath. Here on 77th there is one, 60 one, a lotthere is of them. These Artist Studio buildings. Today, what they call a studio apartment is basically a oneroom closet. They charge you 3 million and 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. I have met someone who lived in it. They were thrown out when the building came down. Here are prince of uptown middleclass people coming downtown to 10th street in the 1870s. You can tell by the dresses. These people are shopping for art, probably living on 42nd, 57th street. Coming downtown, probably inside the fourstory high glass sky lit 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 dont know if this is an artist or this ladys husband, but the artist that these people are dealing with, respectable artists. They looked like an artist, but they came from respectable families and respectable people. A few blocks away worthy not where the not respectable artists. Walt whitman, openly gay. Ada minkin, not exactly his girlfriend. But they would hang out in 1857, 1858. A swiss german opened a bar underground. It is literally underground. The west side walk of broadway. These characters, walt whitman was openly gay. Ada minkin, these actually were a lot of clothes for her. She had a lot of outfits. She loved to wear pantaloons. She ran around in pants and the 1930s, smoked cigars long before marlena dittrich did. She was quite a girl with quite a career. They identified with the bar, not with the neighborhood. Above them was the luxury shopping district in the 1850s. They did not identify with that, they were literally underground. 1878, 6th avenue l train opens. Like in chicago and philadelphia. A true lsubway system. It was not an elevated subway. , a twotrack cars line. It took forever to get you to harlem but it was better than the street for sure. When it opened, it initially gave us what we already understood. East of 6th avenue was Washington Square. West was the lower west side. Nobody ever crossed that line. The people from west of 6th avenue might cross the line 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 lowereriods right, opened in 1878, going past the practically brandnew jefferson architecture house. In they put up a courthouse. 1876, courthouses all over new york city and those days because the court served whenever crime was committed in their district. So they built this courthouse in 1876, by the way because of where it 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. In 1876, they rebuilt the whole block, which had always been taken up with the Jefferson Market, the farmers market, they gave the farmers a 24hour market hall. Then they built the courthouse with a a fourface clock in the day when nobody had watches. A pocket watch was expensive. So that was a public service. That was a fire watchtower, by the way. And then the court has backed up to a Police Precinct and a jailhouse. Whenever i look at this, i think of rudolph giuliani. I dont know why. I picture him shoving the perpetrator in the jail cell. He is a happy man. [laughter] barry 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 me