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8th Street and St. Mark's Place

8th Street is a street in the New York City borough of Manhattan that runs from Sixth Avenue to Third Avenue and also from Avenue B to Avenue D; its addresses switch from West to East as it crosses Fifth Avenue. Between Third Avenue and Avenue A it is named St. Mark's Place, after the nearby St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery on 10th Street at Second Avenue.

History
Early years Wouter van Twiller, colonial governor of New Amsterdam, once owned a tobacco farm near 8th and MacDougal Streets. Such farms were located around the area until the 1830s. Nearby, a Native American trail crossed the island via the rights-of-way of Greenwich Avenue, Astor Place, and Stuyvesant Street. The area west of Greenwich Lane was already developed as Greenwich Village, while the area east of First Avenue was reserved for a wholesale food market. The plan was amended many times as the grid took shape and public spaces were added or eliminated. The marketplace proposal was scrapped in 1824, allowing 8th Street to continue eastward to the river. On the west side, Sixth Avenue was extended and Greenwich Lane shortened, shifting the boundary of 8th Street, ever so slightly, to Sixth Avenue and allowing Mercer, Greene, Wooster and MacDougal Streets to continue northward to 8th. 19th century After the Commissioners' Plan was laid out, property along the street's right of way quickly developed. By 1835, the New York University opened its first building, the Silver Center, along Eighth Street near the Washington Square Park. Row houses were also built on Eighth Street. The street ran between the Jefferson Market, built in 1832 at the west end, and the Tompkins Market, built in 1836, at the east end. These were factors in the street's commercialization in later years. Davis built up St. Mark's Place between Third and Second Avenues between 1831 and 1832. Although the original plan was for Federal homes, only three such houses remained in 2014. Publisher Evert Augustus Duyckinck founded a private library at his 50 East Eighth Street home. Anne Lynch started a famous literary salon at 116 Waverly Place and relocated to 37 West Eighth Street in 1848. At this point, St. Mark's Place was considered a part of the Lower East Side. The shop quickly attracted musicians from Cyndi Lauper to the Ramones. In 1980, hot dog company Nathan's Famous moved into the location of a former bookstore on Eighth Street, to the anger of some Greenwich Village residents. However, other establishments, such as the B. Dalton bookstore, clothing stores, and shoe stores, started to attract tourists to the area. By the 1990s, the areas around both Eighth Street and St. Mark's Place were becoming rapidly gentrified, with new buildings and establishments being developed along both streets. The Village Alliance Business Improvement District was formed in 1993 to care for the area around Eighth Street. ==Notable buildings and sites==
Notable buildings and sites
, three converted townhouses at 8–12 West 8th Street 8th Street East • 127 Avenue B, also known as 295 East 8th Street, on Tompkins Square Park, was originally the Tompkins Square Lodging House for Boys and Industrial School. It was designed by Vaux & Radford and built in 1887. The building later became the Children's Aid Society Newsboy and Bootblacks Lodging House, and was briefly a synagogue, Talmud Torah Darchei Noam. The building was restored in 2006, and is now apartments. The building was featured prominently in the 2002 film, In America. • The stucco-faced apartment building at 4–26 East 8th Street between Fifth Avenue and University Place was built in 1834–36 and remodeled in 1916. It was designed by Harvey Wiley Corbett, and has been described as a "stage set, symbolic of the 'village' of a bohemian artist." • The full-block building on 8th Street bordered by Lafayette Street, 9th Street and Broadway, which carries the addresses 499 Lafayette Avenue and 770 Broadway, was built in 1902 to be the Annex for the giant John Wanamaker's Department Store located one block north between 9th and 10th Streets. The two buildings were connected by a skybridge over 9th Street which was dubbed the "Bridge of Progress". The main store was destroyed by fire in 1955, but the Annex building remains, and features retail space as well as offices. • Across the street, also between Lafayette Street and Broadway, 8th Street runs behind Clinton Hall at 13 Astor