Renganeschi's, later the Ninth Circle

139 West 10th Street | West Village | built 1834

Open on the map4 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. 1834

    Myndert Van Schaick builds No. 139 as part of a row of eleven houses

    The Landmarks Preservation Commission says No. 139 was built in 1834 by Myndert Van Schaick as one of a row of eleven houses that once filled most of the block. It kept its stoop and original ironwork combining Federal and Greek Revival castings. A later alteration cut the first-floor windows down to the floor, and the low-windowed top floor carries a heavy cornice on closely spaced brackets. In the 1850s it was the home of Ida Earl.

    “Like the others, it was built in 1834 by Myndert Van Schaick. ... In the Eighteen-fifties, this was the home of Ida Earl.”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  2. 1912

    John Sloan paints Renganeschi's Saturday Night in a restaurant at No. 139

    Painter John Sloan, then living on Perry Street, often dined at Renganeschi's, an Italian restaurant inside the 1830s brick house at 139 West Tenth Street, described as classier than other Village Italian places but still modestly priced. His 1912 painting Renganeschi's Saturday Night shows three stylishly dressed women enjoying drinks together at a prime table, which the Art Institute of Chicago reads as a sign of women's new freedom to go out without male escorts.

    Source: Ephemeral New York

  3. 1950

    A literary-crowd bar here is said to have given Edward Albee his play's title

    By the 1950s the space once occupied by Renganeschi's had become a bar popular with writers. According to Village Preservation, playwright Edward Albee was drinking there one night when he spotted the words "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf?" scrawled across a mirror, and he later said it inspired the name of his play. The space later became a gay bar called the Ninth Circle.

    Source: Village Preservation

  4. 1970

    Janis Joplin lives briefly above the Ninth Circle, shortly before her death

    Singer Janis Joplin lived at 139 West 10th Street for a short time before she died in October 1970. The basement held the Ninth Circle, a bar and steakhouse run by Mickey Ruskin, who also owned Max's Kansas City. Jimi Hendrix was a regular, and Joplin dropped in on occasion, at times singing for the customers.

    Source: Village Preservation

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