Webb House
145 Bleecker Street | Greenwich Village | built 1831
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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.
- 1831
Developer Thomas E. Davis builds 145 Bleecker Street as 6 Carroll Place
Around 1831 Davis built a terrace of 15 row houses along both sides of Bleecker Street, from Thompson Street to today's LaGuardia Place, and this one was number 6 Carroll Place. The north-side houses were Transitional Federal and Greek Revival, with fluted-column entrance frames carved with wreaths and iron balconies at the parlor floor. The Landmarks Commission attributes the design to Samuel Dunbar and lists this house among those of the terrace still standing.
“Originally known by the address 6 Carroll Place and built c. 1831 for developer Thomas E. Davis as part of a group of 15 row houses…”
- 1835
Alexander Stewart Webb, future Union general and president of City College, is born in the house
The family of newspaper editor James Watson Webb lived here in the 1830s, where Webb, a former army lieutenant, edited the Courier and Enquirer. A son, Alexander, was born on February 15, 1835, and went on to West Point, the rank of general and the presidency of the College of the City of New York. In 1835 the merchant Richard Suydam moved in.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1946
A bar owner's hand gets stuck in the cash register, and ten customers and seven police officers try to free it
At 2:01 a.m., 26-year-old Salvatore Spatola reached into a small door on his register at Salvatore's Bar and Grill to fix a jammed drawer and could not pull his hand out. Patrons tried, then two patrolmen, then an emergency squad, whose members worked for forty minutes with a hacksaw, screwdriver and pinch bar. They cut out a section of the register, and Spatola got his hand back with only bruises.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1953
Henry and Mary Calvert open the Green Room Studio, an early off-Broadway playhouse, upstairs
On the second floor of the old row house, the actors Henry and Mary Calvert turned a large living room into a small theater, with 50 ladder-back chairs and a recessed stage at one end. The Calverts' repertoire included works by Odets, O'Neill and Strindberg, among them Miss Julie, a play seldom produced at the time. The Landmarks Commission calls it one of the earliest of the small theaters in the South Village.
“Green Room Studio at 145 Bleecker Street, started by actors Henry and Mary Calvert around 1953.”
- 1956
The Bleecker Street Theatre opens with Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray
The off-Broadway house opened in August 1956 with a stage version of Wilde's tale of a decadent soul. Louis Calta of The New York Times was unimpressed, writing that three decades of attempts to dramatize the story had all failed. The theater lasted several years, gave way to The Children's Own Theatre in 1960, and became the Washington Square Theater in 1962.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1966
Conversion to the Dugout Tavern strips the old stoop and Greek Revival doorway
In 1966 the worn house was converted into a bar-restaurant on the basement and parlor floors, with two apartments on each floor above. The Dugout Tavern advertised sawdust on the floor and a Victorian, bohemian look. To make room, workers removed the 135-year-old stoop and iron railings and the columned Greek Revival entrance.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
Further reading
- The James Watson Webb House -- No. 145 Bleecker St.Daytonian in Manhattan
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