165 Bleecker Street
Greenwich Village | built 1835
Open on the map4 entries
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.
- 1838
A row house built for Harmon Hendricks becomes a tenement for eleven families
Tax records date this house to 1838, when it was built for Harmon Hendricks, probably as a single-family row house. By 1887 it had been altered and was occupied as a tenement by eleven families, and an alteration that year replaced the basement and first story. The basement was apparently converted into the present first story in 1937.
- 1952
Poet Maxwell Bodenheim is evicted from his last known address, 165 Bleecker Street
Maxwell Bodenheim, a poet and novelist who was a fixture of 1920s and 1930s Greenwich Village, was evicted from 165 Bleecker Street in 1952. He and his wife were left homeless. They were murdered in 1954 while lodging elsewhere.
“…last known address of Maxwell Bodenheim, an American poet and novelist and Greenwich Village icon of the 1920s and 1930s, who was evicted from this location in 1952…”
- 1960
Cafe Rafio hosts young Gram Parsons and David Crosby in the 1960s
In the 1960s the building held Cafe Rafio, run by local personality Ronald Von Ehmsen. It lacked the standing of better-known Village haunts of the Beat and folk crowds, but future stars played there regularly, including Gram Parsons and David Crosby.
- 1963
Cafe Rafio owner Ronald Von Ehmsen is shot dead outside his cafe by a tenant he tried to evict
In 1963 Ronald Von Ehmsen was shot and killed in front of Cafe Rafio. The gunman was a tenant of the rear building, to whom Von Ehmsen had given an eviction notice as part of an effort to enlarge the cafe. The Village Voice reported on the shooting on April 4, 1963.
“Ehmsen was shot and killed in front of Café Rafio by a tenant in the rear building who he had served with an eviction notice…”
Nearby
- 167 Bleecker Street2 entries
- 163 Bleecker Street1 entry
- 169 Bleecker Street2 entries
- Circle in the Square Theater (former)159 Bleecker Street | 5 entries
- 207 Sullivan Street2 entries
- Kenny's Castaways157 Bleecker Street | 6 entries