Little Red School House
272 Avenue of the Americas | also 200 Bleecker Street | Greenwich Village | built 1826
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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.
- 1826
Thomas Parker has two Federal brick houses built at 200 and 202 Bleecker Street
Around 1825-26 a pair of single-family brick houses with peaked roofs went up on Bleecker Street for Thomas Parker, later numbered 200 and 202. Their Flemish-bond brickwork and arched entrances with Gibbs surrounds are surviving Federal details. Both houses stand within the Little Red School House today, and each has since gained a third story.
- 1841
Physician James C. Forrester moves into 202 Bleecker Street and stays four decades
Dr. James C. Forrester, who held the post of house surgeon at Bellevue Hospital between 1832 and 1835, was living at No. 202 Bleecker Street by 1841, when he made improvements that included a "ventilating refrigerator." He lost a run for coroner in 1843, then put his energy into charitable and medical groups and became president of the Northern Dispensary's trustees. He died in the house on August 20, 1881, and his funeral was held there.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1889
Joseph Laemmle has 202 Bleecker Street raised to three stories and puts his name on the cornice
In 1882 Charles Sturtzkober altered the basement of 202 Bleecker Street into a store for Joseph Laemmle. In 1889 the architect John B. Franklin raised the old house to three stories, again for Laemmle. The galvanized-iron cornice is stamped J. Laemmle on the north side and Joe. Laemmle on the west.
- 1910
Dairy executive Joseph Laemmle of 202 Bleecker Street is indicted for fixing the price of milk
Joseph Laemmle, head of the Laemmle Dairy Co. and a director and treasurer of the Consolidated Milk Exchange, blamed a 1906 rise in the price paid to farmers on the expense of meeting health-authority demands. Independent dealers complained to Washington about price fixing by his organization, and a grand jury witness blamed the Exchange for his own difficulties. Laemmle was indicted in February 1910 on a charge of fixing the "value" of milk. By October the family had left No. 202, and a manufacturer, Joseph Malite, was living there.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1932
The Little Red School House goes private and settles on Bleecker Street beside these houses
Elisabeth Irwin, a reform educator, started the Little Red School House in 1921, and it is often regarded as the city's first progressive school. After the school turned private and independent in 1932, it moved to 196 Bleecker Street, a 1918 George B. Post & Sons building that had served the University Place Presbyterian Church as its Bethlehem Chapel and Memorial House, beside these two houses. The school acquired that building in 1937 and later expanded into the Federal houses.
- 1934
Willy and John's restaurant takes a basement here, and a funeral church follows
A restaurant called Willy and John's occupied a basement here in 1934-35, according to the landmarks survey. By 1950 the G.B. Perazzo Funeral Church held a lease on the basements of both houses, which had begun as private homes about a century earlier. The Little Red School House bought them in 1962.
- 1962
The Little Red School House buys 200 and 202 Bleecker Street and later builds a Sixth Avenue wing
The school bought the two Federal houses in 1962 and merged them into its campus in 1970. In 1997 David Piscuskas of 1100 Architects designed a three-story addition facing Sixth Avenue, and he later enclosed the rooftop play area to gain classrooms.
Further reading
- Little Red School HouseWikipedia
- The James Forrester House -- No. 202 Bleecker St.Daytonian in Manhattan
Nearby
- Bethlehem Chapel and Memorial House196 Bleecker Street | 3 entries
- 194 Bleecker Street1 entry
- 192 Bleecker Street1 entry
- 190 Bleecker Street3 entries
- 1 Minetta Street2 entries
- 260 Avenue of the Americas1 entry