8th Street and St. Mark's Place

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8th Street/St. Mark's Place
St. Mark's Place
7th Street (Bowery to Avenue D)
Construction
CommissionedMarch 1811

8th Street is a

10th Street at Second Avenue
.

St. Mark's Place is considered a main cultural street for the

one-way streets. St. Mark's Place features a wide variety of retailers. Venerable institutions lining St. Mark's Place have included Gem Spa and the St. Mark's Hotel. There are several open-front markets that sell sunglasses, clothing, and jewelry. In her 400-year history of St. Mark's Place (St. Marks Is Dead), Ada Calhoun called the street "like superglue for fragmented identities" and wrote that "the street is not for people who have chosen their lives ... [it] is for the wanderer, the undecided, the lonely, and the promiscuous."[3]

History

Early years

The Commissioners' Plan of 1811 defined the street grid for much of Manhattan. According to the plan, 8th Street was to run from Greenwich Lane (now Greenwich Avenue) in the west to First Avenue on the east.[5][6] The area west of Greenwich Lane was already developed as Greenwich Village, while the area east of First Avenue was reserved for a wholesale food market.

The plan was amended many times as the grid took shape and public spaces were added or eliminated. The marketplace proposal was scrapped in 1824, allowing 8th Street to continue eastward to the river.[7] On the west side, Sixth Avenue was extended and Greenwich Lane shortened, shifting the boundary of 8th Street, ever so slightly, to Sixth Avenue and allowing Mercer, Greene, Wooster and MacDougal Streets to continue northward to 8th.[8][9]

19th century

After the Commissioners' Plan was laid out, property along the street's right of way quickly developed. By 1835, the

Jefferson Market, built in 1832 at the west end, and the Tompkins Market, built in 1836, at the east end. These were factors in the street's commercialization in later years.[4]

Eighth Street was supposed to extend to a market place at Avenue C, but since that idea never came to fruition. Capitalizing on the high-class status of Bond, Bleecker, Great Jones, and Lafayette Streets in NoHo, developer Thomas E. Davis developed the east end of the street and renamed it "St. Mark's Place" in 1835.[10] Davis built up St. Mark's Place between Third and Second Avenues between 1831 and 1832. Although the original plan was for Federal homes, only three such houses remained in 2014.[10]

Meanwhile, Eighth Street became home to a literary scene. At Astor Place and Eighth Street, the Astor Opera House was built by wealthy men and opened in 1847.[11] Publisher Evert Augustus Duyckinck founded a private library at his 50 East Eighth Street home. Ann Lynch started a famous literary salon at 116 Waverly Place and relocated to 37 West Eighth Street in 1848.[4] Around this time and up until the 1890s, Eighth Street was co-named Clinton Place in memory of politician DeWitt Clinton, whose widow lived along nearby University Place.[4]

In the 1850s, Eighth Street housed an educational scene as well. The

Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, a then-free institution for art, architecture and engineering education, was opened in 1858. The Century Club, an arts and letters association, relocated to 46 East Eighth Street around that time; the Bible House of the American Bible Society, was nearby. In addition, the Brevoort Hotel, as well as a marble mansion built by John Taylor Johnston, were erected at Fifth Avenue and Eighth Street.[4]

At the same time, German immigrants moved into the area around Tompkins Square Park. The area around St. Mark's Place was nicknamed Kleindeutschland, or "Little Germany", because of a huge influx of German immigrants in the 1840s and 1850s. Many of the homes turned into boarding houses, as the area had 50,000 residents but not a lot of real estate. Tenement housing was also built on St. Mark's Place.[10]

By the 1870s, apartments replaced stables and houses along the stretch of Eighth Street west of MacDougal Street. The elevated

Eighth Street.[4][10]

Wanamaker
Annex

At the southwest corner of Broadway and Eighth Street, the street's first commercial building was built. By the 1890s, buildings on the stretch from Bowery to Fifth Avenue were used for trade.

