18 Grove Street

also 99 Bedford Street | West Village | built 1840

Open on the map5 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. 1840

    Two Long Island carpenters build four matching rental houses, ending at 18 Grove Street

    Samuel Winant and John Degraw, who had started as separate carpenters and served as volunteer firemen with Hook and Ladder Company No. 3, bought the eastern third of this block in 1839. They put up Nos. 12 to 18 the next year. The partners moved into Nos. 14 and 16 and rented out the two end houses, including the corner house at No. 18.

    “They built Nos. 12-18 the following year, and moved to adjacent dwellings, Winant at No. 14, Degraw at No. 16, leasing out the two end houses…”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  2. 1910

    Real estate operator Belle Bunn strips the Greek Revival house and covers its brick in stucco

    By 1910 the corner house belonged to Belle C. Bunn, a neighborhood real estate operator. Following the lead of the firm Pepe & Brother, which turned old Village houses into stuccoed, Mediterranean-flavored homes with artist studios, she rebuilt No. 18 that year. The doorway kept its Greek Revival look, but the rest of the exterior details were lost. A 1921 remodeling later added two upstairs apartments and a doctor's office in the basement.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1946

    February

    Naomi Doskow, national secretary of Junior Hadassah, dies at 33 while living on Grove Street

    Attorney and author Ambrose Doskow lived in one of the apartments here with his wife Naomi in the mid-1940s. He had clerked for Supreme Court Justice Benjamin Cardozo and later became a trademark litigation expert. Naomi Brodie Doskow died in February 1946 at 33. She had served as national secretary of Junior Hadassah and as secretary of the American Zionist Youth Commission.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1947

    A newly formed publisher takes its name from the house: Grove Press, later bought by Barney Rosset for $3,000

    According to Daytonian in Manhattan, a young publishing firm moved into No. 18 in late 1947 and named itself Grove Press after the address. It issued only three books in its first three years, including a 1950 edition of the poems of Richard Crashaw. Its owners sold it in 1951 to Barney Rosset for $3,000, and under him it published Samuel Beckett and the Beat writers. By 1962 the press had left the house.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  5. 1964

    December 1

    Detectives catch a wanted ex-convict running out of 18 Grove Street after a woman screams inside

    For nearly a month police had been searching for Shepard Campbell, 38, after attacks on two Greenwich Village women. On December 1, 1964 two detectives saw him in the Village and trailed him in a car, but he got away by climbing a fence. Then they heard a woman scream inside No. 18 and caught him as he ran out of the building. Campbell had 22 prior arrests.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

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