Before the Village 7
Often, those of us who enjoy urban archaeology discover a building that used to be a movie theater, or we search out the ghosts of old cinemas. What happens when it's the other way around?
Before the Loews Village 7 stood on the corner of 11th St. and 3rd Ave. (before the Village Pour House was across the street, giving refuge to East Village pub-crawling frat-kids), there was this odd and lovely structure:
NY Times, via Microfilm
It was demolished in 1989 and, according an article in the New York Times, it was built in 1869 for the headquarters of the New York City Department of Public Charities and Corrections.
Wrote the Times, "The building was designed by James Renwick, of Renwick & Sands, already famous for his design of Grace Church of 1843 and St. Patrick's Cathedral of 1858... [It has] a typically ebullient, Parisian mansard roof. But the body of the structure, although richly ornamented, also has something of the restlessness of the neo-Grec style. It had chamfered pilasters that interrupted the wall plane, and there was visual conflict between the irregular, horizontal banding and vertical elements."
It was converted into a barn/garage in 1917, with its mansard roof taken off. It stood for a total of 120 years before being replaced by the Loews.
The only other photo I could find of it comes from the NYPL's Digital Gallery. Here's the view looking east on 11th toward 3rd. It's the little parking garage to the right of Webster Hall's very ornate marquee--and its "ebullient, Parisian mansard roof" has already been removed:
NYPL
Before the Loews Village 7 stood on the corner of 11th St. and 3rd Ave. (before the Village Pour House was across the street, giving refuge to East Village pub-crawling frat-kids), there was this odd and lovely structure:
NY Times, via Microfilm
It was demolished in 1989 and, according an article in the New York Times, it was built in 1869 for the headquarters of the New York City Department of Public Charities and Corrections.
Wrote the Times, "The building was designed by James Renwick, of Renwick & Sands, already famous for his design of Grace Church of 1843 and St. Patrick's Cathedral of 1858... [It has] a typically ebullient, Parisian mansard roof. But the body of the structure, although richly ornamented, also has something of the restlessness of the neo-Grec style. It had chamfered pilasters that interrupted the wall plane, and there was visual conflict between the irregular, horizontal banding and vertical elements."
It was converted into a barn/garage in 1917, with its mansard roof taken off. It stood for a total of 120 years before being replaced by the Loews.
The only other photo I could find of it comes from the NYPL's Digital Gallery. Here's the view looking east on 11th toward 3rd. It's the little parking garage to the right of Webster Hall's very ornate marquee--and its "ebullient, Parisian mansard roof" has already been removed:
NYPL
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