The Treasure Buried Under Bleecker Street’s Duane Reade
BY Shelby Dwyer
On the surface, 144-146 Bleecker Street is simply an address in downtown Manhattan, just outside the campus of New York University. Today it is the location of a Duane Reade chain pharmacy and convenience store, one of countless in New York City, and an old-fashioned college stationary store. Like many lesser-known, yet extremely important places scattered around the city, the place behind this address bears an incredible significance; there are years of intriguing history embedded in 144-146 Bleecker Street, unknown to many who frequent the pharmacy and stationary establishments today. The building was built in 1832, and throughout its nearly 200 years of existence, it has been home to restaurants, political organizations, works of art, and a theater. The place at 144-146 Bleecker Street epitomizes the dichotomy of the city’s nature; it is dynamic, yet enduring. Certain aspects of the building along with its purpose have changed dramatically; however, many have also remained the same since the building’s early days. Just like New York City, 144-146 Bleecker Street is dynamic and static simultaneously. This place embodies the rich history and the contemporary practicality of the city, fundamental components of the city’s majesty, and one that tourists, in their rush to see all the city’s major attractions, tend to miss out on.
The history of the area around Bleecker Street before the road was founded mimics the history of New York City as a whole. Located in Greenwich Village, the area was first used as a Native American settlement and fishing camp, primarily to harvest the tobacco crop, until the arrival of the Dutch in the early 17th century. The Dutch soon acquired a portion of this land and settled it (Nevius). In 1664, the British seized New Amsterdam from the Dutch and later renamed the area Greenwich Village. New York City had hired two surveyors, Mangin and Goerck, in 1797 to map the current layout of the city. Although the city council ultimately rejected Mangin and Goerck’s map, the proposed course of Bleecker Street was still adopted (Nevius). Throughout the next century, wealthy New Yorkers developed Greenwich Village as the location for their summer homes; one of these residents was Anthony Lispenard Bleecker, a very wealthy and influential banker, proprietor and vestryman, after whom Bleecker Street was named when it was first charted in 1801 (Anthony). The street’s first buildings were constructed sometime during the first decade of the 19th century, almost all of which were homes and businesses owned by wealthy New Yorkers, who were migrating to the area in large numbers by the 1830s when the homes were constructed (Nevius). In 1831, as the neighborhood continued to grow, a developer named Thomas E. Davis constructed a group of buildings called Carroll Place. Among the buildings of this development were 144 and 146 Bleecker Street, two rowhouses that, throughout time, would evolve as the city evolved (Nevius).
The historical aspect of the duality of New York City was first reflected in the building at 144 Bleecker Street in 1883 when a man named Placido Mori opened Mori Restaurant (Abbott). It was a restaurant characterized by its casual, bohemian atmosphere, classic Italian dining and speakeasy quality (Gray). Yet its significance extends far beyond these characteristics. Almost forty years after he founded the restaurant, Mori befriended Raymond Hood, a New York City architect who would later become famous for his numerous contributions to the architectural world such as the building at Rockefeller Center and the American Radiator Building. Subsequently, Mori gave Hood an apartment above his restaurant in exchange for Hood’s architectural skills, although Hood was then only an amateur architect. Hood designed a new façade for the building in 1920 and the property expanded to include 146 Bleecker Street as well. Hood made improvements such as “a row of Doric columns across the first floor, imitation Federal lintels over the windows and a setback penthouse studio” (Gray). Many of these architectural elements still remain on the building, uniting 144 and 146 Bleecker Street as one structure. The restaurant served famous guests like Hood, and other architects Ralph Walker and Frank Lloyd Wright, for almost sixty years. Mori Restaurant survived all of Prohibition and even the worst years of the Great Depression, until Placido Mori closed its doors in 1937 (Gray).
