The Mori Restaurant Building - 144-146 Bleecker Street

 

In 1830, Thomas E. Davis began erecting what would be fashionable homes on both sides of Bleecker Street between Thompson and Laurens Street (later West Broadway and then LaGuardia Place).  As they neared completion in 1831, he began a similar project, lining both sides of East 8th Street between Second and Third Avenues with upscale residences.  A consummate marketer, he lobbied the city to rename the two blocks, hoping to enhance their sense of exclusivity.  In 1833 his Bleecker Street block was renamed Carroll Place, and in 1835 the East 8th Street block became St. Mark's Place.

Each of the Carroll Place homes was 25-feet wide and three-and-a-half stories tall.  In February 1833, just before 146 Bleecker Street was renumbered 7 Carroll Place, an advertisement in The Evening Post offered the house for rent:

The house was erected in 1830, in the most elegant and substantial manner, and is three stories high, of brick and slated roof.  There is a building in the rear containing a tea room and library, and a well and cistern in the yard.  The house is every way calculated for a large and fashionable private family.

That house saw a relatively rapid turnover in well-to-do tenants until it was sold for $10,000 to Dr. William R. Power in January 1845.  The price, equal to about $430,000 in 2026, reflected the exclusivity of the block.

Power was born in Ireland in 1798 and was described as a "distinguished practitioner."  His wife, the former Mercy Hepburn, had recently died and his purchasing of 7 Carroll Place might have had much do to with his marital plans.  He married Aliana Diane Worthington in 1846.

Although William had no children with either of his wives, in 1857 lawyer John T. Power was listed at the address.  He was presumably a relative.

William R. Power died "after a short but severe illness," according to the New-York Daily Tribune, on September 14, 1858.  His funeral was held in the parlor on the 16th.

Aliana Power left Carroll Place shortly afterward.  An auction of the furnishings held on March 8, 1859, hinted at the high-end lifestyles of the Carroll Place residents.  Included were "rosewood parlor suits, covered in rich silk brocatel and plush...Chinese china vases, chandeliers, sideboard, morocco arm chairs," and such.

In the meantime, the house next door at 5 Carroll Street was originally home to the Henry Floyd Tallmage family.  Born in Connecticut on June 11, 1787, he and his wife, Maria Canfield Adams, had five children.   The family sold the house to Dr. John Augustine Smith on April 15, 1841.

Born in 1782, Smith had served as president of the College of William & Mary from 1814 to 1826.  (He resigned when his proposal to move the college from Richmond to Williamsburg was refused.)  Now back in New York City, he became president of the College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1831.

Dr. John Augustine Smith, from the collection of the New York Society Library

Smith married Lettice Lee in 1809 and they had five children, at least one of whom, Richard Augustine (who went by his middle name), lived with his parents.  Augustine was in the paper business on Nassau Street.

In addition to his practice and his lecturing on anatomy at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Dr. Smith edited the Medical and Physiological Journal.  Among his works were the 1840 Select Discourse on the Functions of the Nervous System, his 1846 The Mutations of the Earth, and Moral and Physical Science, published in 1853.  Notably, he was an outspoken supporter of scientific racism, that used phrenology (the "science" of reading bumps on one's skull) to rationalize white supremacy.  He was a vocal exponent of repatriating Blacks to Africa. 

By the outbreak of the Civil War, things had changed in the neighborhood.  No longer ultra-fashionable, affluent residents left Carroll Place and in 1860 the block reverted to Bleecker Street (although both addresses would be used for some time).  In 1861, rented rooms were being offered in both 144 and 146 Bleecker Street.

In 1870, Thomas N. and William B. Doutney established an "eatinghouse," The St. Lawrence, in the basement of 144 Bleecker Street.   Unfortunately, as Thomas recalls in his 1893 autobiography Thomas N. Doutney: His Life-Struggle and Triumphs:

I listened to the bad advice of a dissolute companion, and introduced liquor on my premises, first secretly, then openly, as an article of traffic.  In short, my restaurant became, what too many restaurants already are, a drinking-saloon, a cursed rum-shop.

Thomas and his "dear, good brother William," lost the business.  The saloon was taken over by Korne & Bere.  

In the meantime, the conditions within the rented rooms of the once-luxurious mansions were ghastly.  An article in the New York Herald on February 7, 1871 described the plight of a "woman and five little children at No. 144 Bleecker street."  The journalist said, "No food or fuel has been seen in the little room which these miserable ones occupy for several days, and yesterday the mother, rendered desperate, attempted suicide."

On July 20, 1896, the New York Journal reported, "Women, some of them wives and mothers, who had been caught in the raid on the pool room [an illegal race betting den] at No. 146 Bleecker street, Saturday night, were prisoners in the Jefferson Market Court yesterday."  Prior to the time of the article, the parlor windows of the house had been replaced by bay windows, as noted in a sketch in the article.