A.T. Stewart store along Broadway between 9th and 10th Streets, with an annex built at Eighth Street.[4]

20th century

In the early 1900s, Little Germany was shrinking. At the same time, Jews, Hungarians, Poles, Ukrainians, and Russians from Eastern Europe started moving in. In 1916,

Slovenian Church of St. Cyril, which still operates.[12] At this point, St. Mark's Place was considered a part of the Lower East Side.[10]

On the western stretch of Eighth Street, an art scene was growing. Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, Daniel Chester French, and other artists moved in the stables at MacDougal Alley at this time. By 1916, a studio complex for artists replaced most of these stables, making the areas around Eighth Street popular for bohemians. Whitney, a patron for other American painters, combined four houses on West Eighth Street houses into the Whitney Museum in 1931.[4]

The 1927 construction of the skyscraper at

Eighth Street Playhouse movie theater, helped influence development on the Sixth Avenue end of the street, where construction of the IND Eighth Avenue Line had required destruction of many buildings there.[4] On an adjoining block, the Women's House of Detention was built in Jefferson Market complex in 1929–1932 and existed through the 1970s.[4]

In the 1930s, after

abstract expressionist painters was centered around Eighth Street, with many such painters moving to Eighth Street.[4]

After

high-rises.[4] Around this time, West Eighth Street was also becoming the location of neighborhood commerce.[4]

After the elevated train lines were demolished in the 1940s and 1950s, the real estate industry tried to entice residents to the St. Mark's Place area, describing the neighborhood as "East Village". This area became home to an underground scene, and as it was far from public transportation, it became rundown. A 1965 Newsweek article described the East Village by telling readers to "head east from Greenwich Village, and when it starts to look squalid, around the Bowery and Third Avenue, you know you're there."[10]

In the 1960s, Macdougal and West Eighth Streets, as well as St. Mark's Place, became a popular area for

tour buses, which formerly skipped the area.[10]

In 1977, St. Marks Place became the epicenter of punk rock, when Manic Panic opened its doors on July 7, 1977 (7/7/77).[13] The shop quickly attracted musicians from Cyndi Lauper to the Ramones.[14]

In 1980, hot dog company Nathan's Famous moved into the location of a former bookstore on Eighth Street, to the anger of some Greenwich Village residents. However, other establishments, such as the B. Dalton bookstore, clothing stores, and shoe stores, started to attract tourists to the area.[4] By the 1990s, the areas around both Eighth Street and St. Mark's Place were becoming rapidly gentrified, with new buildings and establishments being developed along both streets.[10] The Village Alliance Business Improvement District was formed in 1993 to care for the area around Eighth Street.[4]

Notable buildings and sites

The entrance to 295 East 8th Street, with "Talmud Torah Darchei Noam" above the door
The original location of the Whitney Museum, three converted townhouses at 8–12 West 8th Street

8th Street

East

West

Hamilton-Holly House (#4) was part of the same 1830s development as...
...the Daniel LeRoy House (#20); the developer was Thomas E. Davis.[22]
The German-American Shooting Society clubhouse at#12
Arlington Hall at#19–23, c.1892
Club 57 at #57
The Physical Graffiti buildings at #96 & #98

St. Mark's Place

Rent Is Too Damn High Party car parked on St Mark's Place, where founder Jimmy McMillan lived until 2015[42]
  • #80 – Home of Leon Trotsky.[41] Theatre 80[43] saw the premiere of You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown in 1967. Formerly the Jazz Gallery, site of the last performance by Lord Buckley. Now also the home of The Exhibition of the American Gangster, a museum of the American Gangster.[44]
  • #85 – The 1871 birthplace of painter and caricaturist Lyonel Feininger.[45]
  • #94 – Home of "UNDER St. Mark's Theater", an alternative performance venue and black box theater from the 1970s.[46]
  • #96 & #98 – The
    Rolling Stones song "Waiting on a Friend".[23]
  • #96 – Once the home of the Anarchist Switchboard, a 1980s punk activist group.
  • #97 – Home of Yaffa Café — a favorite of artists, writers, and NYU students — from 1982 to 2014.[47]
  • #101 – From the mid-1970s to 1983, the poets Ted Berrigan and Alice Notley, who were married to each other, lived here. In Berrigan's "The Last Poem", he wrote: "101 St. Mark's Place, apt. 12A, NYC 10009/ New York. Friends appeared & disappeared, or wigged out/ Or stayed; inspiring strangers sadly died; everyone/ I ever knew aged tremendously, except me."[40]
  • #102 – Home of independent filmmaker Scott Crary.[48]
  • #103 – Home of singer/performer Klaus Nomi in the 1970s.
  • #104 – Location of the Notre Dame Convent School from 1989 to 2002[49] and is now the site of George Jackson Academy.[50]
  • #105 – Early 1860s home of Uriah P. Levy, the first Jewish commodore of the U.S. Navy and who was also known for purchasing Monticello to work toward its restoration and preservation.
  • #122 – Former location of Sin-é, a neighborhood café where Jeff Buckley performed a regular spot on Monday nights. Other musicians such as David Gray and Katell Keineg also performed there. Sin-é closed in the mid-1990s.[51]
  • #132 – Known at the time as St. Mark's Bar and Grill, this is the second location on the street to be used in the "Waiting on a Friend" video by the Rolling Stones. After several business changes at the address, a Rolling Stones-themed bar named Waiting on a Friend opened at the location in September 2018. However, by October 2019, the bar had permanently closed.[52][53]