Mori Restaurant also played a pivotal role in the construction of the New York City skyline as we know it today, as it hosted a group of the city’s most famous and influential architects every Friday afternoon in an event dubbed the “Four Hour Lunch Club.” Raymond Hood and his three best friends, Ely Jacques Kahn, Ralph Walker and Joseph Urban, architects of buildings such as the Barclay-Vesey and the Irving Trust, among others, would meet for drinks and intellectual discussion at Mori’s (Miller 439). Mori’s possessed a rambunctious and inventive atmosphere that facilitated architectural dialogue:
Hood’s favorite cocktail was a high-octane concoction of applejack, absinthe and lemon juice, and he would usually have more than a few. At large social gatherings, with other architects, his voice would rise with every round, and he would aggressively challenge the ideas of everyone at the table and go off on tangents, sketching on the tablecloth with a thick pencil as he spun ideas for fresh projects. “When Hood has…the floor…he has it for keeps,” said a colleague. (Miller 439)
This account of Hood’s behavior offers a glimpse into the significance of Mori’s Restaurant as a place of personality and history. For the group of architects, Mori’s was so much more than simply a restaurant and bar. It hosted brainstorming sessions and academic arguments, and its tablecloths regularly served as material on which Hood would create blueprints for future architectural works. It is even said that “[Waiters at Mori’s] regularly added the cost of their tablecloths onto Hood’s cover charge” due to his expansive sketches (Miller 439). It is these memories that remain embedded in the building at 144-146 Bleecker Street, and solidify its historical importance, although Mori Restaurant and its famous patrons were just the beginning of the rich history of the building.
The rich history of the Bleecker Street building expanded across the Atlantic Ocean, paralleling New York City’s strong connections in the global community, when in 1939, the government of the Republic of Spain commissioned the creation of artwork that would ultimately inhabit the Greenwich Village building for decades. The government had appointed a group of Spanish artists to decorate the Spanish pavilion at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York. Among these artists were Sunyer, a painter, Joan Rebull, a sculptor and Luis Quintanilla, a fresco painter. The team of artists moved to New York City and rented a studio on Fifth Avenue to produce their artwork (Green). Quintanilla painted five large frescos depicting the realities of the Spanish Civil War and titled the set “Love peace and hate war.” However, the war ended a few months later, and the Ambassador to Spain in Washington sent a letter to Quintanilla requesting that he return the money he was given when he was commissioned to paint the frescos, as the frescos, which depicted brutal war scenes, would no longer be exhibited at the World’s Fair (Los Frescos). The art originally intended to show the world the tremendous struggles Spain was facing during the War, but when the regime of Fascist Dictator Francisco Franco came to power, this display was no longer desired. Quintanilla refused to return the money or the frescos, and in a letter to the new Spanish government under Franco, Quintanilla alleged that he had rented an apartment in which the ceiling fell in after heavy rains and the apartment flooded, destroying the frescos (Green). For some time it was thought that Quintanilla lied about the destruction of the frescos to protect them from the Francoist government famous for censorship; however, it is now believed more likely that Quintanilla relinquished or sold the frescos to Free World House, an anti-Fascist organization that occupied 144 Bleecker Street for a period, where the frescoes were later discovered (Los Frescos). The frescos added a mysterious element to the building because for so many years their purpose and history went largely unknown.
As it evolved from a restaurant into a space for political discussion, the building at 144-146 Bleecker Street began to embody the second component of New York City’s dichotomy, namely, its dynamism. For seven years after Mori Restaurant closed due to the detrimental effects of the Great Depression, the building at 144-146 Bleecker Street had been unoccupied, until Free World House, an anti-Fascist group, as well as other political and activist organizations probably associated with anti-Fascist or pro-labor ideals moved into the space (Gray). Free World House was an organization dedicated to publicizing the importance of democracy and human liberties that operated from the building at 144 Bleecker Street for a number of years. Former New York City Mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia gave a speech at the opening ceremonies of Free World House about the true intent and meaning of the Atlantic Charter, emphasizing Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt’s efforts to ensure freedom and liberty for their respective countries and safety for the world (LaGuardia). The Bleecker Street building served as the location of numerous discussions and question panels on issues such as Russian war relief and Pacific war relations (USA). However, Free World House had trouble subsisting and left the premises a few years later in 1946 (Los Frescos). With its departure, Free World House took with it the background behind Quintanilla’s frescos, but left the frescos themselves still adorning a fire escape. Throughout decades the frescos endured, puzzling many who crossed paths with the artwork and serving as a reminder of the former political influence and importance of the building.
Even as the building’s purpose changed, it continued to reflect the enduring quality of New York City, as demonstrated by one tenant who vowed to protect Quintanilla’s mysterious frescos and ultimately, their intriguing story. During the time when political organizations like Free World House occupied the first floor of the four-story building, the upper residential floors were home to numerous tenants, including one Captain Sidney Simon, a painter, sculptor and World War II veteran who died in 1997 (Dobrzynski). When Free World House left the premises, the owners of Restaurant Montparnasse, an establishment that occupied the space for a short time in the mid-1900s, asked Captain Simon to paint more serene, pleasant scenery over the warlike frescos (Gray). Simon refused: “I told them…that they were by the famous Spanish artist Luis Quintanilla, that I would have no part in painting them out” (Simon, quoted by Gray). Even as famous institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art came to investigate the frescos and ultimately determined they were insignificant to the art world, a claim that was later contradicted, the residents who called 144-146 Bleecker Street home vowed to protect the masterpieces that made their home unique (Gray). In doing so, they also protected the rich history of the building just as many citizens have worked to protect the rich history of New York City.
