3 Washington Square North

also 14A Washington Mews, 1 Washington Square North | Greenwich Village | built 1900

Open on the map5 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. 1870

    January 1

    An earlier mansion on this site becomes the New York Foundling Hospital

    The Sisters of Charity had founded the New York Foundling Hospital in October 1869 and, within two months, had taken in 123 babies. On January 1, 1870 they moved into the former mansion of J. Thorne at 3 Washington Square North, one of a row of Federal-style houses around the park. The hospital left for larger quarters on East 68th Street in 1873, and the mansion was demolished in 1884.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1885

    A red-brick studio building replaces the old mansion

    The mansion and its stable were demolished in 1884, and a four-story red-brick studio building was finished on the site the next year. Its tall studio windows let in plenty of daylight, and it stood slightly higher than its older neighbors. By 1886 the painters Lyell Carr, Will H. Low, Walter Shirlaw, and Abbott Handerson Thayer were working there.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1918

    Edward Hopper wins The Sun's poster prize from his top-floor studio

    Edward Hopper had taken the sky-lit top-floor studio that Dennis Miller Bunker once called a 'funny little hole.' In 1918 the little-known Hopper won the $300 first prize in The Sun's ship poster competition with the anti-German poster 'Smash the Hun.' The Brooklyn Museum bought one of his paintings in 1923, and fifty-five museums eventually came to own his work.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1947

    May

    Artists win a court fight against NYU to keep their studios

    New York University bought the studio building in 1946 and, needing room for a record enrollment of 38,500 students that included about 12,000 veterans, aimed to end the artists' leases. Tenants including portrait painter Jane Gray vowed to fight. The dispute went to court, and in May 1947 NYU lost the suit, so the artists could stay.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  5. 1967

    Edward Hopper dies in his top-floor studio here

    Edward Hopper died at 84 in his top-floor studio at 3 Washington Square North, where he had worked for decades. He was one of the tenants who stayed on after the 1947 court victory over NYU, and fellow tenant Frank W. Stokes, who had gone to the Arctic with Peary, died in 1955 at age 96. The building later became NYU's Graduate School for Social Work.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Further reading

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All 518 buildings with stories in Greenwich Village