Place, also known as 21 Astor Place. This was once the site of the Astor Opera House outside of which the Astor Place Riot occurred. The Opera House opened in 1847 and closed in 1890 to be replaced by the current building, designed by George E. Harney, which became the site of the New York Mercantile Library. The library left the 11-story building in 1932, and it has since been a union headquarters (District 65 of the Distributive Workers of America), the Astor Place Hotel, and, as of 1995, condominiums. WestMarlton House at 3–5 West 8th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues in Greenwich Village was built in 1900 as the Marlton Hotel, a single room occupancy (SRO) facility. It was notable for its bohemian clientele, but since 1987 it has been used as a dormitory for The New School. • The three former 1838 row houses at 8–12 West 8th Street between Fifth Avenue and Macdougal Street in Greenwich Village were converted in 1931 by Auguste L. Noel of Noel & Miller into the first home of the Whitney Museum of American Art, which sculptor and heiress Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney had established in 1929, after the Metropolitan Museum of Art rejected the donation of her extensive collection of contemporary and avant-garde artworks. In 1914, Whitney had started the Whitney Studio at 8 West 8th Street, just behind her own studio on MacDougal Alley. The museum was located here until 1954, when it moved uptown. The building is currently, along with 14 West 8th Street (built in 1900), the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture. St. Mark's Place • #2 – Beginning in 1962 it housed The Five-Spot, one of the city's leading jazz clubs. Innovators such as Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker and Charles Mingus all appeared there. It later became "The Late Show", a vintage clothing store that was popularized by the New York Dolls and owned by their valet, Frenchie. Punk rocker GG Allin also lived in the building at some point. • #4 – The Hamilton-Holly House was built in 1831 by Thomas E. Davis and sold to Colonel Alexander Hamilton, the son of Alexander Hamilton, first Secretary of the Treasury, in 1833. From 1843 to 1863 it was owned by Isaac C. Van Wyck, the candle and oil merchant. The building was owned from 1863 to 1903 by butter merchant John W. Miller, who added a two-story addition and a meeting hall on the first floor. From 1901 until 1952 the building was owned by the C. Meisel company, a manufacturer of musical instruments. Between 1955 and 1967 it housed the Tempo Playhouse, New Bowery Theatre, and Bridge Theatre, noted for experimental theater, music, dance, and independent film. that operated in that location until 2016. The building was designated a New York City landmark in 2004. Beginning in 1913 the building housed the Saint Mark's Russian and Turkish Baths. In 1979 the building was renovated and renamed the New St. Marks Baths, a gay bath house. The New Saint Marks Baths was closed by the New York City Department of Health in 1985, due to concerns of HIV transmission. The building subsequently housed Mondo Kim's from 1995 until early 2009. Since 2014, the building has been home to one a Barcade location. • #8 – The New York Cooking School, founded by Juliet Corson in 1876, was the country's first cooking school. It figured prominently in the city's first known Mafia hit in Manhattan, the 1888 killing of Antonio Flaccomio, when it was La Triniria Italian Restaurant. The killer dined there with his victim, then stabbed him a few blocks away. before relocating to Brooklyn in 2021. • #12 – Designed by William C. Frohne and built in 1885, as the clubhouse for the ' (German-American Shooting Society). The facade says ' (Unity is strength). The building is a remnant of '' (Little Germany), the home of many German immigrants from the mid-19th Century until the General Slocum'' disaster of June 15, 1904. The building was designated as a landmark in 2001. In the late seventies it housed The New Cinema, featuring film and video by independent filmmakers, including Eric Mitchell, Anders Grafstrom, Scott and Beth B, Jim Jarmusch, Charles Ahearn and Amos Poe. • #13 – Home to Lenny Bruce in the mid-1960s. From 1995 to 1999, the building was home to Coney Island High, a live punk rock music venue co-founded by D Generation singer, Jesse Malin, and notable for being the location of No Doubt's first New York City performance in November 1995. • #17 – Site of the first Hebrew-Christian Church in