Almanac House

130 West 10th Street | West Village | built 1862

Open on the map3 entries

The lot about 1940
About 1940. Via 1940s.nyc
The lot about 1985
About 1985. Via 80s.nyc

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.

  1. 1862

    A butcher's small late-Italianate house goes up at 130 West 10th Street

    The Landmarks Preservation Commission's 1969 Greenwich Village report describes the house as built in 1862 for George Starr, a butcher. The ironwork and cornice mark it as a late Italianate design, though the pilastered doorway could almost belong to the Greek Revival period. Round-arched cast-iron railings at the stoop, areaway and second-floor balcony, and three foliate console brackets under the cornice, reflect the later style.

    “…built in 1862 for George Starr, a butcher, is - if we may judge by the ironwork and cornice - a late example of the Italianate style.”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  2. 1941

    Fall

    The Almanac Singers share a brownstone here and hold basement concerts

    After reaching New York in 1941, Woody Guthrie joined Pete Seeger, Bess Lomax and Lee Hays in a loose collective called the Almanac Singers, who lived at this house and named it Almanac House. They paid the rent by giving informal concerts in the basement for 35 cents a head, and Seeger recalled that the first New York hootenanny took place there. At $100 a month the rent was steep, so the group later moved to cheaper rooms on Sixth Avenue.

    Source: Ephemeral New York

  3. 1941

    Pete Seeger's Almanac House relocates to 130 West 10th Street after an eviction

    After being evicted from a loft at 70 East 12th Street, Seeger and the other Almanac Singers moved to 130 West 10th Street and set up a second Almanac House. The rent parties they called hootenannies, held to raise money for rent and labor causes, kept going and grew more popular because the new place was so central. By then the FBI had taken notice of Seeger because of his links to the labor movement and the Communist Party.

    Source: Village Preservation

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