Renee and Chaim Gross Foundation

526 LaGuardia Place | Greenwich Village | built 1873

Open on the map4 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. 1873

    Joseph M. Dunn designs a four-story neo-Grec store and loft building for John McCord

    The building went up in 1873 under permit NB 720-1873 for the owner John McCord, with Joseph M. Dunn as architect. It is four stories of brick in the neo-Grec style, with fluted cast-iron storefront piers, some topped by Corinthian capitals, and a bracketed cornice. The Landmarks Preservation Commission lists it as store and lofts.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  2. 1963

    Sculptor Chaim Gross and his wife Renee turn the 1873 loft building into a home and studio

    Chaim and Renee Gross bought the building in 1962 and moved in the next year. They chose West Broadway, now LaGuardia Place, to combine their home with a workplace, converting the loft building back to residential use and adding a sculpture studio on the ground floor. Gross lived and worked there until he died in 1991.

    Source: Village Preservation

  3. 1989

    The Renee and Chaim Gross Foundation incorporates and keeps the house open as a museum

    The foundation, incorporated in 1989, studies Gross's work and 20th-century American art from within his four-story home. The ground-floor studio keeps a skylight and the tools used for direct carving, a technique Gross introduced to America in the late 1920s, and the third floor still shows his salon-style arrangement of art from Europe, Africa and pre-Columbian cultures.

    “The Renee and Chaim Gross Foundation is a non-profit organization incorporated in 1989…”

    Source: Wikipedia

  4. 2016

    Village Preservation installs a plaque honoring Chaim Gross and his life in the building with Renee

    A historic plaque went up in 2016 recognizing Gross's art and his years in the building with his wife. The foundation has since restored his studio, including its angled wall of windows. Their daughter Mimi Gross, a painter and set and costume designer, has work displayed throughout the house.

    Source: Village Preservation

Further reading

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