The building at 144-146 Bleecker Street continued to grow as a dynamic, evolving representation of New York when it took on a novel use as a theater in 1960, as the city was reviving the film industry through three major venues: the New Yorker, the Bleecker Street, and the Thalia (Hoberman). The building was converted into a theater called Bleecker Street Cinema (Gillon). Filmmaker and social activist Lionel Rogosin founded the theater in order to show Come Back, Africa, his controversial film about racial issues in South Africa (Rogosin). For thirty years, the cinema showed countless foreign and independent films, many of which intended to promote a political or social agenda. New York Post writer Frank Lovece, in his 1990 article about the closing of the theatre, hailed it as one of “three key revival houses” in New York City between the 1950s and 1960s. The Bleecker Street Cinema was closed in September of 1990, but opened again for a short time beginning in November of that year, as a venue for gay adult films. Ultimately, the cinema returned to original operations, again showing independent and foreign films until 1991, when the Bleecker Street Cinema closed for good (Gray). In its thirty years of existence, the cinema embodied the spirit of 1950s and 1960s New York City, and its history serves as a reflection of the city’s film industry in the mid to late 20th century.
In 1993, with over a century and a half of elaborate history under its belt, the building at Bleecker Street took on yet another identity, progressing as a microcosm of New York. The first floor of the building became the location of two retail establishments, Duane Reade Pharmacy and New University Pen and Stationary (C of O). I visited the pharmacy and stationary store and was, as I expected to be, largely unimpressed. The building today seems much like many other average buildings in Manhattan, with retail establishments on the ground floor and apartments in the floors above. I asked workers in both stores about the building’s history. While the workers with whom I spoke in both establishments knew the general history—that the building began as a restaurant, then became a theater, and also at one point housed five large pieces of artwork—they were, for the most part, unaware of its incredible significance or of the elaborate details that embody the building’s true character. Through speaking with one worker and then doing further research, I found out that the frescos had been removed from the building in the late 20th century, brought to Spain, restored, and are now displayed on a patio at the University of Cantabria. Any remainder of the frescos, of Free World House or of Bleecker Street Cinema no longer exists in the building at 144-146 Bleecker Street. One of the few aspects that does remain is Hood’s architecture created for Mori Restaurant, as the Duane Reade and the stationary store are both decorated with a row Doric columns and federal lintels over the windows of the upper floors. The building appears so mundane that it is almost hard to believe, upon visiting, how truly rich its history is.
Throughout just about two centuries, the building at 144-146 Bleecker Street has changed in a multitude of ways, yet it still maintains certain aspects that serve as evidence of its abundant history. It has evolved and endured simultaneously, as has the spirit of New York City. The city changes with each second that passes, but it also still possesses many remnants of its rich history. In much the same way, the purpose and use of the building at 144-146 Bleecker Street have changed throughout time to suit the changing nature of New York City, yet it is still deeply rooted in history, from its 1920s architecture to its Spanish Civil War-era frescoes hidden in the fire escape. The dynamic yet static nature of the building serves as a reflection of the character and identity of New York City, a place which maintains a unique and steady balance between the fast-paced nature of today’s New York and the extravagant history that has preceded it.
Works Cited
Abbott, Berenice. Mori Restaurant. 1935. Museum of the City of New York, New York. Museum of the City of New York. Web. 07 Mar. 2015.
“Anthony Bleecker.” The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record. Ed. Melatiah Eloise Brown Dwight. Vol. 34. New York: New York Genealogical and Biographical Society, 1903. 234-35. Print.
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Dobrzynski, Judith H. “Sidney Simon, Sculptor, 80; Founded School.” The New York Times Arts. The New York Times, 07 Aug. 1997. Web. 18 Mar. 2015.
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Miller, Donald L. Supreme City: How Jazz Age Manhattan Gave Birth to Modern America. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2014. 439. Print.
Nevius, James. “Bleecker Street’s Evolution From Sleepy Suburb to America’s Left Bank.” Curbed NY. N.p., 19 Dec. 2014. Web. 31 Mar. 2015.
Rogosin, Lionel. “The Building of an Alternate Cinema.” The Official Lionel Rogosin Website. Rogosin Heritage, 2007. Web. 08 Mar. 2015.
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