Hotel Griffou (No. 21)

21 West 9th Street | also 23 West 9th Street | Greenwich Village | built 1870

Open on the map3 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. 1884

    November 22

    Two Spanish escapees from prison are reported sheltering at the Hotel Griffou

    By 1884 Marie Griffou had expanded into No. 21, and the combined buildings were the Hotel Griffou, popular with Spanish visitors. On November 22 the New York Times reported two Spaniards who had just arrived on a French steamer and were said to have broken out of jail in Spain. After clearing their baggage at Castle Garden they went straight to the hotel, whose manager said they were safe there and that no one would see them until they were ready to show themselves.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1906

    October

    A man registered as "Mr. Sinclair" shoots his young companion and himself in a second-floor room

    In October 1906, just months after Marie Griffou died, a man who had signed in as Mr. Sinclair of Burlington, Vermont returned to the hotel with a younger woman. He was actually Louis G. Hampton, a married 60-year-old businessman living at the Chelsea Hotel; she was 28-year-old Victoria Taczkow, who did not know he was married. A maid heard shots at about 10:30 p.m., and Louis Griffou, who ran the hotel, broke into the room to find both dead.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1907

    March

    The Hotel Griffou fails as the Sun recalls the artists who dined there

    In March 1907 the Sun reported that Louis Griffou, unable to keep the hotel going after his mother's death, was dodging creditors, with chairs piled on the dining room tables. The paper recalled that painters and sculptors such as William Merritt Chase, Augustus Saint-Gaudens and Carroll Beckwith walked over from the Tenth Street Studio Building for the broiled chicken and spaghetti. Oreste Giolito later bought the hotel and gave it the name Hotel Europe.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Further reading

Nearby

All 518 buildings with stories in Greenwich Village