Beatrice Inn building
285 West 12th Street | West Village | built 1910
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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.
- 1894
Police raid rooms in the rooming house and arrest three women
By the 1890s the two small Troy Street houses were rooming houses. In 1894 the Evening World reported a raid on rooms at 285 West 12th Street, where three women were arrested as disorderly characters, a polite term for prostitutes. Mary Murray was fined and released, while Nellie Butler and Sarah St. Clair were held on $500 bail pending trial for keeping a brothel.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1896
A lodger's fatal beating of his wife ends in a seven-year prison sentence
Halstead Townsend, a former horse dealer and trucker who had fallen on hard times and drank heavily, lived with his wife Elizabeth in rooms at No. 285. After midnight on April 30, their son ran over from No. 287 at her cries, broke in and pulled his father away. Elizabeth died at St. Vincent's Hospital 18 hours later, and Townsend was sentenced to seven years and five months.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1928
Two 1841 houses are merged into one studio-apartment building with a shared doorway
Aaron Marsh built the two 16-foot-wide houses in 1841 as 49 and 51 Troy Street. After the New York Evening Post reported their sale in June 1928, the new owner combined them, added a top story with grouped windows for artists' studios and a Spanish-tiled roof, and gave them one centered doorway. The address 287 was absorbed into 285.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1955
The Cardia family opens the Beatrice Inn in the basement
The Cardia family opened the Beatrice Inn in the building's commercial basement space in 1955. Despite a lukewarm 1977 New York Times review, it became a long-running favorite for diners, including the CBS journalist Charles Kuralt. After his death in July 1997 the restaurant ran a one-line notice in the Times saying it would miss his warmth.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 2009
City enforcement raids and closes the Beatrice Inn nightclub after noise complaints
After buying the Beatrice Inn in late 2006, DJ Paul Sevigny, a graffiti artist and restaurateur Matt Abramcyk ran it as a nightclub favored by celebrities and fashion crowds. In April 2009 the Mayor's Office of Special Enforcement raided and shut it after repeated noise complaints from neighbors, and The New York Times reported $23,000 in unpaid fines.
“In April 2009, it was raided and shut down by the Mayor's Office of Special Enforcement, following numerous noise complaints from residents living near The Beatrice Inn.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 2012
Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter takes over the Beatrice Inn
After a Spanish tapas restaurant occupied the space from 2010, Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter and partners Emil Varda and Brett Rasinski bought the Beatrice Inn in July 2012. In August 2016 Carter sold the restaurant to chef Angie Mar, and it reopened that September. The restaurant closed in December 2020.
“In July 2012, the restaurant was bought over by Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter with his partners Emil Varda and Brett Rasinski.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 2020
The Beatrice Inn serves its last meal after 65 years in the space
Chef and co-owner Angie Mar announced that the Beatrice Inn's final meal would be served on New Year's Eve 2020. She explained that rent above the market rate, combined with the pandemic, made carrying on unsustainable. A New York Times writer, Tejal Rao, had described it that November as a speakeasy, a club and a chophouse in turn.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
Further reading
- The Combined 285 and 287 West 12th StreetDaytonian in Manhattan
- Then & Now photos: 285-287 West 12th StreetVillage Preservation: Greenwich Village Then & Now
Nearby
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- 26 8th Avenue1 entry