A 10th Street studio brings artists to the Village

In 1858, as Pfaff’s beer cellar at 647 Broadway began attracting an arts-oriented crowd, a new building just blocks away on 10th Street would further build Greenwich Village’s reputation as a neighborhood of artists.

Called the Tenth Street Studio Building, it was a handsome three-story structure made up of 25 studios plus communal space.

“[The studios were] an attempt to create a place for visual artists and architects to live together, to have affordable studio space, and to sell their works,” wrote Michelle and James Nevius in Inside the Apple.

Designed by Richard Morris Hunt, the building, at 55 West 10th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, was a hit with artists.

Winslow Homer, John LaFarge, Frederick Church, Alexander Calder, Worthington Whittredge (above), and William Merritt Chase all took studio space there.

Chase even made the interior of his studio, crammed with objects and art collected during his travels, into a subject numerous times. This painting, from 1880, features an attractive young woman, a Bohemian feel, and a shadowy profile of Chase (below) on the right.

The Tenth Street Studios inspired the building of other artists’ spaces in the neighborhood, which drew more artists and art lovers to Greenwich Village. Ever since, the Village has been known for its creative culture.

Too bad the Tenth Street building that started it all no longer exists. Photographed by Berenice Abbott in 1938 (top), it was knocked down 18 years later to make way for an apartment house.

Cool old-school store signs found all over the city

You don’t see too many delis with a Te-Amo Imported Cigars sign anymore. This one was spotted above a bodega on Graham Avenue in East Williamsburg.

Did neighborhood delis used to offer shoeshines, as the other end of the sign implies?

I don’t know what was covering up this Manhattan Flower Shop sign, on Manhattan Avenue in Morningside Heights. But I’m glad it’s visible again. The hand-drawn lettering is so charming.

Is this Joe Junior diner, on Third Avenue in the teens, owned by the same people who ran the late, great Joe Junior on Sixth Avenue and 11th Street? I love a restaurant that spells seafood with two words.

“Factory Methods Used” may have been great advertising in the 1970s. But in today’s artisanal, DIY world, John’s Shoe Repair, on Irving Place, would have to instead boast that they rebuilt shoes by hand.

Salerno Surgical Supplies is also on Graham Avenue in East Williamsburg. Its presence here might shed some light on the average age of neighborhood residents.

A haunted speakeasy in a Greenwich Village alley

Crooked little Gay Street looks like the perfect place to open a speakeasy.

So it’s hardly a surprise to learn that one existed here in the 1920s.

Called the Pirate’s Den, the illegal bar was run out of number 12, a Federal-style house built in 1827—back when Gay Street was just a slender stable alley in up-and-coming Greenwich Village.

See the metal arch placed in front of the building? It supposedly marked the bar’s basement entrance.

Located near other Village speakeasies, such as Julius’ on West 10th Street and the Red Head on Sixth Avenue, the Pirate’s Den was more of a tourist trap than a place for locals.

“[It featured] clanking chains, clashing cutlasses, ship’s lanterns, and patch-eyed buccaneer waiters,” writes George Chauncey in his book Gay New York.

Twelve Gay Street isn’t only known for its liquor joint rep. After the Pirate’s Den closed down, Mayor Jimmy Walker, a notorious partier and playboy, moved his showgirl mistress here, turning the house into kind of a second Mayoral home.

Could he be the mysterious figure in a top hat and tails, dubbed the Gay Street Phantom, who is said to creep around the stairs at night?

“The historic Gay St. property, on the corner of Waverly Place, is rumored to be inhabited by a restless spirit who walks the creaking floorboards at night,” states a 2009 New York Daily News article.

[Top photo: Streeteasy; bottom, NYPL Digital Gallery]

Vintage Coca-Cola signs hiding on city corners

This one is pretty tricky to spot, as the old-school red and white sign blends in with the new sign below and the similarly colored building.

But look at the 7Up and Coca Cola logos—beauties! They were spotted on the corner of Hester Street and the Bowery. Anyone want to wager a guess as to the decade the sign went up?

An Ephemeral reader tipped me off to this torn and tattered deli awning and very weathered vintage grocery sign underneath on Manhattan Avenue and 116th Street. Thanks, I. A.

More vintage Coca-Cola signage on city storefronts can be found here.

Three different ways of seeing Hudson Street

It looks like the automobile age has barely arrived to this shabby but not chic corner at Hudson and Barrow Streets.

The photo dates to 1925, but notice the horse-drawn wagons and the store sign advertising harnesses across the street.

That’s P.S. 3 on the corner of Grove Street, with the flagpole on the mansard roof. And trolley tracks run up the center of the street, notes the caption to the photo, both published in 1976′s New York Then and Now.

The little Federal-style houses are long-gone by 1975, the year the second photo was taken, and a tall postwar apartment building looms in the distance.

P.S. 3 is still there, its flagpole moved to the front entrance. A deli and photography shop are the only businesses visible. Too bad the trolley tracks and the lovely bishop’s crook lampposts have disappeared.

