Senior Center on the Square
20 Washington Square North | also 18 MacDougal Alley | Greenwich Village | built 1920
Open on the map3 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.
- 1828
George P. Rogers builds a Federal mansion at 20 Washington Square North
George P. Rogers begins building a three-and-a-half-story Federal-style house, 37 feet wide, in 1828, and it is finished the following year. It is the first mansion on the north side of Washington Square, standing alone until a row of Greek Revival houses goes up nearby in the early 1830s. Rogers's sister Mary later marries William C. Rhinelander, whose family comes to own most of the property along the block.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1880
Henry Hardenbergh converts the mansion into four apartments
By 1880 the Rhinelanders own nearly all the property along the north side of the square, and architect Henry J. Hardenbergh is hired to turn the extra-wide private mansion into four apartments. He extends the house to the full width of the first story and adds a fourth floor. The extension matches the original lintels, and the new top-floor windows echo the arched entrance.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1943
St. Joseph's Academy opens an elementary school inside the former mansion
New York University leases the house for administrative offices in 1936, and in 1942 the Rhinelander estate sells it to St. Joseph's Academy, which had been at 154 Waverly Place. The Sisters of Charity of Mount St. Vincent run the new school, which Archbishop Francis J. Spellman dedicates on September 25, 1943. It has nine classrooms, a library, a chapel and a gymnasium, and 120 students in kindergarten through eighth grade enroll the first year.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
Further reading
- The First House on the Square -- No. 20 Washington Square NorthDaytonian in Manhattan
- Then & Now photos: 20 Washington Square NorthVillage Preservation: Greenwich Village Then & Now
Nearby
- 21 Washington Square North1 entry
- 21 Washington Square North5 entries
- 16 MacDougal Alley2 entries
- Original Whitney Museum of Art8 West 8th Street | 5 entries
- Louis Philip Siebert House25 Washington Square North | 4 entries
- 2 Fifth Avenue2 5th Avenue | 5 entries