217 Thompson Street

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.

1975
Chess grandmaster Nicolas Rossolimo moves his chess studio to 217 Thompson Street in the year he dies
Nicolas Rossolimo, a grandmaster who ran a chess studio in Greenwich Village, shifted his studio from 191 Sullivan Street to this tenement at 217-219 Thompson Street in 1975. It was the year of his death. The part of Thompson Street running from West 3rd Street up to Bleecker would later be nicknamed the Chess District.
Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission
1994
September
Imad Khachan, an NYU doctoral student, opens Chess Forum on the ground floor
Imad Khachan, a Palestinian immigrant from Lebanon who was studying comparative religion at NYU, opened Chess Forum at 219 Thompson Street in September 1994. Playing there has cost five dollars an hour for years, and the display cases hold sets priced from ten dollars to ten thousand. Village Preservation placed the shop in the so-called Chess District of the South Village.
Source: Village Preservation
2020
March 20
Chess Forum shuts its doors for the pandemic and sells by delivery as Village Preservation honors it
When Village Preservation named Chess Forum a 2020 Village Awardee, the shop had been closed since March 20 because of the pandemic, though its website kept taking orders for shipping and for no-contact delivery in Manhattan. The article marked the shop's 25th year at 219 Thompson Street and noted that Kevin Kline had visited while preparing for the film Queen to Play.
Source: Village Preservation

Nearby