As a prolific painter living on Washington Place and working out of a high-floor studio at West Fourth Street, John Sloan had a wonderful window into the heart of the Greenwich Village of the 1910s—its small shops, bohemian haunts, immigrant festivals, and all the life and activity of the elevated trains up and down Sixth Avenue.
[“Jefferson Market, Sixth Avenue,” 1917]
He also had a view of Jefferson Market Courthouse. Once the site of a fire tower and market that opened in 1832, the Victorian Gothic courthouse with its signature clock tower replaced the original structures at Sixth Avenue and 10th Street in 1877.
Like contemporary New Yorkers, he seemed to be enchanted by the Courthouse, which functions today as a New York Public Library branch. He was so entranced by it, Sloan put it in several of his works, either as the main subject or off to the side.
[“Sixth Avenue El at Third Street,” 1928]
“Sloan obviously delighted in the irregular rooftop patterns and the spires of several other structures beyond, contrasting the soaring tower and the gables of the courthouse with the swift rush of the Sixth Avenue elevated railroad below,” explained William H. Gerdts in his 1994 book, Impressionist New York.
His interest wasn’t just in the building’s architectural value. Sloan, a keen observer of what he described as New York City’s “drab, shabby, happy, sad, and human life,” regularly visited the notorious night court there to witness the human drama that appeared before judges—men and women typically brought in for drunkenness, prostitution, and petty crime.
[“Jefferson Market Jail, Night,” 1911]
“This is much more stirring to me in every way than the great majority of plays. Tragedy-comedy,” he said about the night court, per Gerdts’ book.
“Sloan was obviously drawn to the building’s. picturesque mass as well as its physical and symbolic situation with Greenwich Village, and no other New York structure, not even the Flatiron Building, enjoyed such distinctive monumental rendering by him,” wrote Gerdts.
“Snowstorm in the Village,” an etching from 1925, shows Jefferson Market Courthouse’s gables and turrets covered in snow and is worth a look here.
[Top image: Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts; second image: Whitney Museum; third image: paintingstar.com]
Tags: John Sloan Greenwich Village Paintings, John Sloan in New York City, John Sloan Jefferson Market Courthouse, John Sloan Jefferson Market NYC, John Sloan Sixth Avenue El NYC
Ephemeral New York 
December 5, 2022 at 4:38 am |
I recall in the 1950s crossing 6th Ave I told my mother it’s drizzling when she shook her head and said, “No it’s not, the girls are just spitting on you.” At the time I didn’t know we were walking by the women’s jail.
December 5, 2022 at 4:40 am |
Oh yes, the Women’s House of Detention! I love hearing the stories of the ladies yelling down to their boyfriends and family members, asking for cigarettes and more….
December 5, 2022 at 10:05 am |
Guess I’ve never really noticed that building that was next to it before the Women’s House of Detention went up. From the painting it looks like Greenwich Avenue isn’t there yet.
December 5, 2022 at 12:44 pm |
The top painting is a bit stylized and compressed. I don’t recall ever seeing old photos of the Courthouse with so many tall commercial buildings on the surrounding streetscape.
December 5, 2022 at 5:04 pm |
[…] Downtown, John Sloan […]
December 5, 2022 at 6:30 pm |
I wonder how those buildings would have looked to him had the Sixth Avenue El not been there. Also, would he have seen so much drama on the street?
December 5, 2022 at 6:37 pm |
Wonderful paintings. The Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester has a couple of Sloan paintings, I’ve always loved “Chinese Restaurant”
December 5, 2022 at 9:33 pm |
It’s an old story but perhaps some have not heard it…
In 1927, Mae West was brought before the court on morals charges (for her burlesque show “Sex”) and sentenced to ten days in jail. She served her time (with two days off for good behavior) not in the adjacent prison, where she’d spent a night before the trial, but rather on Roosevelt Island.
Only eight days — would you say West got off easy?
December 7, 2022 at 12:23 am |
I’d say that’s eight days too long!
December 8, 2022 at 2:16 am
Yeah, I’d say so, too.
She usually got off much more easily.
December 7, 2022 at 5:18 pm |
I believe she spent her time in prison writing her next play “The Wicked Age” and dining with the Warden and his wife. She could have paid the fine and been released, but she wanted the publicity. She also told reporters that she had worn her silk undergarments while in jail, while the other girls had to wear “burlap”.