In 1896, an illegal betting den occupied the basement of 146 Bleecker.  The elegant Federal doorway was intact, and bay windows had been added, most likely prior to 1861.  New York Journal, July 20, 1896 (copyright expired)

In 1884, a year after arriving in New York City from Florence, Italy, Placido Mori opened his "eating place" in the former Korne & Bere saloon space in 144 Bleecker Street.  The Journal described Mori & Lorenzi's cafe in 1896 as "a cheap restaurant and drinking place much frequented by the Italians of the district."

It became a meeting place for labor and political groups.  On November 24, 1891, for instance, The Evening World remarked, "The Columbus Labor Club, cloak makers...has its headquarters at present at 144 Bleecker street."  On October 27, 1898, the Third Assembly District Republicans held an "Italian parade through the Italian colony and a meeting at 144 Bleecker street," as reported by The Sun.

In November 1900, authorities refused to allow the play Senza Patria (or Without a Country), written by anarchist Pietro Gori, to open.  Throngs of angry native Italians, many of them anarchists, rebelled.  The New York Times reported, "The Anarchists then held an impromptu indignation meeting on the sidewalk, and then several hundred went to Mori & Lorenzi's café, 144 Bleecker Street, which was by common consent designated as a meeting place."

No. 144 was sold several times before Mori purchased the building in 1910.  The Italian immigrant had done well for himself.  On April 23, 1920, the New York Herald reported, "Placido Mori is the buyer of the residence at 21 Washington Square North."  It was one of the most fashionable addresses in New York City.

Among Mori's regular patrons at the time was architect Raymond Hood.  Their close owner-patron relationship would soon become owner-client.  On December 12, 1920, The New York Times reported that Placido Mori "recently bought the adjoining parcel at 146 to add to his establishment.  The article mulled, "The supporters of prohibition may discern in this fact that the prevention of serving red wine, without which no Italian restaurant meal was supposed to be complete...has not yet driven the habitués of these eating places to other resorts."

Mori hired Raymond Hood to combine the houses and remodel the exterior.  He placed a row of Doric columns along the sidewalk level and added a setback penthouse.

Famed photographer Berenice Abbott took this photograph in November 1935.  from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

The observation made by The New York Times that Prohibition had not affected the Italian restaurant was premature.  As it turned out, Mori went on dispensing alcoholic beverages.  On September 16, 1922, the newspaper reported that Prohibition Chief John D. Appleby "sent seven general dry agents yesterday afternoon to Mori's Restaurant."

In the room in the rear of the second floor the agents seized a large quantity of liquors, wines and beer.  The agents said they never saw a more sorrowful staff of waiters than they passed in the dining room as the seized goods were carried out.  The sight of good wines leaving the restaurant, famous in the days gone by for its wine, was more than some of the waiters could stand.

Only four months later, on January 15, 1923, The New York Times reported on another raid.  After seizing 58 bottles of wine and ten bottles of whisky, Placido Mori was arrested.  The article said that police "then went upstairs to the apartment of Louis Funai...from which they took away 18 bottles of champagne, 247 bottles of wine, 15 bottles of gin, 4 bottles of kimmel [sic] and one gallon of wine."

Placido Mori died on July 18, 1927.  In reporting his death, The New York Times remarked that his restaurant "had become noted as a picturesque resort."

Living upstairs at the time was sculptor Thomas Hudson Jones.  He and architect Lorimer Rich were cooperatively working on designs for the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington.  Jones was still living here in December 1928 when Secretary of War Dwight F. Davis announced that their design had been accepted.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Albert Mori operated the restaurant until January 1938, when he filed for bankruptcy.  The New York Times remarked, "The restaurant started as a small bar and eating place.  It expanded until it finally occupied the entire building, a rambling, old-fashioned structure."

The space became Free World House as early as 1944, operated by the International Free World Association.  On June 4, 1944, the group announced that a program of "democratic principles for Europe" would be put into effect "as soon as the Allied armies invade the continent."  A less political event had taken place a month earlier when, on May 28, The New York Times reported, "The second open show of the Village Art Center is current[ly] at Free World House...with more than a hundred oils, water-colors and drawings, by almost as many artists."

It was possibly during the occupancy of the anti-Fascist International Free World Association that five murals by Louis Quintanilla were installed.  Quintanilla arrived in New York in 1938 to create his grouping, called Love Peace Hate War.  (Somewhat ironically, he was the house guest of war correspondent Jay Allen in Placido Mori's former home on Washington Square.)  The paintings were commissioned by the Spanish Government for the Spanish Pavilion of the 1939 World's Fair.  The individual panels were Flight, Pain, Hunger, Soldiers and Destruction.

But the artwork would never be exhibited at the fair.  The Spanish Republic fell and the Fascist Francisco Franco regime demanded that the paintings be returned to Spain.  Reportedly, Quintanilla told officials that a flood in his studio had destroyed the panels.  It appears that he sold or donated the works to the Free World House.

