178 MacDougal Street

also 30 West 8th Street | Greenwich Village | built 1900

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.

1885
Emile Greuve designs a new corner storefront and a one-story shop for Diedrich H. Muller
In 1885 the architect Emile Greuve, working from 115 Waverly Place, designs a storefront, a low entrance wing on MacDougal Street and a one-story shop at No. 178 for Diedrich H. Muller. When the district is designated, the cast-iron storefront still has four fluted square columns and a round one at the corner, all painted in bright colors. The two floors above belong to a house built in 1838.
Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission
1950
The Eighth Street Bookshop becomes a hangout for the Beat-era writers of the Village
In the 1950s the brick corner storefront at West Eighth Street and MacDougal holds the Eighth Street Bookshop, run by the brothers Elias and Ted Wilentz. Its three floors, with a big paperback section, draw writers who lived nearby, such as Allen Ginsberg, W. H. Auden, Marianne Moore and e. e. cummings. Ted's wife Joan later recalled that in the 1950s the shop was the equivalent of a singles bar.
Source: Ephemeral New York

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