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From The Peopling of NYC
Elmer Holmes Bobst Library
70 Washington Square South (4th Street) between LaGuardia Place and Washington Square East (MacDougal Place)
Designed: 1972; Architect: Philip Johnson and Richard Foster
The library is designed in Post-International, pre-postmodern style. Its giant red sandstone facade displays to the park the library’s internal activities in a tangle of staircases, balustrades, bold lighting fixtures, and intricate floor patterns.
Jefferson Market Library
425 Sixth Avenue at West 10th St.
Designed: 1873-77; Architects Calvert Vaux and Frederick Withers
Restored and adapted: 1967; Architect: Giorgio Cavaglieri
Originally as built as a courthouse, the Jefferson Market Library has served the Greenwich Village community for over thirty years. The building was erected in a Victorian Gothic style (along with an adjacent prison and market) during the years 1875-1877 and cost the city almost $360,000. It was voted one of the ten most beautiful buildings in America by a poll of architects in the 1880s. It housed a civil court and a police court. The beautiful brick-arched basement was used as a holding area for prisoners on their way to jail or trial. Scattered about the building were offices and chambers, and looming above it all was - and is - the tower. A hundred feet above the ground, the firewatcher's balcony once commanded an uninterrupted view of Greenwich Village. The bell which summoned volunteer firemen still hangs in the tower.
It served as a courthouse until 1945 and housed various city agencies from then until 1958. By 1959, the building was considered such an architectural eyesore the city planned to knock it down and erect an apartment building. But Village community members rallied to save the building. In 1961, Mayor Robert F. Wagner announced that it would be preserved and converted into a public library. Construction began in 1965 and the library opened for business in 1967.
Source: NYPL Branch History
The New School
NYU Brown Building
Former Asch Building
29 Washington Place (corner Greene Street)
The former Asch building was the home of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company. It was the scene of one of the most horrific fires. On March 25, 1911, seven hundred women, most of them young, were trapped on the third floor of this building awaiting rescue through the single freight elevator available. Locked doors and unsafe conditions prevented many from escaping. The tragedy sparked outrage that strengthened efforts to improve workers’ rights and ban sweatshop working conditions.
Additional Information: NYC Landmarks Commission
Greenwich Village Landmarks
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