148 West 4th Street

Greenwich Village | built 1925

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. 1854

    June 3

    Fire destroys the carpenters' shop behind 192 Fourth Street, and arson is suspected

    Early on a Saturday morning in June 1854, fire swept through the carpentry shop in the rear yard of 192 Fourth Street, the number that became 148 West 4th Street in 1863. The builders Keyser & Berrien kept a stock of light lumber there, and all of it was lost. With damage to the structure, the loss came to $5,000, and the New York Times reported that arson was suspected. The firm later put up a four-story brick building in the rear, with the shop below and rented rooms above.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1896

    Mason Charles H. Van Aken builds the two-story front building for owner John M. Mitchell

    The city's landmark survey of the South Village dates the front building at 148 West 4th Street to 1896 and names the mason Charles H. Van Aken as its builder and John M. Mitchell as its owner. It rises two stories, with a denticulated cornice at the roofline. Its facade was later resurfaced in tile and its ground floor reworked for shops, which is why the survey calls it an altered Classical Revival design.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  3. 1918

    The Samovar restaurant opens on the ground floor, popular with Provincetown Playhouse people and John Reed

    Around 1918 the first floors of the front and rear buildings were turned into the Samovar, a restaurant favored by members of the Provincetown Playhouse company and the radical journalist John Reed. The upper two stories of the rear building had earlier, in 1892, been leased to the Industrial Christian Alliance for a broom factory. From 1936 to 1940 the watercolorist Harwood Steiger rented a studio here, and by 1946 the upper floors held apartments while the ground floor joined the Pepper Pot restaurant.

    “…converted into the Samovar, a restaurant popular with the members of the Provincetown Playhouse and radical journalist John Reed…”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  4. 1961

    Judson Memorial Church opens the Village Aid and Service Center here for drug addicts

    In 1961 Judson Memorial Church, led by its pastor the Rev. Howard Russell Moody, started a Village Aid and Service Center on this lot, at 148 West 4th Street, to help drug addicts. The landmark survey lists the center as notable history for the front building on this lot and points to a New York Times profile of the folk-singing pastor, published on May 8, 1961.

    “In 1961, Judson Memorial Church under the Rev. Howard Russell Moody established the Village Aid and Service Center at 148 West 4th Street to aid drug addicts.”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

Further reading

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