Happy President’s Birthday week. George Washington was born on February 11, 1732 in Virginia. February 22nd, you say? In 1732 Britain and its colonies were still using the Julian calendar dating to the days of the Roman Empire, and were reluctant to adopt the new calendar devised under the reign of Pope Gregory in the 1580s, and wouldn’t go Gregorian until 1752, when 11 days were added, bringing Washington’s birthday to February 22nd.
Greenwich Village is known for its Washingtons: Washington St., Washington Square, even Washington Mews. The father of his country is covered in the Village. Washington Place runs east to west, from Broadway (where its numbering begins) to Sheridan Square at Grove and 7th Ave. South, slotting in between W. 4th St. and Waverly Pl. (which become Washington Square South and North when encountering the Square). It’s divided in two by the Square, which is likely how it got its name; the Square was likely named first.
Recently I walked Washington Place from west to east, officially from the end to the beginning. The first building of note I encountered is on the west end at Grove St., and it doesn’t have a Washington Place address at all; rather, it’s called The Shenandoah, #10 Sheridan Square, which went up in 1928, designed by Emery Roth. 1928 was amid the Deco period, the last great period of building ornamentation. The Depression and WWII ushered in a soberness that has yet to dissipate; today, much office and residential high rise buildings are unadorned glass boxes.
Because of the sun angle, it was tough to get a picture of this formidable brick building at Washington Place and Barrow St., officially called #1 Sheridan Square. It was constructed in 1903 as a warehouse for the Consolidated Dental Manufacturing Company and was converted to apartments several decades ago. It’s been home to several Village artistic characters, such as painter Saul Schary and Charles Ludlam’s Ridiculous Theatrical Company. The building also housed Café Society from 1938-1950, one of the first desegregated jazz clubs in NYC. The wedge-shaped building on the Barrow St. side, #2 Sheridan Square, was constructed in 1834 with an 1897 addition, a fourth story.
Washington Place is lined on occasion with wonderful Federal/Greek Revival style townhouses. The trio of #124-128 were constructed in 1834. In some cases their original doorway designs, with Doric columns, have been maintained. I’d been puzzled by the medallions or plaques appearing outside the doors of two of these buildings. One, Eagle Hose #2, is likely a volunteer fire brigade. The Firemen’s Hall Museum answered the question:
“American fire marks, also known as ‘badges’ and ‘house plates,’ are signs issued by insurance companies that were affixed to the front of a property to mark that the property was insured for fire. Fire marks carried the symbol or the name of the insurer and were made of cast iron, sheet brass, lead, tinned sheet iron, copper or zinc. They came in various sizes and shapes, sometimes attached to a wooden plaque. Used primarily for advertising purposes, fire marks were used from 1752 to circa 1900. Going back to their early practices, the Philadelphia Contributionship and The Baltimore Equitable Society still issue fire marks.”
It doesn’t get a lot of ink in the guidebooks, but St. Joseph’s Church, at 6th Ave. and Washington Place, designed by architect John Doran in 1833 (the date is prominent on the facing) is the third oldest Catholic Church building in NYC (the Church of the Transfiguration, built on Mott St., in 1801, and Old St. Patrick’s, built on Mulberry and Prince Sts. in 1809, are in older buildings, and St. Mary’s on Grand St., also lays a claim). It’s a mix of Federal and Greek Revival styles. The facing is a later addition and the 1833 exterior walls can only be seen from Washington Place.
St. Joseph’s is among the oldest parishes in Manhattan; only St. Peter’s on Barclay and Church Sts. (est. 1786), Old St. Patrick’s on Mott (1809), St. James (Oliver St., 1829) and Transfiguration, also on Mott (1827; the parish purchased its 1801 building from the Zion Protestant Episcopal Church in 1853) existed before St. Joseph’s. Though the location and walls are still those erected in 1833, the church has suffered several devastating fires over the years that have necessitated both the rebuilding of the 6th Ave. front as well as the interior and most of the stained glass windows. The last such restoration took place in 1992.
Though Washington Place doesn’t extend through Washington Square it’s possible to walk on a straight line (around the fountain) to the eastern piece of Washington Place via a lengthwise park corridor. On this July 2021 Saturday, there was no sign of the recent strife regarding park curfews, though I was here around noon. Musicians were out and I slipped the better of the two piano players I encountered a couple of bucks.
The history of this particular spot in NYC is long and varied; it was first a marshy area surrounding Minetta Brook, which ran from Midtown southwest to the Hudson River), then a cemetery (1797; a tombstone dated 1799 was actually found during the excavation process during renovations from 2002-2011) a parade ground for military marching drills (1826); and finally, a public park (1827).
Looking north past the fountain (which was installed in 1872, replacing an earlier one from 1852), to Stanford White’s memorial George Washington Arch (1892) and One Fifth Avenue, a hotel built in 1926, with a restaurant called One Fifth on the ground floor I’d frequent in the 1980s.
If 20th-century traffic czar Robert Moses had got his wish, the circle around the fountain, which was once used to turn 5th Ave. buses and was open to motor traffic when the Queen of Avenues was one-way, and the fountain would be moved to make way for a connector road between 5th Ave. and LaGuardia Pl. Locals fought Moses (as they did against his proposed Lower Manhattan Expressway on Broome St.) and after a lot of vitriol, the Master Builder backed down. However, the fountain was moved between 2007-2011 during park renovations.
For over a century the campanile of Judson Memorial Church, at Washington Square South and LaGuardia Pl. has dominated the view south from Washington Square. The church is another work of architect Stanford White, and features stained glass by John LaFarge and sculpture by Augustus St. Gaudens and went up in 1896; it was designated a NYC landmark in 1966. Adoniram Judson was the first American Baptist missionary in Asia, working primarily in Burma. Like a lot of property in the area, most of the complex now belongs to New York University.
Three blocks of Washington Place extend east of the Square. Remarkably, the buildings on this stretch don’t belong to any Landmarked district, despite their occasional historic significance; they’re mostly seven- or eight-story structures built between 1905 and 1935 for light manufacturing, with some apartments mixed in. One, the Asch Building on the NW corner of Greene St. (since renamed the Brown Building) was the location of one of NYC’s most heinous manslaughters, the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire of 1911, in which more than 140 immigrant sweatshop employees were killed when they were trapped in a rapidly spreading fire when the exit doors on their floor were locked to prevent shirking or pilferage. The Triangle owners faced no severe legal repercussions, similar to the figures behind the General Slocum steamboat fire seven years earlier in which over 1000 perished; life was considered cheap by the rich and powerful of the era.
Kevin Walsh is the webmaster of the award-winning website Forgotten NY, and the author of the books Forgotten New York (HarperCollins, 2006) and also, with the Greater Astoria Historical Society, Forgotten Queens (Arcadia, 2013)