Quintanilla's Hunger (top) and Soldiers, were two of the panels installed at Free World House.  images from The Art and World of Louis Quintanilla

The Free World House remained here until 1956, when the building was converted to the Renata Theatre in the lower two floors and apartments and offices on the top two.  As construction neared completion on November 14, 1956, The New York Times explained that the venue would present "contemporary European plays."  The auditorium would hold an audience of 250.

Among the last performances in the Renata Theatre was a one-person production, An Evening With Ethel Waters, described by The New York Times on April 9, 1959 as a "musical memory."

from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Within a year, the space had been converted to a movie theater, the Bleecker Street Cinema.  It was a neighborhood fixture for decades, finally closing in August 1989.  On November 4 the following year, The New York Times columnist Christopher Gray mentioned, "It is now a gay porno house."

It was during that rather seedy period that the Quintanilla murals were "rediscovered."  On one of the panels, a black arrow reading "Exit" had been scrawled.  According to the artist's son, Paul, "In the early nineties an attempt was made to retrieve them, but the amount of money offered didn't satisfy the owner of the pornographic movie house."  The paintings, therefore, remained in abused condition until February 2, 2007 when the University of Cantabria in Santander, Spain purchased them.  They were restored and now hang at the university. 

The ground floor space became the Elbow Room around 1997.  Offering live music, it remained into the 2000s.  A renovation to the storied building in 2011 resulted in retail space on the ground floor and apartments above.

photographs by the author

The 1830 Frederick Pattillow House -- 355 Bleecker Street

 

In 1827, as Greenwich Village rapidly expanded, the Greenwich Reformed Dutch Church erected a church at the northeast corner of Bleecker Street and Charles Street.  Two years later, the congregation leased the northern portion of the Bleecker Street blockfront to James Haslet (sometimes spelled as Hazlet).  The 21-year lease demanded that Haslet (who was a hatter) immediately fill the lots with "six good and permanent brick or stone buildings, at least two stories in height."  He was prohibited to erect a nuisance, like a factory or stable.

Haslet's builder leaned into the currently ubiquitous Federal style.  Two-and-a-half stories tall and just 17-feet-wide, the houses were faced in Flemish bond brick above a storefront.  Their peaked attic roofs would have been punctured by one or two dormers.

The southernmost of the row, 337 Bleecker Street became home to Frederick Pattillow and his family.  (The address would be renumbered 355 in 1867.)  Born in 1788, Pattillow was a tailor and he moved his shop into the ground floor. 

As was common, the Pattillows took in a boarder.  In 1836, Saloma, the widow of William McLaughlin, lived here; and in 1840 and '41, Francis Squire boarded with the family.  He was a moulder, or brickmaker.

The Pattillows left Bleecker Street in 1849 (Frederick would die on Long Island in 1873 at the age of 85.)  The "two-story brick house," as described in the auction announcement, was sold to Magdalene Ramsey (sometimes spelled Ramsay) on February 21 for $3,850--or about $163,000 in 2026 terms.

Magdalene opened a "fancy store."  Like the Pettillows, she took in one or two boarders at a time.  In 1852, for instance, they were James Pope, a mason, and Nelson Marselis, a clerk.

A female boarder in the spring of 1854 was seeking employment.  Her well-written advertisement in the New-York Tribune on May 22, read:

A person of respectability, a middle-aged widow, an Episcopalian, and well-educated, is desirous of obtaining a situation as seamstress, or companion to a lady; would be willing to make herself generally useful, and be found trustworthy and confidential.  Salary not so much an object as a comfortable home.  Please address post-paid, Mrs. J. A. No. 337 Bleecker-st., and appoint an interview.

Magdalene Ramsey had narrowed the offerings of her fancy store by 1855 when she listed it as "hair and perfume."  She remained here until selling the building to Peter Asmussen around 1867.

Around the same time, Asmussen acquired another of the 1830 row, 361 Bleecker Street.  He moved his family and his undertaking business into that building.  Asmussen leased the store here to a string of cigar shop owners.  In 1870, Henry F. Evers operated his "segar" store from the space.  August Hammerstedt took over the store in 1873, followed by Charles Mezger in 1879.

In 1875, Asmussen hired architect Henry Grube to enlarge 355 and 361 Bleecker Street.  He raised the attics to a full story, installed matching Italianate cornices, and placed pressed metal lintels and molded cornices over the windows.

Charles Mezger still operated the cigar store in 1888.  Living upstairs that year were John H. Decker, a builder; engineer George W. Downes; and Charlotte Guest, the widow of James W. Guest.  But they would all soon have to leave.