America, in 1885. The building also served as the second location for the CBGB Fashions retail store from November 2006 through June 2008. • #20 – The Daniel LeRoy House was built as part of an elegant row of houses in 1832, of which this Greek Revival building is the only survivor. It is a New York City Landmark (1969), • #24 – This was the original location of the Limbo clothing boutique, which opened for business in 1965 and moved to #4 in 1967. • #75 – The Holiday Cocktail Lounge has had a range of visitors including W. H. Auden, Allen Ginsberg car parked on St Mark's Place, where founder Jimmy McMillan lived until 2015 • #80 – Home of Leon Trotsky. saw the premiere of ''You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown'' in 1967. Formerly the Jazz Gallery, site of the last performance by Lord Buckley. Now also the home of The Exhibition of the American Gangster, a museum of the American Gangster. • #85 – The 1871 birthplace of painter and caricaturist Lyonel Feininger. • #94 – Home of "UNDER St. Mark's Theater", an alternative performance venue and black box theater from the 1970s. • #96 & #98 – The Led Zeppelin album Physical Graffiti features a front and back cover design that depicts these two buildings, which feature carved faces. Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and Peter Tosh are seated in front of #96 in the music video for the Rolling Stones song "Waiting on a Friend". • #101 – From the mid-1970s to 1983, the poets Ted Berrigan and Alice Notley, who were married to each other, lived here. In Berrigan's "The Last Poem", he wrote: "101 St. Mark's Place, apt. 12A, NYC 10009/ New York. Friends appeared & disappeared, or wigged out/ Or stayed; inspiring strangers sadly died; everyone/ I ever knew aged tremendously, except me." • #102 – Home of independent filmmaker Scott Crary. • #103 – Home of singer/performer Klaus Nomi in the 1970s. • #104 – Location of the Notre Dame Convent School from 1989 to 2002 and is now the site of George Jackson Academy. • #105 – Early 1860s home of Uriah P. Levy, the first Jewish commodore of the U.S. Navy and who was also known for purchasing Monticello to work toward its restoration and preservation. • #122 – Former location of Sin-é, a neighborhood café where Jeff Buckley performed a regular spot on Monday nights. Other musicians such as David Gray and Katell Keineg also performed there. Sin-é closed in the mid-1990s. • #132 – Known at the time as St. Mark's Bar and Grill, this is the second location on the street to be used in the "Waiting on a Friend" video by the Rolling Stones. After several business changes at the address, a Rolling Stones-themed bar named Waiting on a Friend opened at the location in September 2018. However, by October 2019, the bar had permanently closed. ==Public transportation==
Public transportation
Bus: • M8 – Eastbound from Sixth Avenue to Avenue A • - Eastbound from Fifth to Fourth Avenues • - Eastbound from Fifth Avenue to Broadway (some weekday M1 service is extended to Fourth Avenue) • Subway stations: • Astor Place on the IRT Lexington Avenue Line serving the • Eighth Street–New York University on the BMT Broadway Line serving the • The of the subway stop on Sixth Avenue half a block south of Greenwich Avenue's southeastern end at the West Fourth Street–Washington Square station • The stop on Seventh Avenue one block north of Greenwich Avenue at the 14th Street station • The stop on Eighth Avenue and 14th Street half a block north of Greenwich Avenue's northwestern end at the 14th Street–Eighth Avenue station • The PATH train station on Ninth Street just north of Greenwich Avenue at Sixth Avenue == In popular culture ==
In popular culture
was the "corner store" for locals for nearly a century before closing due to financial hardship during the COVID-19 pandemic. '''s opening montage. The store closed in late 2011. St. Mark's Place appears in a variety of works in popular culture. Notable examples include: Music • In the video for The Rolling Stones's "Waiting on a Friend", Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and Peter Tosh are seen sitting on the stoop of 96–98 St. Mark's Place before Jagger and Richards walk to St. Mark's Bar and Grill at 132 St. Mark's Place to meet and perform with the rest of the band. In the song, Jagger mentions 8th Street. • On the back cover of the first New York Dolls LP, the band is pictured standing in front of Gem Spa, a newspaper, magazine and tobacco store, which was known for its fountain egg creams, located