Patchin Place
Encyclopedia
Patchin Place is a gated cul-de-sac
located off of 10th Street
between Greenwich Avenue
and the Avenue of the Americas (Sixth Avenue) in the Greenwich Village
neighborhood of Manhattan
, New York City
. Its ten 3-story brick row houses
, said to have been originally built as housing for the Basque
staff of the nearby Brevoort House hotel, have been home to several famous writers, including Theodore Dreiser
, E. E. Cummings
, and Djuna Barnes
, making it a stop on Greenwich Village walking tours. Today it is a popular location for psychotherapists' offices.
s say the builings were intended to be boarding houses for Basque
waiters an other workers at the Brevoort House hotel on Fifth Avenue, but the Brevoort was not built until 1855. The rooms were small, and at the time, the street was noisy due to its proximity to the vendors in Jefferson Market.
In the early 20th century, Patchin Place became popular with writers and artists for the privacy it offered in the middle of Bohemia
. Indoor plumbing, electricity, and steam heat were added in 1917. In 1920, Grace I. Patchin Stuart, the last remaining member of the Patchin family, sold the property to the Land Map Realty Corporation, and the houses were converted into small apartments. E. E. Cummings
moved in three years later; he wrote that "the topfloorback room at 4 Patchin Place ... meant Safety & Peace & the truth of Dreaming & the bliss of Work".
In 1929 the gate at the entrance was added and nearby Jefferson Market prison was torn down, as Patchin Place resident John Cowper Powys
noted in a letter to his brother:
The clock tower that Powys refers to is Jefferson Market Court
, now a library branch. Berenice Abbott
photographed the view of the tower above Patchin Place in 1937.
The modernist writer Djuna Barnes
, a friend of Abbott's, moved into a room-and-a-half apartment at #5 Patchin Place in 1941. She had lived in Greenwich Village in the 1910s and had been in the audience when residents organized a performance of William Butler Yeats
's play The King's Threshold in the courtyard of Patchin Place as a war benefit, but had spent most of the 1920s and 30s in Europe.
After her return to New York she became so reclusive that Cummings would occasionally check on her by shouting out his window "Are you still alive, Djuna?" Yet in 1963, when a developer proposed to tear down the houses on Patchin and nearby Milligan Place in order to put up a high-rise apartment building, she left her apartment to tell a protest meeting that she would die if she had to move, and, less helpfully, that the destruction of the neighborhood would leave local youths with nowhere to practice their mugging.
Community activists, led by future mayor Ed Koch
, succeeded in saving Patchin Place, and in 1969 it became landmarked with the creation of the Greenwich Village Historic District. Though she complained about "writing amid the roaring of plumbing, howling of downstairs dog, thumping of small child on elephant's feet", Barnes remained in residence until her death in 1982.
—one of only two in New York City, and the only one that still gives light, though the light is now electric.Usage has changed, however: the same privacy that had once attracted writers and artists also appealed to psychotherapists, who began to locate there in the 1990s, transforming the street into what one psychologist called "therapy row". As of 2003, Patchin Place was home to about 35 residents and 15 therapists' offices.
Cul-de-sac
A cul-de-sac is a word of French origin referring to a dead end, close, no through road or court meaning dead-end street with only one inlet/outlet...
located off of 10th Street
10th Street (Manhattan)
10th Street is an east-west street from the West Village neighborhood of the New York City borough of Manhattan to Avenue D in the East Village. East of Sixth Avenue it changes heading, from east-northeast to east-southeast. Traffic is eastbound as far as Tompkins Square Park, of which it marks...
between Greenwich Avenue
Greenwich Avenue (Manhattan)
Greenwich Avenue is a southeast-northwest avenue in Greenwich Village, in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It extends from the intersection of 6th Avenue and 8th Street at its southeast end to its northwestern end at 8th Avenue between 14th Street and 13th Street...
and the Avenue of the Americas (Sixth Avenue) in the Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...
neighborhood of Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
, New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. Its ten 3-story brick row houses
Row houses
The Row at Stanford University is made up of 36 student-managed houses, from the Cowell Cluster to the Lake Houses and all along Mayfield Avenue, with a total population of a little over 1600 students. Houses range in occupancy from 22 to 59...
, said to have been originally built as housing for the Basque
Basque people
The Basques as an ethnic group, primarily inhabit an area traditionally known as the Basque Country , a region that is located around the western end of the Pyrenees on the coast of the Bay of Biscay and straddles parts of north-central Spain and south-western France.The Basques are known in the...
staff of the nearby Brevoort House hotel, have been home to several famous writers, including Theodore Dreiser
Theodore Dreiser
Theodore Herman Albert Dreiser was an American novelist and journalist of the naturalist school. His novels often featured main characters who succeeded at their objectives despite a lack of a firm moral code, and literary situations that more closely resemble studies of nature than tales of...
, E. E. Cummings
E. E. Cummings
Edward Estlin Cummings , popularly known as E. E. Cummings, with the abbreviated form of his name often written by others in lowercase letters as e.e. cummings , was an American poet, painter, essayist, author, and playwright...
