Allen House

17 West 8th Street | Greenwich Village | built 1846

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. 1846

    William Wagstaff builds Greek Revival row houses on Clinton Place

    Developer William Wagstaff begins seven Greek Revival houses on the north side of Clinton Place, as Eighth Street was renamed in 1832 for Governor De Witt Clinton, in 1845. No. 89 Clinton Place is finished in 1846 with a high stone stoop and brownstone doorway details, and a 1900 renumbering later makes it 17 West 8th Street. An 1848 advertisement offers it for rent at $1,000, and it appears to have operated as a high-end boarding house from the start.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1890

    Gambler Theodore "The" Allen buys the house

    Theodore Allen, known as "The" Allen, buys the house in 1890 and gives it as his business address, though he is best known for running the West Side Club gambling parlor at 80 Sixth Avenue. He dies at home on the night of May 12, 1908. His brother claims poison, but an autopsy attributes the death to pneumonia. President Theodore Roosevelt, who knew him from his police commissioner days, called him the wickedest man in New York.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1914

    July

    A new owner replaces the stoop with a storefront for the Washington Square Book Shop

    In July 1914 Minnie Owens, granddaughter of Theodore Allen, sells the house to Zachary T. Piercy, who removes the stoop and installs a two-story storefront. The space becomes home to the Washington Square Book Shop, which Greenwich Village theatrical groups know for its stock of plays. By April 1917 an advertisement places the shop at the address.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1976

    March 18

    Fire guts the Eighth Street Bookshop

    The Eighth Street Bookshop, a gathering spot for artists and writers since 1947, occupies the lower floors of No. 17 after brothers Ted and Eli Wilentz buy the building in 1965. A suspected arson fire early on March 18, 1976, destroys the two lowest floors. Poet Allen Ginsberg is so overwrought that he improvises a poem about the blaze. Eli Wilentz reopens the store in 1979.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Further reading

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