Van Wart Houses

130 MacDougal Street | also 134 MacDougal Street | Greenwich Village | built 1852

Open on the map4 entries

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

1. 1852

   Lawrence Van Wart builds twin Greek Revival row houses on the site

   In 1851 the grocer Lawrence M. Van Wart tears down his own house and the neighboring former home of Joseph Allen. He replaces them with two mirror-image, three-story red brick houses finished in 1852. A cast iron double porch over a shared brownstone stoop, resembling the porch at 3 and 4 Gramercy Park from a decade earlier, sets the pair apart. Van Wart moves into one house, and his son Lawrence Jr. takes the other by the early 1860s.

   Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

2. 1868

   Legend says Louisa May Alcott finishes Little Women at 130 MacDougal Street

   New York University, which owns the houses, says Louisa May Alcott wrote the final paragraph of Little Women in 1868 at her uncle's home here. Her novel's writing is disputed: an 1880 New York Times article places it in Boston, and biographer Susan Cheever notes that NYU's archivists found only repeated references to the claim, nothing on where it came from.

   Source: Ephemeral New York

3. 1891

   Tammany Hall agents lease the houses for a voter-registration fraud scheme

   Having long rented to respectable single men, the two houses turn into lodging houses in 1891 when Tammany Hall agents lease both. Drifters are paid to move in and register to vote from the address. In October the New-York Tribune reports that eight men were registered from the houses, none of them entitled to vote, and the scandal leads to a widely followed trial.

   Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

4. 1988

   New York University converts the row houses into law school dormitories

   New York University buys both houses in 1983. A renovation finished in 1988 turns the pair into a dormitory for its law school, according to Building Department records.

   Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Further reading

• The 1852 Van Wart Houses - Nos. 130-132 MacDougal StreetDaytonian in Manhattan
• Was a beloved book written on Macdougal Street?Ephemeral New York

Nearby

• Pommes Frites128 MacDougal Street | 2 entries
• 126 MacDougal Street1 entry
• Van Wart Houses108 West 3rd Street | 2 entries
• Caffe Reggio116 West 3rd Street | 5 entries
• 124 MacDougal Street1 entry
• Comedy Cellar117 MacDougal Street | 14 entries

All 518 buildings with stories in Greenwich Village