on the southwest corner of St. Mark's Place and Second Avenue, at 131 Second Avenue. • The narrator of Tom Paxton's "Talking Vietnam Potluck Blues", upon smelling marijuana on someone's breath during the Vietnam War remarks, "He smelled like midnight on St. Mark's Place." • The Holy Modal Rounders mentioned the street in their song "Bad Boy" in the lyric "he'll sell your heart on St. Mark's Place in glassine envelopes/he'll cut it with a pig's heart, and burn the chumps and dopes". • Earl Slick's 2003 solo album Zig-Zag features a song called "Saint Mark's Place". • In Lou Reed's song "Sally Can't Dance", Sally walks down St. Mark's Place where she lives in a rent controlled apartment. • In the King Missile song "Detachable Penis" vocalist John S. Hall states, "Then, as I walked down Second Avenue towards St. Mark's Place / Where all those people sell used books and other junk on the street / I saw my penis lying on a blanket next to a broken toaster oven." • The album We Are Only Riders by The Jeffrey Lee Pierce Sessions Project features a song called "Saint Mark's Place", a duet with Lydia Lunch. • The music video for Billy Joel's 1986 song "A Matter of Trust" was shot in the Electric Circus building and features extensive footage of the block. • The Replacements' 1987 song "Alex Chilton" contains the line, "Checkin' his stash by the trash at St. Mark's Place." • Moe's song "New York City" contains the line, "Hits his brakes and points out the freaks on St. Mark's Place." • Kirsty McGee's Frost album (2004) contains a song called "Saint Mark's Place". • The Tom Waits song "Potter's Field" from his Foreign Affairs album contains the line "You'll learn why liquor makes a stool pigeon rat on every face that ever left his shadow down on St. Mark's Place." • The Rank and File song "I Went Walking", on their 1982 album Sundown, presents a cynical look at the St. Mark's Place of that time, containing the lines: "Have you ever seen a sheep in a porkpie hat? Ever see a lemming dressed all in black? Well, you might have been there, but I'll tell you just in case: Just take a walk down St. Mark's Place." • The Sharp Things album, Foxes and Hounds, features a song called "95 Saint Mark's Place". • The They Might Be Giants song "On The Drag" includes the line "The allure of St. Mark's Place". • Joe Purdy's song "The City" has a verse, "When we left Brooklyn it was raining so hard. / Come up on 8th and the rain it cleared off. / We're just people watching on 3rd and St. Mark's." • The Marcy Playground song "Vampires of New York," on their debut album, Marcy Playground, includes the line "Come take in 8th street after dark". • The New York anti-folk artist Jeffrey Lewis references St. Mark's Place in the song "Scowling Crackhead Ian" as the location in which Lewis and the eponymous Ian grew up and remain. Television • In the double-episode season six opening episode of Mad Men, "The Doorway", Betty Francis goes to St. Mark's Place to find a girl who has run away after losing her parents, and in season 6, episode 4 ("To Have and To Hold", set in early 1968), Joan Harris and her hometown friend Kate visit the Electric Circus nightclub, located at 19–25 St. Marks Place, during a night out on the town. • In the opening credits to Saturday Night Live (c. 2010), a shot of Cherries adult entertainment store's neon signage is featured. • In the season 3 Sex and the City episode "Hot Child In The City", Sarah Jessica Parker's character Carrie goes to get her shoe fixed on St. Mark's Place and ends up dating a man who works at a comic book store on the block. Part of the episode is filmed at the actual St. Mark's Comics. • In the season 9 episode of Friends titled "The One with the Mugging", it is revealed that Ross was mugged outside St. Mark's Comics as a child. • The second-season finale of the Comedy Central series Broad City is set around the main characters on a night out along St. Mark's Place, and the episode is titled "St. Mark's". • AEW wrestler Hook is billed from St. Mark's Place. Film • In Andy Warhol's Trash, most of the street scenes of Joe Dallesandro were filmed on St Mark's Place. • In the films Ghostbusters II (1989) and Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021), Ray's Occult Books, a bookstore run by Ray Stantz, is said to be located at 201 St. Mark's Place. The exterior of one of the two storefronts at 33 St. Mark's Place, was used to portray the store in Ghostbusters II. ==See also==
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