Greenwich House Music School

46 Barrow Street | West Village | built 1851

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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. 1851

    Mason Smith Woodruff builds a row of six Italianate houses including 46 Barrow Street

    Mason Smith Woodruff built a row of six brick town houses on the south side of Barrow Street in 1851, among them No. 46. The houses were originally Italianate in style. By 1969 Nos. 44 and 46 housed the Greenwich Music School, and their two original stoops had been replaced by one basement entrance at No. 46.

    Source: media.villagepreservation.org

  2. 1852

    Iron founder George Merklee takes up residence at 46 Barrow Street

    George Merklee, of the iron-founding firm Merklee & Nichols, lived at 46 Barrow Street from 1852. The tax rolls that year charged him on five houses, Nos. 36-46, although the Landmarks Preservation Commission notes that all of them had already been built, and some sold, before he appears in the record.

    “George Merklee, of Merklee & Nichols, iron founders, lived at No. 46 from 1852 on, and also was taxed in 1852 for five houses (Nos. 36-46).”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  3. 1913

    Greenwich House Music School moves into its own building at 46 Barrow Street

    Greenwich House began music classes in 1905. In 1913 the music school moved into a building of its own at 46 Barrow Street and later took over the adjoining brownstone as well. The school then offered lessons on a wider range of instruments and gave concerts in the house and at venues around the city, the Metropolitan Opera among them.

    Source: greenwichhouse.org

  4. 1930

    Avant-garde composers including Henry Cowell and John Cage make the school's concert hall their own

    During the 1930s the music school became a gathering place for experimental composers and musicians such as Henry Cowell, John Cage, Carl Ruggles and Edgard Varese. They used its small concert hall as their own. Later faculty included the electronic-music pioneer Morton Subotnick, the pianist Taka Kigawa and the harpist Brandee Younger.

    Source: greenwichhouse.org

  5. 2014

    The school stages Cafe Au Go Go Revisited, a tribute to the Bleecker Street club

    In 2014 the music school hosted Cafe Au Go Go Revisited, a tribute to the Bleecker Street cafe that operated from 1964 to 1970. The concert took place in the school's second-floor Renee Weiler Concert Hall, which also houses the Sound It Out avant-garde jazz series and the school's Uncharted community concerts.

    Source: Wikipedia

Further reading

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