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Pier 54.
Semicircular metal
structure on the riverfront marks the Cunard Piers, where the Titanic was supposed to dock on April 17,
1912; instead, the Carpathia arrived here on April 18 with 705 survivors of the disaster. Another doomed
ship, the Lusitania, sailed from here on May 1, 1915.
The first ship to travel through the Erie Canal,
the Seneca Chief, docked here November 4, 1825.
Gansevoort Peninsula. Landfill used by Sanitation Department, salt storage,
FDNY Marine Company No. 1. Contains a remnant of New York's lost 13th Avenue, which was removed
to allow longer ships to dock at New York piers.
Pier 51. Condemned; to become a playground.
(More about Hudson River Park plans).
Pier 49. Condemned; will be a viewing balcony.
Pier 46. Condemned; planned for active recreation.
From this shore on August 17, 1807 Robert Fulton launched the first commercially viable
steamship, the North River, later renamed the Clermont.
Pier 45. Open for public use; to be
developed as a park. Christopher Street
Piers have been a source of
controversy because of use by transexual sex
workers and the homeless. Note bow notch to north; cut to allow
ships to dock here that were too long for the pier.
Pier 42. Closed due to disrepair; to be developed for
recreational use.
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East:
154: The site of Longshoremen's Rest,
set up by the Church Temperance Society in 1910
to provide alternatives to drinking.
142 (corner): Was the Eagle's Nest, gay bar
where part of the homophobic Cruising
was shot with Al Pacino.
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East:
120 (corner): Was The Spike,
the largest leather bar of the pre-AIDS era
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East:
Corner (555 W 18th): Star architect Frank
Gehry's first major New York City building serves as the headquarters
of Barry Diller's InterActive Corp.
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W 14TH ST ===> E
At 14th Street, West becomes 11th Avenue.
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East:
Liberty Inn
Was the Strand Hotel (1908); sailor haunt. Later
The Anvil, a decadent gay club (1974-86)
frequented by German director Fassbinder. Felipe Rose was discovered dancing here in an Indian costume, inspiring and
becoming the first member of the Village People.
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GANSEVOORT ST ===> E
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East:
507: When novelist Herman Melville was a customs agent from 1866 until 1885, inspecting goods coming into the
Gansevoort Street wharves, he worked out of this address.
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East:
493: The site of 12 West,
popular 1970s gay disco. Later the RiverClub. The building now on the site was designed to look like a
converted warehouse.
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East:
469 (block): Now known as the
Superior Ink Building, this industrial
structure was originally built as a Nabisco
cracker factory in 1919--part of the same
complex, designed by A.G. Zimmermann, as
the Oreo factory on 16th Street that is
now Chelsea Market. Despite some significance
in the history of industrial architecture,
the building is threatened with demolition;
it would be replaced by the tallest building
in Greenwich Village.
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East:
Westbeth
Once the Bell Telephone/Western Electric Laboratories, this full-block complex created or help to
develop some of the most important inventions of the 20th Century: the vacuum tube (1912), radar (1919),
sound movies (1923) and the digital computer (1937). One of the first demonstrations of television
transmission occurred here, April 27, 1927. Westbeth was also the original home of the
NBC radio network.
The complex was converted to an artists' colony in 1969; photographer Diane
Arbus committed suicide here, July 28, 1971. Actor Vin Diesel grew up here.
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East:
425: West; good bar for sunset-watching
Perry Street Towers
Corner (173 Perry): This and the other glass
building across the street were designed by modernist
Richard Meier in 2003. Celebrities like Nicole
Kidman, Martha Stewart and Calvin Klein have bought
apartments here, but the project was marred by
shoddy construction.
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East:
Corner (176 Perry): The other Perry Street Tower.
Corner (165 Charles): Another Richard Meier
building going up in 2005. Burned by cost-cutting on
the Perry Street Towers, Meier got the developer to
agree him to give him a large degree of control
over the construction.
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East:
404 (corner):
T.R.E.C.; photography and lighting rental
Site of Newgate State Prison
Block: At the foot of 10th Street (then Amos Street)
was Newgate State Prison, opened in 1797 as
New York's first prison and the second prison
in the country. Despite some progressive
policies--the co-ed convicts were taught
trades, a physician and a pharmacist were
hired, and the first warden lived in
the prison along with his family--the institution
was plagued by overcrowding, riots and smallpox epidemics.
It was closed in 1829 when its inmates were
sent "up the river" to the newly opened
Sing Sing. In its day, the prison was
apparently a tourist attraction; it's
memorialized in a mosaic in the Christopher
Street subway stop.
396 (corner): Uguale, Italian-French. Was Peter Rabbit's,
bar catering to young gay black men.
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East:
394: Was
The Ramrod, gay leather bar. In 1980, a former transit cop
shot into the bar with a semi-automatic weapon, killing two and injuring six.
He was found not guilty by reason of insanity.
392: Sneakers, non-leather gay bar,
distinguished by shoes hanging from ceiling, is in a building that dates to c. 1790--
perhaps the oldest in the Village.
390: Underground Erotic Emporium
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CHRISTOPHER ST ===> E
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East:
388: Badlands, leather bar featured in the movie Cruising
384 (corner): Was
Keller's, perhaps New York's first leather
bar--dating to the 1950s. It's also been credited as the birthplace of disco;
the Village People were photographed here for an album cover.
Closed in 1998. Originally the Keller Hotel, built in 1898.
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East:
357 (corner): Lunchbox Food Company,
stylish diner
354: Westworld Video
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