Shared balconies stretching across several buildings in a row aren’t the norm in New York City.
But a graceful cast-iron communal balcony ties together the brownstones at numbers 20 to 38 West 10th Street. It’s one of the many features that make what used to be called “English Terrace Row” on this Greenwich Village block so harmoniously beautiful.
English Terrace Row, known these days as Renwick Row, was built between 1856 and 1858 by James Renwick Jr., the architect behind circa-1846 Grace Church three blocks east down 10th Street.
Renwick left his stamp all over the mid–19th century the city; he designed banks and brownstones, charity hospitals on East River islands, and other Gothic-style churches, like St. Patrick’s Cathedral.
While he brought Gothic-style architecture back into vogue, he was also forward-thinking.
The houses of English Terrace Row are the first brownstones built without the customary high Dutch-style stoop, “placing the entry floor only two to three steps up from the street in the English manner,” states the AIA Guide to New York City.
“Terrace” is also borrowed from the British.”Terrace does not refer to the handsome balcony that runs the length of these houses; it is the English term for rows of houses, such as found in the Kensington and Paddington districts of London in the 1840s, 1850s, and 1860s.”
“New Yorkers who visited England were impressed with this style and saw good reason to adopt it upon their return.”
Apparently one of those New Yorkers was a banker named James F.D. Lanier, who commissioned Renwick to build the row at a time when spacious brownstones with winding inside staircases and enormous windows were all the rage among well-to-do city residents.
Wide and elegant, and shrouded by trees and swathed in amber light in the evening, they stand 159 years later and make this stretch of 10th Street one of the most spectacular in the city.
The photo archive at the GVSHP site has some interior shots as well. For more on the Gilded Age city’s brownstone craze and James Renwick’s architectural gems, take a look through The Gilded Age in New York, 1870-1910.
Tags: English Terrace Row, Greenwich Village brownstones, James Renwick, most beautiful brownstones, Renwick Row, Tenth Street brownstones, Tenth Street Fifth Avenue
Ephemeral New York 
October 16, 2017 at 5:35 am |
Now, these houses take my breath away! Yikes! They are exquisite…and what an elegant approach…..this vanguard of good taste still stands the test of time….the elegant wrought iron work that made the houses seem to join…..the lower stairs; the whole thing is brilliant! Bravo Renwick! WOW!!! Thank you so much for this! Bravo!!!
October 16, 2017 at 3:03 pm |
I love W.10th Street. It’s always been my favourite residential street in GV.
And writer/artist Gibran Khalil Gibran’s address.
Although this may change due to Ephemeral illuminating other blocks for me.
October 16, 2017 at 3:09 pm |
I lived on that block when I was 10, still remember these houses, beautiful. The actor Maurice Evans lived just next door.
October 16, 2017 at 4:03 pm |
As did one of the musicians from the punk band The Dictators! Lol.
October 16, 2017 at 4:27 pm |
Maurice Evans. Played the trusted friend ‘Hutch’ (to Mia Farrow’s main character) – who is murdered – in Rosemary’s Baby!
Aside from the betrayal of her husband (played by John Cassavetes I think) & obviously the ‘baby’ – it’s the saddest part of that film for me.
LOVE him ❤
October 16, 2017 at 8:24 pm |
Did you or your family know or meet Maurice Evans Peter? It would be interesting if you have an anecdote – that was not too invasive – to tell. How did he dress? (hats etc.). Did he live there w/ his family? Did he have the whole house? Did they have a garden? That sort of thing…
October 16, 2017 at 7:27 pm |
“As Good As It Gets”, 1997 movie with Helen Hunt, Jack Nicholson, Greg Kinnear was, I believe, at least partly filmed at this location. One of my very favorite elegant vistas in all of NYC. Thank you, ephermal!
October 16, 2017 at 8:13 pm |
Are you sure it wasn’t 31-33 12th Street?
October 16, 2017 at 8:16 pm
I’m not sure but, judging from outside scenes, also some indoors, I’ve always felt it was 10th St. Beautiful, wherever it was!
October 16, 2017 at 8:15 pm |
Lol… So many of these threads invariably turn into film/theatre/art references.
October 23, 2017 at 5:16 am |
People with taste……gather. That is a fact. Regardless of money…..taste.
October 16, 2017 at 8:19 pm |
Agreed, Zoe! NYC, esp. the Village, so indisputably rich in everything artistic, unique, “old”.
