Washington Square Village
Encyclopedia
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 New York City. WSV was developed by Paul Tishman
Paul Tishman
Paul Tishman, was a real-estate developer and a collector of African art. Paul Tishman was a member of the long established New York construction and real estate family whose independent development company did major projects in the New York area....
and Morton S. Wolf
Morton S. Wolf
Morton S. Wolf was a realty executive.He was the founder of Spencer-Taylor Inc., a real estatedevelopment and hotel management firm. He founded the companytogether with his brother Charles S. Wolf. Under Mr. Wolf's...
. To design the housing complex,
the developer selected architects S.J. Kessler and Sons, with Paul Lester Weiner
Paul Lester Weiner
-Education:He was educated in the Royal Academy of Berlin with post graduate study in Vienna and Paris. He came to the United States in 1913 and became a citizen in 1919. He returned to Europe for further study and work until 1927...
as consultant for site planning
Site planning
Site planning in landscape architecture and architecture refers to the organizational stage of the landscape design process. It involves the organization of land use zoning, access, circulation, privacy, security, shelter, land drainage, and other factors...
and design; landscape architects were Sasaki, Walker & Associates.
WSV contains 1,292 apartments in two parallel tower slabs of two buildings each, enclosing a park over a 650-car underground garage. WSV represents the epitome of the tower in a park approach to housing. The complex features vertical panels of bold, primary-color glazed bricks, and terraces. It is owned by New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
and houses faculty members, graduate students, and other members of the community. WSV is bounded by West 3rd Street, Bleecker Street, Mercer Street and LaGuardia Place to the north, south, east and west respectively. It is traversed by two driveways of which the westerly one was formerly part of Wooster Street, and the easterly, Greene Street.
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19th century
In the early 19th century, the tract on which Washington Square Village now stands was in the Eighth ward in the northernmost part of the New York CityNew 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...
. Beyond were only farms and estates stretching north from what is now Washington Square Park
Washington Square Park
Washington Square Park is one of the best-known of New York City's 1,900 public parks. At 9.75 acres , it is a landmark in the Manhattan neighborhood of Greenwich Village, as well as a meeting place and center for cultural activity...
. Neither the Park nor the street grid of numbered streets and avenues yet existed. The Bleecker family owned an estate in the area and a Reverend Bleecker was Rector
Rector
The word rector has a number of different meanings; it is widely used to refer to an academic, religious or political administrator...
at the St. Luke's in the Fields, Trinity Parish, on Hudson Street. This church is still standing and in active use. Before the east side took shape, the west side of town had already become urbanized as the Village of Greenwich
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...
.
The Washington Square Village apartment complex is built on an old but not historically significant site. Originally, there were three city blocks where WSV now stands, which were of average size for the time. Examples of what they looked like then can be found immediately to the east and west of the block. The blocks were settled by the French and in fact called "Frenchtown" for a time. By the 1870s most of the French had moved uptown, and it became the "Latin Quarter", well known for its brothels and taverns. No churches or public buildings were built on these blocks. West Third Street was then called Amity Street and LaGuardia Place was Laurens Street. Laurens
Henry Laurens
Henry Laurens was an American merchant and rice planter from South Carolina who became a political leader during the Revolutionary War. A delegate to the Second Continental Congress, Laurens succeeded John Hancock as President of the Congress...
, Wooster
David Wooster
David Wooster was an American general who served in the French and Indian War and in the American Revolutionary War. He died of wounds sustained during the Battle of Ridgefield, Connecticut. Cities, schools, and public places were named after him...
, Greene
Nathanael Greene
Nathanael Greene was a major general of the Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War. When the war began, Greene was a militia private, the lowest rank possible; he emerged from the war with a reputation as George Washington's most gifted and dependable officer. Many places in the United...
, and Mercer
Hugh Mercer
Hugh Mercer was a soldier and physician. He initially served with British forces during the Seven Years War but later became a brigadier general in the Continental Army and a close friend to George Washington...
are Revolutionary War
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War , the American War of Independence, or simply the Revolutionary War, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies in North America, and ended in a global war between several European great powers.The war was the result of the...
heroes (as are Sullivan
John Sullivan
John Sullivan was the third son of Irish immigrants, a United States general in the Revolutionary War, a delegate in the Continental Congress and a United States federal judge....