That year, Peter Asmussen sold 355 Bleecker Street to John Frederick Asmussen, presumably his brother.  John had been involved in the undertaking business with Peter for years.  Now with Peter retired, he headed the operation and moved it into the former cigar store.

John F. Asmussen was born in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany on June 12, 1838.  His family emigrated to the United States when he was 14.  After working in a tannery and a grocery, he joined Peter's undertaking business.  He was a sexton of St. John's Evangelical Church on Christopher Street, having succeeded Peter Asmussen in that position.

John and his wife, the former Mary Meyn, had four sons, at least two of whom, Jacob H. and Charles C., lived with them.  (The youngest, Charles, was only 12 years old when they moved in in 1888.)  Jacob did not enter the family business and in 1894 opened a men's furnishing goods store at 367 Bleecker Street.

Funerals were always somber affairs, but one held here in the winter of 1884 was especially heart-wrenching.  On February 15, the New-York Tribune reported that J. Clement Uhler had claimed the body of his wife, Emma, "from the dead house of the New-York Hospital."  The article graphically said, "The features of the dead woman were somewhat swollen and discolored; indeed, Mr. Uhler had had some difficulty in recognizing her by the fitful light of the lamp when he visited the dead house."

The Uhlers were poor and, apparently, had no family nor friends.  Uhler asked the pastor of St. John's Lutheran Church "to do what sacred offices were possible under the circumstances."  That night, at 7:00, a "sorrowful little party assembled in the back room of Asmussen's shop," said the article.  Other than the pastor's wife, only two other people were present.  After a "short fervent prayer," the pastor's wife and the other woman in the room placed white flowers into the casket and it was sealed.

Charles C. Asmussen entered the business upon his graduation from public school.  When Frederick retired in 1902, the 26-year-old took over.  Historian William Smith Pelletreau said in 1907, "since that time he has been the sole manager of the manifold interests connected with it.  He is enterprising and progressive in his ideas, and enjoys a great measure of popularity among the large circle of friends."  

The Asmussen funeral parlor was taken over by World War I by John K. Nusskern.  It continued as a well-regarded establishment.  Following the suicide of artist and writer Hans Stengel on January 29, 1928, for instance, The New York Times announced his funeral would be held "at the undertaking establishment of J. K. Nusskern at 355 Bleecker Street." 

"John H. Nusskern Undertaker" is stenciled on the window in 1940.  from the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

John H. Nusskern's operation would remain here into the 1940s, after which it was taken over by Fred Dannecker.  Dannecker died at the age of 51 on August 30, 1952.  In 1957, the funeral home became Horne-Dannecker and moved to 336 West 23rd Street.

In the meantime, the Funaro family had occupied the six rooms on the top floor as early as 1936.  William Funaro's name appeared annually on the Special Committee on Un-American Activities list of Communist Party members.  

In December 1960, Fernando Funaro, presumably William's son, filed an appeal to the State Rent Administration, complaining of the rent hikes he had endured.  Living with him in the apartment were his wife, their adult daughter and her husband, and their eight-year-old daughter.

Funaro said that from 1939 to 1951, he had paid $50 per month.  The rent rose to $57.50 per month in 1951 and in 1958 jumped to $75.00.  In retaliation to his appeal, the landlord filed an eviction order.  Happily for the Funaro family, the State revoked the eviction.  (The $75 monthly rent would translate to about $795 today.)

There are four apartments in the building today.  Where funerals were held for decades, a "custom scene laboratory" occupies the ground floor.  Other than an iron fire escape, the exterior of 355 Bleecker Street is mostly intact since its remodel in 1875.

photographs by the author

J. M. Felson's 1929 218 West 10th Street

image via streeteasy.com

Abraham Schwartz was a builder and real estate developer, head of the A. M. Schwartz Building & Construction Company.  On May 2, 1928, he purchased three three-story apartment buildings at 340 through 344 Bleecker Street and the abutting, five-story apartment house on the southwest corner of West 10th Street.  The next day, The New York Times announced that the old structures, "will be razed and replaced by a modern six-story elevator apartment building containing electric refrigeration and other modern improvements."

Schwartz commissioned the Russian-born architect Jacob M. Felson to design the building.  Completed the following year, the residential entrance was placed at the western end of the West 10th Street side.  The four stores along Bleecker Street were designed with deep arcade show windows that enabled the proprietors to create large displays.  (The corner store was double the size of the other three.)

Completed in 1929 at a cost of $238,700 (about $4.73 million in 2026), Felson's sleek, tripartite 1920s take on the Medieval Revival style included an arched corbel table below the fifth floor cornice, and stepped Tudor-inspired gables with blank shields atop the parapet.  Above the residential entrance Felson placed a carved Renaissance-inspired panel.

Abe Schwartz could not have predicted that the Stock Market would crash the year his building opened.  In August 1931, he lost the property in foreclosure.

