Former Grove Press building

64 University Place | also 64A University Place, 68 University Place | Greenwich Village | built 2024

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Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.

  1. 1869

    Hazelton Brothers, piano makers, run their factory and office at 66-68 University Place for fifty years

    Part of this lot was once a six-story loft at 66-68 University Place, built in 1869-70 as one of a pair of loft buildings. Hazelton Brothers used it as the factory and office of their piano business until 1919, when the neighborhood was still a center of piano manufacturing. The four-story front of the old building on the lot dated to 1958.

    Source: media.villagepreservation.org

  2. 1959

    Barney Rosset moves Grove Press one block west to 64 University Place and starts the Black Cat paperbacks

    Grove Press, which Rosset had bought in 1951, left 795 Broadway in 1959 for the earlier building on this lot, where it took much more space. From there it launched Black Cat, a paperback line meant to carry cutting-edge literature to a mass audience. In 1964 the firm moved again, to 80 University Place, where it grew to 85,000 square feet.

    Source: Village Preservation

  3. 1962

    Grove Press publishes the American edition of Naked Lunch from its University Place offices

    After a three-year fight over censorship, Grove brought out William S. Burroughs's Naked Lunch in 1962 while based in the earlier building on this lot. In the same period it published John Rechy's gay-themed novel City of Night and the previously banned writings of the Marquis de Sade. Village Preservation cites these titles as part of what made Grove's four years here significant.

    Source: media.villagepreservation.org

  4. 1962

    July

    Evergreen Review prints a freedom-to-read statement signed by 198 writers, and the Nassau County DA seizes copies

    Grove's July-August 1962 issue of Evergreen Review, published while the press was in the earlier building on this lot, printed the court ruling that struck down the ban on Tropic of Cancer, along with a statement urging an end to further appeals and bans. It carried the signatures of 198 American writers and critics and the heads of 64 publishing companies. Soon afterward the Nassau County district attorney seized copies of the magazine as lewd.

    Source: media.villagepreservation.org

  5. 2019

    Argo Real Estate buys 64-66 University Place for $30 million, with its upper floors empty

    Argo bought the site in 2019 for $30 million. The three upper floors of the old building, the former home of Grove Press, were abandoned by then, after an audio school that had used them for 20 to 30 years went out of business.

    Source: commercialobserver.com

  6. 2021

    Developer files plans to replace the old Grove Press building with an 11-story, 28-unit condominium

    The developer bSafal filed plans with the Department of Buildings for a 125-foot condo building on the site of the old Grove Press home, over the objections of Village Preservation. The Landmarks Preservation Commission had declined in 2018 to treat 66 University Place, a 1958 building, as an individual landmark, and it did not find the wider area worthy of a historic district.

    Source: commercialobserver.com

Further reading

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