, Thompson
William Thompson (general)
William Thompson was a soldier from Pennsylvania and a brigadier general in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War.Thompson was born in Ireland and emigrated to Carlisle, Pennsylvania...
, and McDougal
Alexander McDougall
Alexander McDougall was an American seaman, merchant, a Sons of Liberty leader from New York City before and during the American Revolution, and a military leader during the Revolutionary War. He served as a major general in the Continental Army, and as a delegate to the Continental Congress...
).
1950s: Slum clearance and urban renewal
For the first half of the 20th century the WSV area remained a neighborhood of mostly working class flats, lofts and factories. Although never a slum, it was nevertheless slated for urban renewalUrban renewal
Urban renewal is a program of land redevelopment in areas of moderate to high density urban land use. Renewal has had both successes and failures. Its modern incarnation began in the late 19th century in developed nations and experienced an intense phase in the late 1940s – under the rubric of...
by the Mayor's Committee on Slum Clearance, as part of a vast project led by Robert Moses
Robert Moses
Robert Moses was the "master builder" of mid-20th century New York City, Long Island, Rockland County, and Westchester County, New York. As the shaper of a modern city, he is sometimes compared to Baron Haussmann of Second Empire Paris, and is one of the most polarizing figures in the history of...
. Washington Square Village was intended to be part of a broad effort in Manhattan and throughout New York City to clear what some in the city government perceived as slums and to replace the old, run-down buildings with sleek modern structures.
The project was to include a vehicular bridge from Staten Island
Staten Island
Staten Island is a borough of New York City, New York, United States, located in the southwest part of the city. Staten Island is separated from New Jersey by the Arthur Kill and the Kill Van Kull, and from the rest of New York by New York Bay...
to the Battery, and an elevated highway, the Lower Manhattan Expressway
Lower Manhattan Expressway
The Lower Manhattan Expressway was a controversial plan for an expressway through lower Manhattan originally conceived by Robert Moses in 1941, but delayed until the early 1960s...
, across Lower Manhattan
Lower Manhattan
Lower Manhattan is the southernmost part of the island of Manhattan, the main island and center of business and government of the City of New York...
. The plan also included a new "Fifth Avenue South" replacing West Broadway and what is now LaGuardia Place. As was the case in the 19th century with the street grid, local opposition stopped it. The only parts of the project that did happen are the superblocks where Washington Square Village and University Plaza now stand, including the adjacent widened parts of West Third and Bleecker Streets and the parkland strips along Mercer Street and LaGuardia Place between Houston and West Third.
1957-1964: NYU acquisition, apartment complex development
Washington Square Village was proposed in July 1957 as part of a six-building, 2,004 unit complex that would stretch down to Houston Street. 54000 square feet (5,016.8 m²) of shopping space was to be included.In the 1950s, after the assembly of the superblock, Washington Square Village was constructed as a for-profit, middle class housing complex. It was marketed to people who might otherwise move out of the city or who had already moved out to the suburbs and might want to move back. Initially, the apartment complex was referred to as Tishman’s Tenements, after Paul Tishman
Paul Tishman
Paul Tishman, was a real-estate developer and a collector of African art. Paul Tishman was a member of the long established New York construction and real estate family whose independent development company did major projects in the New York area....
one of the original developers. Rents for studios to three bedroom ranged from about $150 to about $300 per month with about $25 extra for underground parking. Occupancy commenced in the Fall of 1958 with the opening of the north Buildings 1 and 2. South buildings 3 and 4 were opened a year or two later with freight elevators and no penthouses. A third building was to be built in the block where the University Plaza and the Silver Towers
University Village, New York
The University Village is a complex of three apartment buildings located in Greenwich Village in the Lower Manhattan-part of New York City. The complex is owned by New York University and was built in the 1960s as part of the University's transition to a residential college...
now stand. This was never accomplished presumably for lack of demand or due to the increased cost and taxes.