, and Djuna Barnes
Djuna Barnes
Djuna Barnes was an American writer who played an important part in the development of 20th century English language modernist writing and was one of the key figures in 1920s and '30s bohemian Paris after filling a similar role in the Greenwich Village of the teens...
, making it a stop on Greenwich Village walking tours. Today it is a popular location for psychotherapists' offices.
History
The property that became Patchin Place was once part of a farm belonging to Sir Peter Warren. In 1799 it was sold to Samuel Milligan, who later conveyed it to his son-in-law, Aaron Patchin. The buildings that now occupy the site were put up in 1848 or 1849. Many guide bookGuide book
A guide book is a book for tourists or travelers that provides details about a geographic location, tourist destination, or itinerary. It is the written equivalent of a tour guide...
s say the builings were intended to be boarding houses for Basque
Basque people
The Basques as an ethnic group, primarily inhabit an area traditionally known as the Basque Country , a region that is located around the western end of the Pyrenees on the coast of the Bay of Biscay and straddles parts of north-central Spain and south-western France.The Basques are known in the...
waiters an other workers at the Brevoort House hotel on Fifth Avenue, but the Brevoort was not built until 1855. The rooms were small, and at the time, the street was noisy due to its proximity to the vendors in Jefferson Market.
Bohemianism
Bohemianism is the practice of an unconventional lifestyle, often in the company of like-minded people, with few permanent ties, involving musical, artistic or literary pursuits...
. Indoor plumbing, electricity, and steam heat were added in 1917. In 1920, Grace I. Patchin Stuart, the last remaining member of the Patchin family, sold the property to the Land Map Realty Corporation, and the houses were converted into small apartments. E. E. Cummings
E. E. Cummings
Edward Estlin Cummings , popularly known as E. E. Cummings, with the abbreviated form of his name often written by others in lowercase letters as e.e. cummings , was an American poet, painter, essayist, author, and playwright...
moved in three years later; he wrote that "the topfloorback room at 4 Patchin Place ... meant Safety & Peace & the truth of Dreaming & the bliss of Work".
In 1929 the gate at the entrance was added and nearby Jefferson Market prison was torn down, as Patchin Place resident John Cowper Powys
John Cowper Powys
-Biography:Powys was born in Shirley, Derbyshire, in 1872, the son of the Reverend Charles Francis Powys , who was vicar of Montacute, Somerset for thirty-two years, and Mary Cowper Johnson, a descendent of the poet William Cowper. He came from a family of eleven children, many of whom were also...
noted in a letter to his brother:
They've gone and put up iron gates at the entrance to Patchin Place — in the middle of the entrance — leaving the little openings by the new brick posts free. And they've pulled down the Prison — but so far not the Clock tower. In the foundations of this fallen BastilleBastilleThe Bastille was a fortress in Paris, known formally as the Bastille Saint-Antoine. It played an important role in the internal conflicts of France and for most of its history was used as a state prison by the kings of France. The Bastille was built in response to the English threat to the city of...
, from where of so many Sundays we heard the imprisoned Baggages sing about heaven, is an iron clutcher with a dragonish dew-lap scooping earth and hissing with a steamy vibrant roar. I am deaf of one ear — but this noise is very strident. But do you know we can now see the Woolworth towerWoolworth BuildingThe Woolworth Building is one of the oldest skyscrapers in New York City. More than a century after the start of its construction, it remains, at 57 stories, one of the fifty tallest buildings in the United States as well as one of the twenty tallest buildings in New York City...
and also the Singer Tower from the entrance of Patchin Place....
The clock tower that Powys refers to is Jefferson Market Court
Jefferson Market Library
The Jefferson Market Branch, New York Public Library, still familiar to New Yorkers as Jefferson Market Courthouse, is located at 425 6th Avenue in Greenwich Village, New York City on a triangular plot formed by Greenwich Avenue and West 10th Street...
, now a library branch. Berenice Abbott
Berenice Abbott
Berenice Abbott , born Bernice Abbott, was an American photographer best known for her black-and-white photography of New York City architecture and urban design of the 1930s.-Youth:...
photographed the view of the tower above Patchin Place in 1937.
The modernist writer Djuna Barnes
Djuna Barnes
Djuna Barnes was an American writer who played an important part in the development of 20th century English language modernist writing and was one of the key figures in 1920s and '30s bohemian Paris after filling a similar role in the Greenwich Village of the teens...
, a friend of Abbott's, moved into a room-and-a-half apartment at #5 Patchin Place in 1941. She had lived in Greenwich Village in the 1910s and had been in the audience when residents organized a performance of William Butler Yeats
William Butler Yeats
William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet and playwright, and one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature. A pillar of both the Irish and British literary establishments, in his later years he served as an Irish Senator for two terms...
's play The King's Threshold in the courtyard of Patchin Place as a war benefit, but had spent most of the 1920s and 30s in Europe.
