61 Perry Street

West Village | built 1905

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. 1828

    James P. Demarest builds 61 Perry Street as one of a pair of Federal houses

    New Jersey investor James P. Demarest built 61 and 63 Perry Street in 1828 as twin two-and-a-half-story Federal houses. No. 61 is 25 feet wide, of Flemish bond brick, with an eight-paneled door and iron railings whose newels are topped by pineapples. An arched cartway beneath the pair led to a two-story building in the rear yard; No. 63 no longer stands, but the gated passage survives at the west end of No. 61.

    “This pair of houses was built in 1828 as an investment for James P. Demarest, whose home was in Bergen County, New Jersey.”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  2. 1904

    Painter John Sloan and his wife Dolly move into the house

    John Sloan, a founder of the Ashcan School of realist painters, moved here with his wife Dolly in 1904, keeping a studio at 35 Sixth Avenue. He paid the bills with weekly puzzle drawings for the Philadelphia Press and magazine illustrations. The couple joined the Socialist Party in 1910 and Sloan became art editor of The Masses; in February 1913 they moved to 240 West 4th Street.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1942

    Sculptor Alice Decker lives here and turns the rear building into a studio

    By 1942 the sculptor Alice Decker was living at 61 Perry Street, and she turned the little two-story building in the back yard into her studio. She worked in a range of materials, making pieces of social comment such as a wooden Scrubwoman as well as purely formal works such as sleeping cats. She had left her husband, the sculptor and activist John Calvin Ferguson, in 1936.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1975

    March 4

    Poet Lloyd Frankenberg dies in the house he shared with painter Loren MacIver

    Poet, critic and anthologist Lloyd Frankenberg lived here with his wife, the painter Loren MacIver, and died in the house on March 4, 1975, aged 67. The couple were close to E. E. Cummings, who lived on Patchin Place, and to Robert Lowell. Poet Elizabeth Bishop was a frequent guest who stayed for long stretches.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  5. 1998

    May 3

    Painter Loren MacIver dies in the house after museum retrospectives

    Loren MacIver kept living at 61 Perry Street after her husband's death and died there at 90 on May 3, 1998. Retrospectives of her paintings had been mounted at the Newport Harbor Museum, the Phillips Collection in Washington and the Whitney Museum of American Art. She once said she had never intended a painting career and simply liked to paint.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Further reading

Nearby

All 1,156 buildings with stories in West Village