20 Jones Street
West Village | built 1844
Open on the map6 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.
- 1880
A wife, her sister, a detective and a friend burst into a boarder's rooms looking for proof of infidelity
Jacob Ramsey took rooms at No. 20 after separating from his wife Vannie, who suspected him of cheating. On the night of October 31, 1880 she arrived with her sister, a private detective and a pump manufacturer, and they pushed into his room. While the women searched it, the men hit him with a club and a cane. Ramsey had all four arrested for assault, and a justice told him to defend himself if it happened again.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1910
Greenwich House buys Nos. 18 and 20 Jones Street for low-income housing
The settlement house at No. 26 bought the two neighboring houses in 1910 to rent to poor families. Their rear yards were fitted out as a basketball and handball court for boys, while the yards at Nos. 26 and 28 were to become a small park for mothers and young children. In 1918 the houses were instead rented to wealthier tenants to raise funds.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1929
A tea room opens at No. 20 as a training workshop for girls
Greenwich House opened a tea room serving lunch, tea and dinner every weekday in the Crafts Building. Girls from its domestic science department learned cooking, serving, handling money and bookkeeping by running it for the public. The Crafts Building had been renovated in 1927 to give pottery, metalwork and cabinetmaking more room.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1941
The Artists and Writers Kitchen holds a Christmas portfolio sale to feed hard-up artists
By 1941 No. 20 housed the Artists and Writers Kitchen, which held art sales to raise money for free meals and other help to indigent artists and writers. Its December Christmas portfolio sale included works donated by John Sloan, Arthur William Brown, Peggy Bacon and Gordon Grant.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1947
Architect Henry Howard buys Nos. 18 and 20 and turns them into studio apartments
Henry T. Howard and his wife Jane bought both houses from Greenwich House and converted them to modern apartments. They took off the stoops and cut skylights into the roofs for studio light, finishing in 1949. The stoop at No. 20 was rebuilt in 1994 by a later owner, the architect Harley Jones.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 2004
A gut renovation creates a basement apartment, later home to Steve Earle and Allison Moorer
Jacinta Orlando and her lawyer husband Gus Samios gutted the house in 2004, creating a basement apartment under a single-family triplex. The singer-songwriter Steve Earle and his wife, Allison Moorer, were tenants in the basement apartment. The actor Kirk Douglas, according to his autobiography, had earlier stayed in an apartment on the top floor.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
Further reading
- No. 20 Jones StreetDaytonian in Manhattan
Nearby
- 18 Jones Street3 entries
- 22 Jones Street3 entries
- Greenwich House Pottery16 Jones Street | 4 entries
- 26 Jones Street House26 Jones Street | 7 entries
- 14 Jones Street2 entries
- 28 Jones Street House28 Jones Street | 6 entries