Hudson Street at Barrow hasn’t changed much since 1975.

And though they’re out of view in the above photo, the Belgian blocks on Barrow still poke through the pavement opposite local dive Barrow Pub.

A 1996 East Village murder remains unsolved

Abe Lebewohl had a routine, his employees later told police.

Every morning around nine, the 64-year-old owner of the Second Avenue Deli would take the previous day’s earnings from the 10th Street restaurant, then drive to a bank on Fourth Street and make a deposit.

On March 4, 1996, he got to the bank, but never made it inside. According to a 2010 New York Post story, “at least two thugs approached him as he sat in his van and pumped three bullets into him.

“The monsters dragged Lebewohl into the back of van and drove one block before fleeing the vehicle with his black shoulder bag that held the $8,000 deposit and his wallet containing another $2,000.” Lebewohl lay mortally wounded.

The cold-blooded killing was all the more stunning because Lebewohl was so well-liked and embraced by the community.

Born in the Ukraine, he came to New York with his family in 1950 after years in a refugee camp in Italy.

He worked as a waiter at a coffee shop on Second Avenue and 10th Street, then bought the property, turning it into a Jewish culinary institution that served locals and celebrities.

His generosity was legendary. “[Sic] he often provided free food to homeless people, striking workers, and neighborhood events,” states the web page for Abe Lebewohl Park, a small space across Second Avenue dedicated in his honor (above).

At first, cops had a solid clue. Soon after the slaying, they found the murder weapon, a handgun, in Central Park.

But after chasing false leads and circulating thousands of witness sketches of the suspects, the case went cold.

Seventeen years later—after the Second Avenue Deli moved to midtown and the Upper East Side and the old location has become another bank branch—the men behind the murder remain at large.

[Top photo: 2ndavedeli.com; middle: NYC Parks Department; bottom: Forbes.com]

An old delicatessen sign hidden on First Avenue

First Avenue in the teens is lined with non-franchise, mom-and-pop stores that look like they’ve been there for decades. That makes it a good stretch to scout out vintage signage.

There’s a nice one underneath this awning between 15th and 16th Streets, advertising an organic dry cleaner. That’s the kind of business the neighborhood supports today.

But at some point in the past, a delicatessen-restaurant occupied this spot, probably a casualty of changing tastes and an influx of new residents.

But I bet the place did a nice business for years thanks to the residents of Stuyvesant Town across the street.

The chop suey tea parlor once in Times Square

Opened in 1914, the Republic Restaurant had the garish interior of a real old-school New York Chinese restaurant, based on these images on this vintage postcard.

The ad below—it comes from a 1915 guide for sailors in the U.S. Navy—sheds a little light on the menu. Chop suey and tea? Sounds like the kind of faux-authentic Cantonese cuisine New Yorkers at the time were accustomed to.

What happened to the Republic? After 50 years in the heart of Times Square, it was damaged in a fire in 1970 . . . but apparently held on at least a little longer.

A Cue magazine ad from 1973 suggests the shrimp toast and homemade egg rolls, plus the “roast pork won ton soup.”

A Gramercy beer garden inspired by a castle

New York doesn’t have many German Renaissance-style buildings inspired by castles in the Alps.

But there’s one at 190 Third Avenue, and it’s an unusual, curious reminder of the area’s once-thriving German immigrant neighborhood.

Plus, it has a literary reputation, and rumors swirl that it served as a spy hangout too.

The back story begins in 1896, when the original building, near 17th Street, was bought by a German-American intent on turning it into a beer garden.

Remodeled to resemble Heidelberg Castle in Germany, Scheffel Hall (the name comes from a German balladeer) catered to German natives living in the upper reaches of Kleindeutschland, then centered in the East Village.

After changing hands in 1904, Scheffel Hall became Allaire’s, a full-fledged restaurant, then a German-American music hall, a rathskeller, and later the jazz club Fat Tuesday’s until 1995.

“Its patrons have included a number of leading politicians and writers, notably O. Henry who used Scheffel Hall as the setting for a short story in 1909,” states a Landmarks Preservation Committee Report from 1997.

H.L. Mencken also hung out there, as did other literary figures in Gramercy.

And then there’s the espionage angle: Allaire’s was reportedly a gathering place for German American spies during World War I, reports New York Architecture.

Today it’s a Pilates studio, but that’s okay. The owners haven’t touched the facade, and the dark woodwork and detailing in the interior remains.

A wooden phone booth in an old Flatiron bar

Few bars have as much old-school atmosphere as the circa-1892 Old Town Bar on 18th Street next to Park Avenue South.

The long mahogany and marble bar is original, as are the tin ceilings. And the neon sign hanging outside gives off a warm New York glow.

The best part is inside: a wooden phone booth! It’s way in the back on the ground floor, partly obscured by a table. In the darkened room, it’s hard to even notice it.

The phone is gone, of course. Yet there’s a folding door for privacy, a wooden counter, and a sign on top referencing the Bell Telephone Company.

More of these remnants of pre-cell phone New York can be found here.