92 Grove Street

West Village | built 1916

Open on the map7 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. 1863

    July

    Owner of an earlier house on this lot hides Black neighbors in the basement during the Draft Riots

    In July 1863, as mobs from the Draft Riots swept toward Greenwich Village, the owner of the three-story Greek Revival house that then stood here took in Black residents and sheltered them in his basement. The house sat at the edge of Little Africa, the city's largest Black community, around Minetta Street and Minetta Lane. It was an earlier building on the site; it came down in 1916 to make way for the present apartment house.

    Source: Village Preservation

  2. 1917

    Andrew J. Thomas designs a six-story apartment house with a Doric arcade facing Christopher Park

    The Cozine-Warren Company replaced the old house and the empty lot beside it with a six-story apartment building by architect Andrew J. Thomas, finished in 1917. Variegated brick rises above a Mediterranean-inspired base, where a Doric arcade of windows and two flanking doors, one for the entrance and one for basement service, faces Christopher Park. Above, French doors open onto Juliette balconies, and metal fire escapes balance the asymmetrical front. In 1918 the American Institute of Architects gave the builder a medal for apartment buildings of six stories or fewer.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1929

    July 4

    Humorist S. J. Perelman and Laura West move in as newlyweds

    Sidney Joseph Perelman married Laura West, sister of the novelist Nathanael West, on July 4, 1929, and the couple moved straight into an apartment here. Perelman went on to write for The New Yorker for nearly fifty years and to script the Marx Brothers films Monkey Business and Horse Feathers. Later credits included the 1943 stage version of One Touch of Venus and the 1956 film Around the World in 80 Days.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1930

    June 20

    A tenant is sold $805 of watered-down port by a fake bootlegger

    During Prohibition, May McCabe of 92 Grove Street paid $805 for several cases of what she believed was liquor. Police arrested 33-year-old seaman Irving Robin, a former convict, after she charged him with passing off weak port wine and water. The New York Times reported the arrest on June 20, 1930, calling him a bogus bootlegger.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  5. 1956

    Lucien Carr, the Beats' connector, hosts Kerouac in his apartment above Sheridan Square

    By mid-century the United Press reporter Lucien Carr lived here, and Jack Kerouac sometimes stayed with him for weeks. Kerouac thought it the finest apartment in the city and gave it a cameo in Desolation Angels, with a small balcony over the neon and trees of Sheridan Square. One guest at Carr's New Year's Eve party in 1956 remembered a quiet evening: Carr, a steady editing job, a wife and two small sons in pajamas.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  6. 1963

    Alex Haley interviews Malcolm X in a rear studio for his autobiography

    Alex Haley rented a rear studio here during the 1960s. In 1963, a century after the Draft Riots, he held more than fifty interviews there with Malcolm X. They became The Autobiography of Malcolm X, published in 1965 shortly after Malcolm X was assassinated.

    Source: Village Preservation

  7. 2019

    May

    Village Preservation puts up a plaque for Alex Haley, with Malcolm X's daughter present

    In May 2019 Village Preservation put up a plaque at 92 Grove Street memorializing Alex Haley's time in the building. Haley's niece and Malcolm X's daughter attended the event. Haley rented a studio here from 1963 to 1965 while interviewing Malcolm X for The Autobiography of Malcolm X, released on October 29, 1965.

    Source: Village Preservation

Further reading

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