Public transportation

In popular culture

Gem Spa was the "corner store" for locals for nearly a century before closing due to financial hardship during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Cherries, an adult store on St. Mark's Place whose signage was part of Saturday Night Live's opening montage. The store closed in late 2011.

St. Mark's Place appears in a variety of works in popular culture. Notable examples include:

Music

  • In the video for The Rolling Stones's "Waiting on a Friend", Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and Peter Tosh are seen sitting on the stoop of 96–98 St. Mark's Place before Jagger and Richards walk to St. Mark's Bar and Grill at 132 St. Mark's Place to meet and perform with the rest of the band. In the song, Jagger mentions 8th Street.
  • On the back cover of the first New York Dolls LP, the band is pictured standing in front of Gem Spa, a newspaper, magazine and tobacco store, which was known for its fountain egg creams, located on the southwest corner of St. Mark's Place and Second Avenue, at 131 Second Avenue.[54][55]
  • The narrator of
    marijuana on someone's breath during the Vietnam War
    remarks, "He smelled like midnight on St. Mark's Place."
  • The Holy Modal Rounders mentioned the street in their song "Bad Boy" in the lyric "he'll sell your heart on St. Mark's Place in glassine envelopes/he'll cut it with a pig's heart, and burn the chumps and dopes".
  • Earl Slick's 2003 solo album Zig-Zag features a song called "Saint Mark's Place".
  • In
    rent controlled
    apartment).
  • In the King Missile song "Detachable Penis" the search for the missing member ends when the singer states, "Then, as I walked down Second Avenue towards St. Mark's Place / Where all those people sell used books and other junk on the street / I saw my penis lying on a blanket next to a broken toaster oven."
  • The album We Are Only Riders by The Jeffrey Lee Pierce Sessions Project features a song called "Saint Mark's Place", a duet with Lydia Lunch.
  • The music video for Billy Joel's 1986 song "A Matter of Trust" was shot in the Electric Circus building and features extensive footage of the block.
  • The Replacements' 1987 song "Alex Chilton" contains the line, "Checkin' his stash by the trash at St. Mark's Place."
  • Moe's song "New York City" contains the line, "Hits his brakes and points out the freaks on St. Mark's Place."
  • Kirsty McGee's Frost album (2004) contains a song called "Saint Mark's Place".
  • The
    stool pigeon
    rat on every face that ever left his shadow down on St. Mark's Place."
  • The Rank and File song "I Went Walking", on their 1982 album Sundown, presents a cynical look at the St. Mark's Place of that time, containing the lines: "Have you ever seen a sheep in a porkpie hat? Ever see a lemming dressed all in black? Well, you might have been there, but I'll tell you just in case: Just take a walk down St. Mark's Place."
  • The Sharp Things album, Foxes and Hounds, features a song called "95 Saint Mark's Place".
  • The They Might Be Giants song "On The Drag" includes the line "The allure of St. Mark's Place".
  • Joe Purdy's song "The City" has a verse, "When we left Brooklyn it was raining so hard. / Come up on 8th and the rain it cleared off. / We're just people watching on 3rd and St. Mark's."
  • The Marcy Playground song Vampires of New York on their debut album Marcy Playground (album) instructs the listener to "Come take in 8th street after dark".
  • The New York anti-folk artist Jeffrey Lewis references St. Mark's Place in the song "Scowling Crackhead Ian" as the location in which Lewis and the eponymous Ian grew up and remain.