A woman who lived here at the time (whose name was not disclosed in newspaper articles) was having an affair with a married Brooklyn man, Valentine C. Bauman.  In the meantime, Ruth C. Bauman was doing some private investigating on her own and tracked down her wandering husband to Manhattan and 218 West 10th Street.  On the evening of November 4, 1931, Ruth and "several of her friends," according to The Brooklyn Standard Union, barged into the apartment.  

Ruth told a judge on January 8, 1932, "There he was sitting on the side of the bed in two-piece underwear talking to a woman in [a] flesh-colored negligee."  According to Ruth Bauman, her husband remarked, "Here I am."  The article said that Ruth was "a free woman today."

The arcade storefronts survived as late as 1941.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Jane Carabine and Margaret Dusseau shared an apartment here as early as 1932.  Margaret came home early on the night of February 26, 1933, to discover her 30-year-old roommate dead.  The New York Times reported, "Gas was escaping from a jet of the kitchen range."  Police called Jane's death accidental.

As early as 1963, Aldo's Italian restaurant occupied the southern-most commercial space.  It was replaced by Boomer's soul food and jazz restaurant around 1972.  That year New York Magazine called it "a casual Village place where spareribs and black-eyed peas are served up with great sounds by the likes of Ray Bryant, Bobby Timmons and Cedar Watson."

The De Santis-Jensen "semi-antiques shop," as described by The New York Times on August 21, 1965, filled the corner space.  Owned by Stuart Jenson and Anthony de Santis, the shop appealed to "the special kind of person who appreciates kookiness as much as we do," according to Jensen.  He told The Times, "Barbra Streisand hasn't been in here, but Tony Perkins has, and so have Eli Wallach, Leonard Bernstein and Anne Bancroft."

photo by The New York Times photographer Bill Allen, August 21, 1965

Living here by 1987 was Glenn R. Purdy, an editor for Travel Agent magazine.  On July 23 that year, Purdy did not arrive at work.  When no one could reach him, senior editor Joe Murphy went to his apartment.  Getting no response from inside, Murphy walked over to the nearby Sixth Precinct station house.

Officers returned with Murphy and entered the apartment.  "They found Mr. Purdy's body on the living room couch," reported The New York Times.  According to one of the officers, the 57-year-old had been stabbed in the back and his pockets had been "ripped apart."  Because there was no sign of forced entry, officials thought Purdy knew his killer.  A bloody kitchen knife was recovered in the apartment.

The building's most celebrated tenant was playwright, librettist and screenwriter Terrence McNally, who lived here with his life partner (and, later, husband), Broadway producer and former civil rights attorney Tom Kirdahy.

Born on November 3, 1938, McNally graduated from Columbia University in 1960.  The next year, he was hired by novelist John Steinbeck and his wife to tutor their two teenaged sons while they traveled.  (McNally was already in a relationship with playwright Edward Albee.)

His first full-length play, This Side of the Door, was produced in 1962, and his Broadway debut came in 1965 when he was just 26 years old.  He would go on to write hits like Love! Valour! Compassion!, Master Class, and The Ritz.

Terrance McNally posed in front of the marquee of his first Broadway musical, The Rink, in 1984.  from the collection of the New York Public Library.

In reviewing his Mothers and Sons in the Observer on March 26, 2014, Rex Reed called the play "a masterpiece," and McNally, "one of the greatest contemporary playwrights the theater world has yet produced."  He also wrote the books for the musicals Kiss of the Spider Woman and Ragtime.  

McNally addressed gay sexuality and the AIDS crisis.  Writing in The New York Times on March 24, 2020, Jesse Green and Neil Genzlinger said, "His gay stories never came across as a narrowing of theater's human focus but as an expansion of it, and by inviting everyone into them he helped solidify the social change he was describing."

McNally and Kirdahy were still living at 218 West 10th Street when the four-time Tony Award-winning playwright died in Sarasota, Florida on March 24, 2020 at the age of 81.

photo via streeteasy.com

For decades the southern space on Bleecker Street was home to Manatus, a diner-type restaurant, while the Village Apothecary on the corner enjoyed equal longevity.  They were replaced by the Saint Theo's restaurant and a Pdpaola jewelry store, respectively.

The 1830 Peter P. Ramsey House - 361 Bleecker Street

 

The population explosion in the Greenwich Village district beginning in the 1820s made ordinary businessmen part-time real estate developers--like hatter James Haslet (sometimes spelled Hazlet).  In 1829, he signed a 21-year lease with the Reformed Dutch Church for a portion of the Bleecker Street blockfront between Amos (later West 10th Street) and Charles Streets.  (The church, erected two years earlier, occupied the remainder of the block.)  The lease demanded that he "immediately" improve the lots with "six good and permanent brick or stone buildings at least two stories in height."  Haslet was prohibited to erect any structure that would be a "nuisance," like a factory.