October 16, 2017 at 8:47 pm |
LOL. Love it. I used to get annoyed – in typical New Yorker fashion – when they filmed near my place on First St. & Second Ave. (likewise for modelling shoots); when suddenly without warning one is expected to walk blocks & blocks out of the way to get to where one is going; or worse ask *permission* from some assistant director etc. to get into one’s own building!
That was in the 1980s when people from outside NY had seemingly suddenly just discovered the LES. ‘Moscow on the Hudson’ etc. And also the local filmmakers ‘Desperately Seeking Susan’ & ‘Brother from Another Planet’ etc.
When you’re late to work or a train & someone is not letting you pass it can be very trying.
Lol. Even in Ephemeral’s recent Stuyvescent Village post I referenced a film. Because I was hoping to get more info on the apparently ancient foundation (late 18th/early 19th c.?) visible in the newer 1920 foundation of my building on East First. And I mentioned that a horror film was filmed there in the 70s as well. And that prior to that it had been a rooming house for Jewish actors in the Second Avenue Yiddish theatres that lined lower 2nd Ave.
So there you go. My hometown of Westport CT was like that also. Regarding actors & writers etc. as neighbours. Not so much films made there. Although there was a bit of that also. (Train station scene & downtown scene in ‘Gentleman’s Agreement’ for only one. If anyone wants to see what our quaint New England fishing & farming village looked like before the hedge fund managers & McMansions – in which every infant gets their very own bathroom – moved in).
October 16, 2017 at 8:51 pm |
It’s tough to narrow down the most beautiful or evocative block in NYC. But this post was inspired by a former longtime Village resident who always felt that 10th Street was heaven.
October 16, 2017 at 9:09 pm |
I have never had it come up in conversation before. It looks like a lot of us have been quietly yet profoundly in love w/ this street all these years.
October 20, 2017 at 1:46 pm |
This was a fun read.
For some reason I always walk down 9th and rarely tenth. Next time I do, will remember your explanation of ‘Terrace’ being row houses.
Thanks!
October 21, 2017 at 12:38 am |
A wonderful block in my old neighborhood.
January 15, 2018 at 7:31 am |
[…] skinny brownstone on Tenth Street, a street with spacious rowhouses collectively known as English Terrace Row, only has room for one third-floor […]
March 18, 2019 at 4:30 pm |
…some things just never change
like rocks
that become embedded
in trees
or hands that squeeze so slightly
as to leave
a lasting impression
Jady Salganik
9/1/45
69 west 10 st NYC
March 31, 2019 at 8:10 pm |
Such a great block.
October 21, 2019 at 5:35 am |
[…] in 1890 (at left), the Demarest was designed by James Renwick’s architectural firm, which explains the cathedral-like windows. (Renwick is the genius behind Grace […]
September 18, 2020 at 2:13 pm |
I had the pleasure of spending the 1990’s on 10th Street, in 34 West 10th Street, one of the townhouses that are part of Renwick Row. I occupied two studios in the building at the same time, the first floor front and the fourth floor rear. It was nice because I had the action on the first floor, during the day, and the serenity of the birds chirping in the back of the building at night. It was a decade of peace for me, walking around the streets, the cafes, the restaurants, the bars, – always with a book in my hand or my pocket, ready to plop down and read for hours while literally forgetting where I was at that given moment. It was like an honor and an assignment at the same time to care for the apartments, the fireplace on the fourth floor was original curved white marble, the old bathtub was long and deep, On the first floor I had high ceilings, a huge built in mirror, sconces on both sides, swing upon french windows to the street, a rising sun window above them and a matching rising sun armoire that was built custom to match sometime along the way. I felt like a caretaker of history. It was special times, it was gentle and kind, simple and innocent. Whole wheat and berries was a restaurant across the street, a little bit down towards sixth ave, and down a few steps. So fresh and friendly and delicious and calming. Each day I would stop into Balducci’s, on ninth and sixth ave, where very often I would bump (literally) into Ed Koch, while I was buying cannolis and other wonderfult hings, and the newsstand on the corner of 11th and 6th. I am very glad that little one decade stopover happened to my life.
October 5, 2020 at 3:36 am |
[…] of the block between Mercer and Greene Streets, Leroy Place emulated the “terraces,” or terraced houses, popular in London—essentially a group of identical attached townhouses with harmonious front […]