Television

Film

  • In Andy Warhol's Trash, most of the street scenes of Joe Dallesandro were filmed on St Mark's Place.
  • In the films Ghostbusters II (1989) and Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021), Ray's Occult Books, a bookstore run by Ray Stantz, is said to be located at 201 St. Mark's Place. The exterior of one of the two storefronts at 33 St. Mark's Place, was used to portray the store in Ghostbusters II. [59]

See also

References

Notes

  1. ^ Google (September 1, 2015). "8th Street (west of Tompkins Square Park)" (Map). Google Maps. Google. Retrieved September 1, 2015.
  2. ^ Google (September 1, 2015). "8th Street (east of Tompkins Square Park)" (Map). Google Maps. Google. Retrieved September 1, 2015.
  3. .
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Harris, Luther. "Eighth Street History". villagealliance.org. Archived from the original on May 31, 2015. Retrieved August 17, 2015.
  5. ^ Morris, Gouverneur; DeWitt, Simeon; Rutherfurd, John (March 22, 1811). "Remarks of the Commissioners". Letter to. Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Streets extend westwardly to Greenwich Lane... The Market Place already mentioned is bounded northwardly by Tenth Street, southwardly by Seventh Street, eastwardly by the East River, and westwardly by the First Avenue.
  6. ^ Bridges, William (1811). Map of the city of New York and island of Manhattan, as laid out by the commissioners appointed by the legislature, April 3d, 1807 (Map).
  7. OCLC 831811649
    . Market Place ... reduced in size 1815; ceases to be a market place 1824; no longer reserved for public uses, except streets and avenues to be cut through same.
  8. . [March 18, 1828:] The legislature provides for the extension of Mercer, Greene, Wooster, McDougal, and Lewis Sts. northward to 8th St.
  9. ^ Stokes 1926, p. 1646: "[Feb. 14, 1825:] The common council passes a resolution ... to close that part of Art St. and Greenwich Lane lying between Broadway and Sixth Ave."
  10. ^ a b c d e f g h i Nevius, James (September 4, 2014). "The Strange History of the East Village's Most Famous Street". Curbed NY. Retrieved August 17, 2015.
  11. .
  12. ^ Surk, Barbara (September 28, 1997). ""NEIGHBORHOOD REPORT: EAST VILLAGE; Slovenian Church Endures"". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331.
  13. ^ Lubitz, Rachel (April 10, 2018). "How two sisters went from founding America's first punk store to creating Manic Panic". Mic.
  14. ^ Andito (July 6, 2012). "Manic Panic – 35 Years of Making Our Lives More Colorful". Village Preservation Blog.
  15. .
  16. ^ .
  17. ^ What to See in New York. John Wanamaker, New York. 1912. pp. 22, 31. Retrieved April 27, 2013. The Wanamaker business occupies two buildings—the fine old structure erected by A. T. Stewart, with its eight floors, and the new Wanamaker Building, occupying the entire block south of the Stewart Building, with sixteen floors. Combined area of the two buildings, about 32 acres. Two large tunnels under and a double-deck bridge over Ninth Street connect the two buildings.
  18. ^ Durniak, Drew (December 7, 2011). "East 9th Street Then and now". The Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation. Retrieved April 27, 2013. By 1955, Wanamaker's sold its northern store property between East 9th and 10th Streets. Before the planned demolition of the building, a fire broke out in 1956 and gutted the structure. In its place was built a huge white-brick-clad residential building called Stewart House in 1960.
  19. .
  20. ^ "Clinton Hall" on Forgotten New York
  21. .. 54
  22. ^ .
  23. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p "St, Mark's Place: Lot by Lot History"[permanent dead link] on the Lower East Side History Project website
  24. ^ Calhoun (2016), p.xiv
  25. ^ a b "Hamilton Holly House" (PDF). Landmarks Preservation Commission. Archived from the original (PDF) on October 14, 2012. Retrieved May 1, 2012.