He erected six 17-foot-wide houses that were completed in 1830.  Faced in Flemish bond brick, they originally rose two-and-a-half stories tall.  Their Federal design included peaked roofs with dormers (most likely just one per home).  It is unclear whether all the houses included a shop, but that was the case with 343 Bleecker Street (renumbered 361 Bleecker in 1867).

The original occupant was Alpheus Hawley, who operated a dry goods store.  The Hawley family's residency would be relatively short.  As early as 1836, Peter P. Ramsey and his family occupied the upper floors while his shoemaking shop was on the ground floor.  Living with the Ramseys was Stephen Keeler, a shoemaker who most assuredly worked for Ramsey.  In 1840, a different shoemaker lived with the family--Cornelius Cooper.

The same owner-worker relationship continued in 1850 when shoemaker Alfred Brush took over the house and store.  Living with his family for the next six years was shoemaker Luke Concklin.  (Luke changed the spelling of his surname to Conklin in 1852.)

Brush's shoe and boot shop seems to have been thriving, because in 1852 through 1854 he had a second employee, John F. Purdy, who lived nearby on Amos Street.  Outside of his business Brush was involved in civic affairs and in 1855 and 1856 served as a city councilman.  

E. Downes took over the shoe store around 1857.  Unlike his predecessors, he did not live over the shop.  He and his family lived at 72 Bedford Street.  There were now two tenants in the upper floors.  The Smith family and Chauncey B. Scranton, a clerk.  (Both John and Conklin Smith were hatters, although they operated separate shops--Conklin's on Park Row and John's on Canal Street.)

After decades of its being a shoe store, in 1864 Edward P. Welch moved his confectionary shop into the ground floor.  There were still two tenants upstairs--George Barnett, a clerk, and carpenter Thomas C. Whitman.  At the time, Peter Asmussen's coffin business was at 291 Bleecker Street.

Around 1867, Asmussen acquired this property (he would continue to purchase Greenwich Village real estate throughout the coming decades).  He moved his undertaking shop in and established his family in the upper floors.  Asmussen was, as well, a sexton in St. John's Lutheran Church on Christopher Street.

Interestingly, given Peter's apparent religious bent, the Asmussen's shared the upper portion of the house with the Stadtmuller family in 1867 and 1868.  Henry Stadtmuller listed his profession as "beer."  Daughter Annie Stadtmuller taught in the girls' department of School No. 20 on Chrystie Street.

By 1873, John F. Asmussen, presumably Peter's brother, had joined the business.  That year Peter and his wife moved far north to 160 East 63rd Street and John moved into 361 Bleecker Street with his wife, the former Mary Meyn, and their eight children.  

The Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide reported on November 6, 1875 that Peter Asmussen had hired architect Henry Grube to remodel 361 Bleecker Street.  The attic was raised to full height, the facade "rebuilt of brick," and a fashionable Italianate cornice installed.  Corniced, sheet metal lintels were included in the remodeling.

Renting rooms from the Asmussens 1879 were a young couple named Crawford.  The husband was a bookkeeper by profession, but he lost his job around September that year.  His resultant frustration became directed to his wife, Ellen.  On September 30, the New-York Tribune reported that Ellen, "a respectable-looking woman, age twenty-two years," had been arrested and charged for attempted suicide, "by throwing herself from the sea wall of the Battery Park."  

In court, Ellen explained to Justice Morgan that her husband was, "improvident in his habits, and rude in his manners toward her; and that when intoxicated he would beat her brutally," as reported by the New-York Tribune.  The judge was moved by her story and dismissed her case.  How Ellen Crawford's domestic life played out is unknown.

In 1888, Peter Asmussen sold the similar building at 355 Bleecker Street to John.  The family moved the undertaking business to that property.  (The following year John erected a livery stable at 56 Barrow Street, which also housed the company's hearse, wagon and horses.)

Peter Asmussen leased the store at 361 Bleecker Street to John J. Keyes as early as the mid-1890s.  Keyes ran a drugstore in the space.  Living upstairs was the family of William L. Reid, who ran an express business at 103 Bank Street.

Herman Meyersfield took over the drugstore in 1895.  He had a scare on the Fourth of July 1896.  The following day, the New-York Tribune reported on the many small blazes that were set off by children playing with fireworks.  Among the casualties was "Herman Morris's [sic] awning at No. 361 Bleecker-st."  The article said he suffered $25 worth of damage, or about $963 in 2026 terms.

Peter Asmussen died in 1903.  His estate continued to lease 361 Bleecker Street. 

Charles Schulz's contracting business had replaced the drugstore about three years earlier.  He and his family lived upstairs.  At the turn of the century, he listed his profession as "painter," but he was much more than that.  Highly involved with Tammany Hall, he was awarded profitable contracts with the city.  He was still living here, for instance, on June 12, 1905 when he received contracts to paint two public schools, Nos. 77 and 123.