After her return to New York she became so reclusive that Cummings would occasionally check on her by shouting out his window "Are you still alive, Djuna?" Yet in 1963, when a developer proposed to tear down the houses on Patchin and nearby Milligan Place in order to put up a high-rise apartment building, she left her apartment to tell a protest meeting that she would die if she had to move, and, less helpfully, that the destruction of the neighborhood would leave local youths with nowhere to practice their mugging.
Community activists, led by future mayor Ed Koch
Ed Koch
Edward Irving "Ed" Koch is an American lawyer, politician, and political commentator. He served in the United States House of Representatives from 1969 to 1977 and three terms as mayor of New York City from 1978 to 1989...
, succeeded in saving Patchin Place, and in 1969 it became landmarked with the creation of the Greenwich Village Historic District. Though she complained about "writing amid the roaring of plumbing, howling of downstairs dog, thumping of small child on elephant's feet", Barnes remained in residence until her death in 1982.
Present day
Patchin Place remains physically almost unchanged. It even retains its 19th century gas street lampGas lighting
Gas lighting is production of artificial light from combustion of a gaseous fuel, including hydrogen, methane, carbon monoxide, propane, butane, acetylene, ethylene, or natural gas. Before electricity became sufficiently widespread and economical to allow for general public use, gas was the most...
—one of only two in New York City, and the only one that still gives light, though the light is now electric.Usage has changed, however: the same privacy that had once attracted writers and artists also appealed to psychotherapists, who began to locate there in the 1990s, transforming the street into what one psychologist called "therapy row". As of 2003, Patchin Place was home to about 35 residents and 15 therapists' offices.
Noted residents
- Djuna BarnesDjuna BarnesDjuna Barnes was an American writer who played an important part in the development of 20th century English language modernist writing and was one of the key figures in 1920s and '30s bohemian Paris after filling a similar role in the Greenwich Village of the teens...
(#5, 1941–1982) - Ralph Albert BlakelockRalph Albert BlakelockRalph Albert Blakelock was a romanticist painter from the United States.-Biography:Ralph Blakelock was born in New York City on October 15, 1847. His father was a successful physician. Blakelock initially set out to follow in his footsteps, and in 1864 began studies at the Free Academy of the...
(#1, 1853–1861, as a child) - Randolph BourneRandolph BourneRandolph Silliman Bourne was a progressive writer and "leftist intellectual" born in Bloomfield, New Jersey, and a graduate of Columbia University...
- Marlon BrandoMarlon BrandoMarlon Brando, Jr. was an American movie star and political activist. "Unchallenged as the most important actor in modern American Cinema" according to the St...
(ca. 1943, while rooming with his sister) - Louise BryantLouise BryantLouise Bryant was an American journalist and writer. She was best known for her Marxist and anarchist beliefs and her essays on radical political and feminist themes. Bryant published articles in several radical left journals during her life, including Alexander Berkman's The Blast...
(#1, with John Reed) - E. E. CummingsE. E. CummingsEdward Estlin Cummings , popularly known as E. E. Cummings, with the abbreviated form of his name often written by others in lowercase letters as e.e. cummings , was an American poet, painter, essayist, author, and playwright...
(#4, 1923–1962) - Theodore DreiserTheodore DreiserTheodore Herman Albert Dreiser was an American novelist and journalist of the naturalist school. His novels often featured main characters who succeeded at their objectives despite a lack of a firm moral code, and literary situations that more closely resemble studies of nature than tales of...
- Alyse GregoryAlyse GregoryAlyse Gregory was an American suffragist and writer.Her father was a doctor in Nowalk. She showed musical talent at an early age, was sent to Paris, France, to receive a musical education when she was fifteen years old, and continued her study of music on her return to the United States...
- Harold HerseyHarold HerseyHarold Brainerd Hersey was a pulp editor and publisher, and published several volumes of poetry. His pulp industry observations were published in hardback as Pulpwood Editor .-Early life:...
- John Howard LawsonJohn Howard LawsonJohn Howard Lawson was an American writer. He was head of the Hollywood division of the Communist Party USA. He was also the cell's cultural manager, and answered directly to V.J. Jerome, the Party's New York-based cultural chief...
(16 years) - John MasefieldJohn MasefieldJohn Edward Masefield, OM, was an English poet and writer, and Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 1930 until his death in 1967...
- John Cowper PowysJohn Cowper Powys-Biography:Powys was born in Shirley, Derbyshire, in 1872, the son of the Reverend Charles Francis Powys , who was vicar of Montacute, Somerset for thirty-two years, and Mary Cowper Johnson, a descendent of the poet William Cowper. He came from a family of eleven children, many of whom were also...
(#4, 1923–1929) - John Reed (#1, with Louise Bryant, began writing Ten Days That Shook the WorldTen Days that Shook the WorldTen Days that Shook the World is a book by American journalist and socialist John Reed about the October Revolution in Russia in 1917 which Reed experienced firsthand. Reed followed many of the prominent Bolshevik leaders, especially Grigory Zinoviev and Karl Radek, closely during his time in Russia...
there)
External links
- New York Changing—photographs of Patchin Place in 1937 and 1997
- Forgotten New York- photographs and information