Murray's Cheese building

1 Leroy Street | also 254 Bleecker Street, 250 Bleecker Street, 252 Bleecker Street | West Village | built 1956

Open on the map8 entries

Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.

  1. 1830

    Early row houses stand on the Bleecker and Leroy corner before the supermarket replaces them

    The northwest corner of Bleecker and Leroy streets was once a five-lot parcel covered by older buildings. The Landmarks Preservation Commission describes three brick row houses of about the 1830s, a frame corner building and another c. 1830s row house that had been converted into a tenement. All were cleared in 1956 for a new one-story store.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  2. 1956

    An A&P supermarket opens on the corner of Bleecker and Leroy, later a restaurant and bar

    Siegel & Green designed the one-story brick store for Hotel Springfield Corp., which erected it in 1956 for use as an A&P supermarket. Late in the 1980s the building became an eating and drinking establishment, a use that lasted until the late 1990s, when the structure was rebuilt for housing.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  3. 1998

    The supermarket building is rebuilt as condominiums with stores at street level

    In 1998 the Stephen B. Jacobs Group rebuilt the corner structure as a residential building with ground-floor retail stores, for Bleecker Street Development, LLC. The Landmarks Preservation Commission describes the result as condominium apartments over a commercial ground story.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  4. 2004

    Murray's Cheese leaves 257 Bleecker Street for the corner building at 250-258 Bleecker

    The cheese shop had occupied 257 Bleecker Street, on the east side of the street, from 1990 to 2004. It then moved across to the west side, in the block between Leroy and Morton Streets, at 250-258 Bleecker Street, the building that also fronts Leroy Street. The Landmarks Commission's district report notes the move.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  5. 2004

    November

    Murray's new Bleecker Street store gets a balcony classroom, with a fish market and bakery planned next door

    In a November 2004 food column, the New York Times described Murray's new shop at 254 Bleecker Street, near Leroy Street, as more than twice the size of the one across the street. It had rooms for aging and storing cheese, a balcony classroom for tastings, and a plan to sell cheese-based dishes to go. A Wild Edibles fish market was due to open next door about a month later, and an Amy's Bread shop was expected to take space at Bleecker and Leroy in January.

    Source: Internet Archive

  6. 2004

    August

    Rob Kaufelt buys the retail part of the Bleecker Street building and plans to lease space to food shops

    The New Yorker reported in August 2004 that Murray's was about to shift twenty-five steps across Bleecker Street into 2,700 square feet, with offices upstairs and climate-controlled storage in the basement. Owner Rob Kaufelt was buying the retail portion of the building and meant to rent some of it to complementary food businesses, perhaps a seafood store or a bakery. By the article's account, the aim was to stay close to the Village and avoid growing too large.

    Source: The New Yorker

  7. 2017

    February 7

    Kroger announces it has bought Murray's Cheese, the Greenwich Village cheese retailer

    On February 7, 2017, the Kroger Company announced that it had purchased Murray's Cheese, the Greenwich Village specialty retailer. The two had already teamed up in 2007, when Murray's began placing branded cheese shops inside select Kroger supermarkets. By 2021 the Murray's name appeared at more than 800 locations.

    Source: Wikipedia

  8. 2021

    April 4

    A Forward investigation finds the shop's Spanish Civil War founder story does not hold up

    In 2021 the writer Andrew Silverstein tested the tale told at the Bleecker Street shop that founder Murray Greenberg fought in the Spanish Civil War and opened in 1940. Using naturalization and census records, old clippings and interviews with Greenberg's son and former employees, he concluded that Greenberg was selling pickles and herring on the Lower East Side during the war. His finding was that no Murray's Cheese existed before the 1960s.

    Source: Internet Archive

Further reading

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