The Tammany Times, December 17, 1910 (copyright expired)

The Peter Asmussen estate sold 361 Bleecker Street and two other properties in October 1909.

In the post-Depression years, a modern arcade storefront was installed.  The shop became home to Ruggiero's Fish Market.  

The new arcade storefront made window shopping easy for passersby.  from the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Following the fish store was Helène, a boutique-style lampshade shop run by Helène Lenart.  The New York Times described her wares as "made-to-order, simple in design and moderately priced."  Lenart moved to West 4th Street around 1950.

An unexpected tenant arrived in the ground floor space in 1954--Elektra Records, founded by Jac Holzman in 1950 in his shop, the Record Loft.  In their Folk City--New York and the American Folk Music Revival, authors Stephen Petrus and Ronald D. Cohen explain:

In 1954, after producing seven or eight records, Holzman decided to focus on record production rather than retail, so he closed the Record Loft and moved Elektra around the corner to larger offices at 361 Bleecker Street.

The authors note, "Elektra became a center for gatherings of folk musicians."  Recording artist Theo Bikel recalled, "Folkies would meet with cheap wine and beer and no eats, smallish rooms, just large enough to have some elbow room so you could play a guitar or banjo, and most everybody played and sang."

As early as 1959, sculptor Alfred Van Loen lived and worked at 361 Bleecker Street.  Born in Germany in 1924, he studied sculpture at the Royal Academy of Amsterdam.  He taught at Vassar, Hunter College and Columbia--and in his studio here.

On November 12, 1959, The Villager reported, "Classes at sculptor Alfred Van Leon's studio, 361 Bleecker St., have begun for the fall and winter schedule on Mondays and Wednesdays."  The article noted, "An exponent of direct carving, he also has a class at the North Shore Community Art Center, Roslyn, L.I."  Van Loen's work is included in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art.

A renovation completed in 1965 resulted in an "art gallery with artist's studio and office" on the ground floor, and one apartment each on the upper floors.

The entire building, however, became the Kelter–Malcé antiques shop by 1973.  Jolie Kelter and Michael Malcé sold "quilts, folk art, garden furniture, and other antiques," according to Elaine Louie of The New York Times, adding that the couple "are a walking, talking encyclopedia of 19th- and 20th-century decorative arts."  The pair, who originally lived above the store, closed it in the spring of 1992.  The New York Times reported on May 7, "They will conduct their antique business from their 1850 Italianate town house [on Jane Street]."

At some point, the arcade storefront was modernized.  In the early 2000s, the space was home to Sleek, an apparel boutique, and by 2010 a James Perse clothing shop occupied it.  It was replaced by Rains, another boutique.  Through it all, the unassuming building with its remarkable history remains relatively intact since its 1875 remodeling.

photographs by the author

Henry Engelbert's 1868 367 Bleecker Street

369 Bleecker Street (left) was a mirror-image of 367.  The Charles Street homes, built simultaneously, are directly behind 367, at the right.

By the mid-1860s, the Second Empire style was highly popular in America, its mansard roofs giving a decidedly French flair to Manhattan streets.  In 1867, grocer E. C. Henry Kugeler hired architect Henry Engelbert, who was currently working on the design of the Second Empire-style Grand Hotel on Broadway, to design four structures at the northeast corner of Bleecker Street and Van Nest Place (later Charles Street)--two four-story mansions on Van Nest Place and two store-and-flat buildings facing Bleecker.

Completed in 1868, the two Bleecker Street buildings were designed as mirror-images.  Despite the storefronts, the brick-faced edifices were imposing.  Their segmentally-arched openings originally wore molded brownstone lintels.  Above the cornice was a slate shingled mansard with dormers capped with elegant triangular pediments.  Both buildings were designed to house just three families above the ground floor.  (Apparently the attic level was reserved for servants or storage.)

The commercial space in 367 Bleecker Street was leased to the Cole & Fox dry goods store, run principally by Theodore Fox who lived on West 30th Street.  Among the original residents upstairs were James Bousinger, an importer, and his family; and the Springsteen family.

Henry Springsteen held a relatively new job, a professional firefighter.  Prior to 1865, fires were fought by volunteer companies throughout the city.  When a bill was introduced in the State Senate to abolish those companies and establish the Metropolitan Fire Department in January that year, The New York Times commented that it "has created a great excitement in fire circles, and among the better class of firemen it is not very favorably received."

But by the time the Springsteens moved into 367 Bleecker Street, the uproar had settled.  Henry worked at Engine Company No. 19.  George H. Springsteen, on the other hand, had a more white collar job, working as a clerk.

