80 Wooster Street (Fluxhouse Cooperative II)
80 Wooster Street | SoHo | built 1894
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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.
- 1894
Developers Boehm & Coon replace a notorious tramp lodging house with a seven-story loft
The old house at 80 Wooster was known for fights, crime and disease, and the New York Times called it a tramp lodging house. In May 1894 developers Abraham Boehm and Lewis Coon bought it and No. 82 for $75,000. Ground was broken on July 14 and architect Gilbert Schellenger's seven-story building was finished in five months. A ruffling manufacturer had leased the upper floors before construction began.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1916
A 15-year-old leads paper-box strikers up and down Wooster Street
In 1916 the paper box union struck firms in the area, including Kotch Brothers at No. 82. On August 30, 15-year-old Sarah Dubrowitz led the workers as they marched along Wooster Street. Paid anti-strikers gathered outside Kotch Brothers, and a gang surrounded a car pulling up with a suspected striker inside before police released it from the crowd.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1967
George Maciunas opens Fluxhouse Cooperative II, an artists' co-op, upstairs at 80 Wooster
Fluxus artist George Maciunas bought 80 Wooster in 1967 and opened Fluxhouse Cooperative II that August. Artist Robert Watts was among the first residents. Filmmaker Jonas Mekas set up his Filmmakers' Cinematheque on the ground floor, giving the building a cinema below and artists' lofts above.
Source: stedelijkstudies.com
- 1968
Richard Foreman stages his first Ontological-Hysteric Theater production at the Cinematheque
Playwright Richard Foreman ran the movie theater at 80 Wooster Street for Jonas Mekas and George Maciunas. In 1968 he founded the Ontological-Hysteric Theater and staged its first production there, in the same Cinematheque space. Its first two shows, Angelface in 1968 and Ida-Eyed in 1969, drew almost no critical attention.
“Foreman mounted his first production with Ontological-Hysteric Theatre in 1968 at the Film-Maker's Cinematheque on Wooster Street.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1970
A week-long 1970 gathering named for Yoko Ono sends visitors through a maze of eight doors at 80 Wooster
From May 23 to 29, 1970, 80 Wooster hosted a gathering titled for Yoko Ono and John Lennon, Portrait of John Lennon as a Young Cloud. George Maciunas designed its centerpiece, a maze of eight doors that each opened in its own way. He later reused several of the door ideas in his Flux-Labyrinth, built in September 1976 for a Berlin exhibition about SoHo.
Source: stedelijkstudies.com
- 1978
Friends hold a Fluxfuneral for George Maciunas at 80 Wooster Street
Maciunas used 80 Wooster as his base and often slept there, with a basement office for business meetings. After a beating by men who claimed he owed them money, he left New York in the summer of 1976. He died of pancreatic cancer in Boston on May 9, 1978, and four days later friends gathered on the ground floor of 80 Wooster for a Fluxfuneral in his honor.
Source: gothamcenter.org
Further reading
- "The Birthplace of Soho" -- 80-82 Wooster StreetDaytonian in Manhattan
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