Jack Delaney's Restaurant

72 Grove Street | West Village | built 1910

Open on the map3 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. 1842

    William Newhouse builds a Greek Revival house with a rental house behind it

    William Newhouse erected a 21-foot-wide, three-story Greek Revival house at No. 72 in 1842, with brownstone lintels and sills and little ornament. A second three-story house stood in the rear yard and was leased to working-class families, who placed job advertisements there and held a funeral in it in the 1860s. By the early 1870s the main house's basement had been converted into a saloon.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1910

    October 19

    An ex-policeman who warned of deadly street-post colors escapes an asylum and walks to a chair shop here

    The chair maker H. B. Foster ran his shop in the basement, and his son was friends with rookie officer Bruce Manson. Manson wrote anonymous letters to the Secret Service warning that red and black paint on street posts and mail boxes was dangerous; he was traced, retired on a doctor's certificate and committed to an asylum at Central Islip. On October 19 he walked all the way to Foster's door, dusty and torn, and Foster put him to bed and called a policeman.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1936

    Jack Delaney opens a steak restaurant with saddle barstools and a racing theme

    Jack Delaney leased the building in 1936 and opened Jack Delaney's Restaurant, known for steaks. He bred horses, so the dining room was hung with racing photographs, the barstools were made from English saddles and a sulky cart hung from the ceiling. Jack Kerouac recalled being taken there by his father in 1939, and Frank O'Hara later wrote of watching Sheridan Square from its race-track window.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Further reading

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