  26. ^ Van Meter, William (May 9, 2013). "The Shop That Punk Built". The New York Times.
  27. ^ "Modern School Collection, Manuscript Collection 1055, Special Collections and University Archives". Rutgers University Libraries. Retrieved May 1, 2012.
  28. ^ a b c "8th Street" on New York Songlines. Accessed:2011-02-21
  29. ^ Grieve. "St. Mark's is deader: St. Mark's Comics is closing after 36 years" EV Grieve (January 29, 2019).
  30. ^ McLauchlin, Jim (March 26, 2019). "BUSINESS 3X3: MITCH CUTLER (FORMERLY) AT ST. MARK'S COMICS". Blogs.villagevoice.com. Retrieved April 3, 2020.
  31. ^ "St. Mark's Comics to Reopen in Brooklyn's Industry City".
  32. ^ .
  33. ^ Kleinfield, N. R. (November 22, 1992). "On the Street of Dreams". The New York Times.
  34. ^ Bay, Cody (June 25, 2010). "Cinemode: Klute". On This Day in Fashion. Archived from the original on May 25, 2011.
  35. ^ "19–25 St. Mark's Place" Archived November 6, 2010, at the Wayback Machine on the Lower East Side History Project website
  36. ^ Dodero, Camille (March 25, 2008). "CBGB St. Mark's Shop Closing at the End of June". Blogs.villagevoice.com. Archived from the original on April 30, 2013. Retrieved March 3, 2014.
  37. ^ Philips, Binky (November 10, 2010). "Tales From a New York Record Store". HuffPost.
  38. ^ Grieve. "The last record store on St. Mark's Place is closing," EV Grieve (September 21, 2015).
  39. ^ "St. Mark's Hospital". nycago.org.
  40. ^ a b c Lauckner, Sally (October 19, 2010). "A Literary Tour of the East Village". The New York Times. Retrieved February 21, 2011 – via The Local East Village weblog of The New York Times.
  41. ^ a b "77 St. Mark's Place"[permanent dead link] on the Lower East Side History Project website. Accessed:2011-02-21
  42. ^ Marzulli, John (January 29, 2015). "Rent is Too Damn High party leader Jimmy McMillan's lawsuit over eviction gets nixed". New York Daily News.
  43. ^ "Welcome". Theatre 80. Retrieved March 3, 2014.
  44. ^ "Museum of the American Gangster 80 St Marks PL NY, NY 10003 (212)228-5736 | An exploration into Organized Crime in America". Museumoftheamericangangster.org. Retrieved March 3, 2014.
  45. ^ Hess, Hans (1961). Lyonel Feininger. New York: Abrams. p. 1. Retrieved January 11, 2015.
  46. ^ "Info" Archived June 23, 2011, at the Wayback Machine on the UNDER St. Marks website. Accessed:2011-02-21
  47. ^ Arino, Lisha (October 2, 2014). "Yaffa Cafe Closes After 31 Years on St. Marks Place". DNAinfo. Archived from the original on January 31, 2019.
  48. ISBN 9781605010281. Retrieved November 7, 2013.[permanent dead link
    ]
  49. ^ NDS. "School History". Notre Dame School website. Archived from the original on September 28, 2007. Retrieved August 1, 2007.
  50. ^ "About GJA" Archived July 26, 2011, at the Wayback Machine on the George Jackson Academy website
  51. ^ A Short History of Sin-e Archived March 5, 2007, at the Wayback Machine, accessed December 21, 2006
  52. ^ "Start me up: Waiting on a Friend opens on 1st Avenue and St. Mark's Place".
  53. ^ "EV Grieve: The Wild Son shapes up on 1st Avenue and St. Mark's Place".
  54. ^ Berger, Joseph (July 31, 2005). "The Pizza Is Still Old World, Only Now the Old World Is Tibet". The New York Times. For New Yorkers, this was the nectar of a Jewish neighborhood, and Gem Spa was the drink's sacred temple, certified as such by magazines and travel writers.
  55. ^ Berkon, Ben. "Gem Spa: Classic egg creams in New York". NewYork.com. Archived from the original on November 25, 2010.
  56. ^ Seitz, Matt Zoller (April 22, 2013). "Mad Men Recap: The Electric Circus". Vulture.
  57. ^ Ross, Alex (April 21, 2013). "The Rest is Noise: Electric Circus, Electric Ear". The New Yorker.
  58. ^ Moker, Molly (May 21, 2014). "Tour the Top 25 'Sex and the City' Locations". Fodors.
  59. .

Bibliography

External links