Original Whitney Museum of Art

8 West 8th Street | Greenwich Village | built 1920

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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. 1907

    Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney opens the Whitney Studio Gallery at No. 8

    Sculptor Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney bought the 1838 row house at No. 8 West 8th Street and converted it into the Whitney Studio Gallery, using it as both a workshop and a venue for exhibiting emerging American artists. She funded annual competitions for younger painters and sculptors, awarding a combined $1,225 in prize money in 1915. The gallery's activities grew into the Whitney Studio Club by 1919, which counted 400 members by 1928.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1928

    September

    Juliana Force persuades Whitney to found a museum of American art

    Juliana Force, who had become Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney's private secretary in 1914, persuaded her in September 1928 to close the Whitney Studio Club and found a museum instead. Force later became director of the Whitney Museum of American Art.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1931

    Architects unite three row houses into the new Whitney Museum

    Noel & Miller, the firm of Whitney's son-in-law George Maccullouch Miller, remodeled Nos. 8, 10, and 12 West 8th Street into one building with a new facade. A stylized cast-aluminum eagle by Karl Free sat above a marble entrance designed by associate architect Bruce Butterfield. Plans called for eleven exhibition rooms to hold more than 400 American paintings.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1967

    May 22

    The New York Studio School moves into the former museum building

    After the Whitney Museum relocated to Midtown in 1954, the National Recreation Association occupied the building until 1966. The property then went for $750,000 to the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture, aided by a $50,000 gift from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and the school moved in on May 22, 1967.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  5. 2015

    August

    A restoration briefly exposes the original Whitney Museum inscription

    A $450,000 restoration completed in August 2015 returned the building's facade to its 1931 appearance. Workers removed a panel over the doorway reading "National Recreation Association" and uncovered the inscribed marble "Whitney Museum of American Art" beneath it. The old lettering stayed in view only for a few days before it was covered again.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

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