Page 108 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - New York City

106  NE W Y ORK CIT Y AREA B Y AREA

2 75½ Bedford
Street
Map 3 C2. q Houston St. Closed to
the public. ∑ cherrylanetheatre.org
New York’s narrowest home, just
9½ ft (2.9 m) wide, was built in
1893 in a former passageway. Isaacs-Hendricks House
The poet Edna St. Vincent Millay
lived here briefly, followed by 4 Isaacs-Hendricks
the actor John Barrymore, and
later Cary Grant. The three-story House
building, now renovated, is 77 Bedford St. Map 3 C2. q Houston
Row houses on St. Luke’s Place, a street marked by a plaque. St. Closed to the public.
with literary associations Just around the corner, at 38
Commerce Street, Miss Millay This is the oldest surviving home
1 St. Luke’s Place founded the Cherry Lane in the Village, built in 1799. The
Theater in 1924 as a site for old clapboard walls are visible on
Map 3 C3. q Houston St.
avant-garde drama. It still the sides and rear; the brickwork
Fifteen attractive row houses, premieres new works. Its and third floor came later. The
dating from the 1850s, line biggest hit was the 1960s first owner, John Isaacs, bought
the north side of this street. The musical Godspell. the land for $295 in 1794. Next
park opposite is named for a came Harmon Hendricks, a
previous resident of St. Luke’s copper dealer and associate of
Place, Mayor Jimmy Walker, the 3 Grove Court revolutionary Paul Revere. Robert
popular dandy who ran the city Map 3 C2. q Christopher St- Fulton, who used copper for the
from 1926 until he was forced Sheridan Sq. boilers in his steamboat, was
to resign after a financial one of Hendricks’s customers.
scandal in 1932. In front An enterprising grocer named
of the house at Samuel Cocks built the six town
No. 6 are the houses here, in an area formed 5 Whitney Museum
tall lamps that by a bend in the street. (The of Art
always identify a bends in this part of the Village
mayor’s home originally marked divisions See pp108–9.
in New York. The between colonial properties.)
most recognizable Cocks reckoned that having
house on the block residents in the empty passage 6 Meatpacking
is probably No. 10, between 10 and 12 Grove Street
used as the exterior of would help his business at No. 18. District
the Huxtable family But residential courts, Map 3 B1 q 14th St (on lines A, C, E);
home in The Cosby now highly prized, were not 8th Ave L.
Show (although the considered respectable in 1854,
series places it in and the lowbrow residents Once the domain of butchers
Brooklyn). This is also attracted to the area earned it in blood-stained aprons hacking
the block where Wait the nickname “Mixed Ale Alley.” at sides of beef, these days
Until Dark was filmed, O. Henry later chose this block (and particularly nights) the
starring Audrey as the setting for his 1902 work Meatpacking District is very
Hepburn as a blind The Last Leaf. different. Squeezed into an area
woman living at No. 4.
Theodore Dreiser and
the poet Marianne
Moore are just two of
the several writers
who have lived here.
Dreiser wrote An
American Tragedy
while living at No. 16.
One block north, the
corner of Hudson
and Morton streets
Mayor’s marked the edge of
lamp at the Hudson River in
No. 6 the 18th century. The mid-19th-century town houses at Grove Court

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