The languishing rental market led to the acquisition of Washington Square Village by New York University for $25 million dollars. (The reported cost of development, according to the Housing and Redevelopment Board statistics was $20 million.) NYU bought Washington Square Village in 1964, after Paul Tishman
Paul Tishman
Paul Tishman, was a real-estate developer and a collector of African art. Paul Tishman was a member of the long established New York construction and real estate family whose independent development company did major projects in the New York area....
(one of the original developers of WSV who was also sitting on the NYU board) ran into financial trouble. NYU also purchased the as yet unimproved superblock to the south and built University Plaza
University Village, New York
The University Village is a complex of three apartment buildings located in Greenwich Village in the Lower Manhattan-part of New York City. The complex is owned by New York University and was built in the 1960s as part of the University's transition to a residential college...
on it, including Silver Towers, Coles Sports and Recreation Center
Coles Sports and Recreation Center
The Coles Sports and Recreation Center is the main athletic facility at New York University, located at 181 Mercer Street in New York City. The $18 million Coles Center drew fire from Greenwich Village residents when it was opened in 1981. The building is named in honor of Jerome S. Coles, an...
, 505 LaGuardia Place and a commercial building, which as of 2009 was occupied by Morton Williams Supermarkets.
After the purchase by NYU, residents of the complex were entitled to remain in their apartments but vacant units (of which there were many) and units as they became vacated after NYU's purchase could be acquired for University use. As the neighborhood has become increasingly desirable, to say the very least, many of the original residents have continued to stay on and have been there for upwards of 35 or 40 years. It is also being used as graduate student and faculty housing.
The garden between the two buildings has been designed by Hideo Sasaki
Hideo Sasaki
Sasaki Hideo was an influential American landscape architect.-Biography:Sasaki Hideo was born in Reedley, California, on 25 November 1919. He grew up working on his family's California truck farm, and harvesting crops on Arizona farms. He began his college studies at the University of California,...
and combined biomorphic shapes with a strong grid of trees and a spectacular fountain with four high jets to stand up to the high-rises. It was a pioneering example of rooftop planting, being built on top of an underground garage. According to a 1999 New York Times Home & Garden article, the subtleties of the design have been blurred by poor maintenance and a misguided choice of trees and shrubs. The fountain now contains only one, very weak jet and most of the plants are different than the ones that were carefully selected by Sasaki for the original garden.
2008: "NYU Plans 2031" and the future of the complex
As part of the NYU Plans 2031 long-term strategic planning initiative, NYU has presented some concept plans for the redevelopment of the complex. The plans include ideas to demolish the buildings and restore the superblock to its original 6-block constituents; other ideas include the development of additional buildings in the garden between the two WSV buildings.Miscellany
- John Lloyd StephensJohn Lloyd StephensJohn Lloyd Stephens was an American explorer, writer, and diplomat. Stephens was a pivotal figure in the rediscovery of Maya civilization throughout Middle America and in the planning of the Panama railroad....
, an amateur archaeologist who rediscovered Mayan ruins in 1839, lived in 13 LeRoy PlaceLeRoy PlaceLeRoy Place is the former name of a block of Bleecker Street between Mercer and Greene Streets in New York City.-History:This was the street in New York where the first palatial "winged residences" were built. The effect was accomplished by making the central houses taller and closer to the street,...
, a house built on the area occupied now by the Building 4 of the WSV complex. - William LescazeWilliam LescazeWilliam Edmond Lescaze was a Swiss-born American architect, and is one of the pioneers of modernism in American architecture....
accused the developers and the architects of WSV of using plans, ideas, and designs that he developed to build the WSV complex. In 1962, Lescaze filed suit, claiming $550,000 in damages for the unfair use of the materials that he developed for WSV, and for which he was never officially hired and paid. - Next to a pillar outside Building 2, a plaque is set in the asphalt that reads "BOB HOVELL STOOD HERE" . Bob Hovell was a long-term resident and superintendent of Washington Square Village.