Silver Towers
110 Bleecker Street | also 122 Bleecker Street, 100 Bleecker Street | Greenwich Village | built 1967
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The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.
Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.
- 1953
Robert Moses proposes clearing 191 buildings south of Washington Square
In August 1953 Robert Moses announced a revised plan, Washington Square Southeast, for 2,148 apartments on a 14-acre site bounded by West Broadway, Fourth Street, Mercer Street and Houston Street. It meant replacing 191 buildings, most of them commercial, and merging nine city blocks into three superblocks. The southernmost of those superblocks is the lot where University Village now stands. Opponents fought the plan for three years, arguing that the area was not blighted.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1964
Construction begins on I.M. Pei's towers for NYU
After NYU buys the superblock south of Washington Square in 1960, the university hires I.M. Pei & Associates, with James Ingo Freed as lead designer, to plan a complex of towers. Construction begins on August 12, 1964, with Tishman Realty and Construction as general contractor, and the buildings are completed in late 1966. Tenants begin moving into the NYU towers, including 110 Bleecker Street, in April 1967.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1967
Tenants move in, and West Broadway becomes LaGuardia Place
Construction wrapped up in late 1966, and the first tenants arrived at University Village in April 1967. In the same year the part of West Broadway above Houston Street took the name LaGuardia Place. The tower at 110 Bleecker Street opened with a nursery school for children of NYU-affiliated residents, and it and 100 Bleecker became apartments for NYU faculty and graduate students.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1968
The Bust of Sylvette sculpture is dedicated in the courtyard
Artist Carl Nesjar builds a 36-foot, 60-ton sculpture enlarging a Pablo Picasso design that depicts Sylvette David. Called the Bust of Sylvette, it is dedicated in the complex's central courtyard on December 9, 1968, about a year after NYU commissions it.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1972
Christo and Jeanne-Claude plan to wrap the Picasso sculpture but never do
In 1972 the artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude proposed wrapping the Bust of Sylvette, the 36-foot concrete sculpture in the courtyard, in brown fabric. The plan was never carried out. The sculpture, cast in 1968 by Carl Nesjar from a Picasso design, is the only outdoor Picasso in New York City.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1974
NYU renames its towers the Silver Towers
In 1974, New York University renames the two towers on Bleecker Street, including 110 Bleecker Street, the Silver Towers, after Julius Silver, an alumnus and donor. The complex's third tower, 505 LaGuardia Place, is a housing cooperative.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2004
A 2004 rally for landmark status also protests NYU's plan for a science center
In 2004 advocates rallied to have the Silver Towers landmarked, and the event also protested NYU's plans for a large new science center in the middle of the complex. City Councilman Alan Gerson told The Villager that the pairing of I. M. Pei and Pablo Picasso made the site an exemplar of modern high-rise urban planning that defined an era and cried out for protection.
Source: gothamist.com
- 2008
Picasso's model Sylvette David writes to save the sculpture's view
As the Landmarks Preservation Commission weighed protecting University Village in 2008, Sylvette David, who sat for Picasso at 19 in 1954, sent a letter. She warned that NYU's proposed fourth tower, planned for the complex's north end, would almost completely hide the sculpture from public view, and noted that it is one of only two colossal concrete works by Carl Nesjar, the other being in Rotterdam.
Source: archive.nytimes.com
- 2008
The city designates University Village a landmark
On November 18, 2008, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designates the three original towers, along with parts of the grounds around them, as a city landmark. The designation covers the central courtyard that holds the Bust of Sylvette.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2010
NYU releases images of a 38-story fourth tower beside the Pei towers
On June 17, 2010, NYU publicly released images of a 38-story tower it planned to add to the landmarked University Village complex at Bleecker Street and LaGuardia Place. The Villager had first reported the plan two weeks earlier, and NYU officials said the tower would be half faculty housing and half hotel for university visitors. NYU said a site inside the complex, at 270,000 square feet, best preserved views for the existing towers, particularly 505 LaGuardia Place.
Source: amny.com
Further reading
- University Village (Manhattan)Wikipedia
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