New York University Kimball Block

16 Waverly Place | also 12 Waverly Place | Greenwich Village | built 1800

Open on the map6 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. 1892

    March

    Frank Seitz pays $21,667 for the house at 16 Waverly Place as part of a two-lot assembly

    An earlier building on the site: after buying No. 14 in February 1892, Seitz purchased the similar old house next door at No. 16 the following month. Once a fashionable residential block, the street was by then losing its homes to loft buildings, and he demolished both houses for twin six-story lofts.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1906

    September 17

    A publishing company employee vanishes with a $1,900 payroll check and turns up near Coney Island's Mardi Gras

    Kenneth McKenzie, 24, left the Success Publishing Company office, in the paired buildings at 14 and 16 Waverly Place, to cash the payroll and did not come back. Detectives saw him at Coney Island that night, then watched his home until he slipped out of the basement door after midnight on September 20. He was arrested, but the money was gone.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1952

    January 8

    Two men die in a basement fire started by a welder's sparks while an oil tank is installed

    Five workmen were fitting the paired buildings at 14 and 16 with a new oil tank holding 5,000 gallons, down in the sub-basement, when sparks from an acetylene torch fell and lit cardboard cartons. The fire grew out of control, and rescuers could not get far enough through smoke to reach Seymour Washowski and Raleigh Jordan, both 25. Their bodies were found two hours later.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1964

    Artist Dan Christensen and his family move into a 4,000-square-foot loft here

    After the upper floors of the paired buildings at 14 and 16 Waverly Place were converted to nine large lofts, the artist Dan Christensen moved into a third-floor space of about 4,000 square feet in 1964. It served as both studio and home for him, his wife and their two sons. His work is held permanently by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, MoMA and the Guggenheim Museum. The family stayed about three decades.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  5. 1969

    September

    A campus party group holds 'freak-outs' in the vacant Harouts restaurant

    After the Greek restaurant Harouts, a student favorite, closed in 1969, the group Transcendental Students informally took over the space. The New York Times described the group as party-throwing hedonists and said its events offered wine, marijuana, movies, political satire and acid rock. Police often arrived uninvited, yet NYU allocated $5,000 that term for the group to renovate the room.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  6. 1998

    June

    NYU tells the loft tenants, including painters and a sculptor, to leave

    In June 1998 the university told the loft residents that its departments needed the space. By the Times's description, the tenants were a sculptor, a filmmaker, a food designer, a furniture maker, a martial-arts teacher and four painters. Dan Christensen's family had lived there for three decades. The tenants hired a lawyer but lost.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Further reading

Nearby

All 518 buildings with stories in Greenwich Village