On October 8, 1871, a conflagration broke out in Chicago.  Dry and windy conditions resulted in a two-day inferno that would be known as the Great Chicago Fire.  The nation reacted with an outpouring of aid.  The disaster caused another to be greatly overlooked.  Calling it "The Great Northwestern Fire," on October 21, New York Herald reported, "The needs of the sufferers by Wisconsin fires are very great; thousands are utterly destitute and must be assisted for many months."  The article noted, "Mr. Fisher, of the Anchor Life Insurance Company, yesterday forwarded one bundle of clothing from Coles & Fox, 367 Bleecker Street."

Unlike some dry goods stores that offered women only the raw goods to create their clothing, Cole & Fox also produced apparel.  On December 16, 1872, it placed an advertisement in the New York Herald that read (rather sternly): "Dressmaker wanted; come prepared to work."

In 1876, George H. Springsteen changed his profession to "printer."  Simultaneously, he established the Chatham, Jordan & Springsteen printing company with two locations--29 Charles Street and 367 Bleecker, supplanting Cole & Fox here.  

Unfortunately, George Springsteen's venture did not work out.  The following year, Chatham, Jordan & Springsteen disappeared from city directories, and E. C. Henry Kugeler, who still owned the four buildings, moved in his grocery.  (It was located at 386 Bleecker Street when he erected the buildings.)  The Springsteen family left Bleecker Street that year, as well, moving to 90 Bank Street.

Now occupying the upper floors were Daniel A. Anderson, an agent who worked on Pier 49 on the Hudson River; Ira S. Otis, a clerk; and cabinetmaker John Lorenz.  Otis and his family would remain here at least through 1886.

J. H. Goetchius leased 367 and 369 Bleecker street in 1891 and made "interior alterations," as described by the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide on September 26.  Whatever the remodeling was, it was minimal, costing Goetchius the equivalent of only $7,000 in 2026.

An interesting resident here during the first years of the 20th century was Amos L. See, a widow.  Born in Westchester County in 1837, his family moved to "old Greenwich Village," as worded by The New York Times, in 1856.  He served in the Civil War as a captain with Company H, 71st Regiment.  (His two sons fought in the same company during the Spanish American War.)  Following the Civil War, See went into the  business of manufacturing hardware.

In 1903, See retired.  He suffered a fatal stroke in his apartment here on March 14, 1906.  The New York Times said, "He was an enthusiastic fisherman, and he spent the last three years of his life fishing a little and talking and reading about it more."  

E. C. Henry Kugeler died around 1909 and the two Bleecker Street buildings and the house that was still numbered 18 Van Nest Place were inherited by his daughters, Matilda C. Kugeler and Anna L. Zellweger.  They sold the three properties at auction on March 15, 1910.

At the time, the residents of 367 Bleecker Street were less professional.  Living here at the time was the family of John Walsh, who drove a wagon for an express company.  That summer, the teamsters went on strike.  Labor disputes in the first decades of the century were often violent and even deadly.  On October 31, 1910, the New-York Tribune reported, "In expectation of trouble to-day Chief Monahan ordered the police to shoot any one seen inciting to riot and who ran when ordered by the police to submit to arrest."  The extreme orders were, in part, a result of the rioting that occurred the previous day.  During that affray, said the newspaper, "John Walsh, a driver, of No. 367 Bleecker street, was locked up on a charge of assaulting Patrolman M. J. Hogan."

The Walsh family was still here when war broke out in Europe.  On October 1, 1918, William J. Walsh's name appeared on the list of soldiers wounded in battle.

In the post-war years, Peter H. Rieper ran the grocery store.  Following the enactment of Prohibition, he started selling more than celery and eggs.  On February 19, 1920, the New-York Tribune reported, "In a grocery at 367 Bleecker Street, Revenue Agents Loftus and Jacobs found thirteen bottles of wine and a quantity of gin."  Rieper was jailed.

A grocery still occupied the ground floor in 1941.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

In 1967, Pierre Moulin and Pierre LeVec created a French Provicial antiques shop, Pierre Deux (The Two Pierres), here.  The shop branched out, importing fabrics from the south of France.  The New York Times would later report, "Before long, there were 22 Pierre Deux shops around the world."

The partners gave the building an even more Parisian flavor by  installing French windows throughout.  Shopping at Pierre Deux could be costly.  New York Magazine said, "this crowded West Village antiques shop has two floors of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century French Country, as well as twentieth-century--tables, chairs, commodes, beds, and more.  Armoires start at $8,000, farm tables at $5,000."  

In 1989, Moulin and LeVec retired, selling all of the shops except 367 Bleecker Street.  LeVec died in 1998 and Moulin the following year.  

Pierre Deux closed in 2011 and in 2013 Burberry Brit moved into the space.  In reporting the opening, Retail Market Study 2013 remarked, "The budding fashion district that is 367 Bleecker Street in Manhattan's Greenwich Village has a new destination.  In October, Burberry opened their latest Burberry Brit store."

Despite the loss of the molded lintels, 367 Bleecker Street is still a commanding presence on the corner.

photographs by the author