Plans have been filed to replace 86 University Place (between 11th and 12th Streets) with a 10-story, 193-ft.-tall tower at the site. The structure, built as a single-family house ca. 1840 with alterations in the 1880s and 1919, captures some of the great currents of New York and Greenwich Village history. One of its earliest owners and occupants was one of the 19th century’s great philanthropists, involved in founding, expanding, or managing the New York Public Library, the American Museum of Natural History, the New York Historical Society, the nation’s first chronic disease hospital, and the city’s first library for women. Later it was the residence and business place of one of the city’s most prominent and successful German immigrant families, when NYC had the largest German-speaking population of any city outside Berlin or Vienna. And in the 20th century it was home to The Royalist operated by “Mayor of Greenwich Village” Barney Gallant, the first New Yorker prosecuted for violating Prohibition, and The Bagatelle, one of the most prominent pre-Stonewall lesbian bars, frequented by writers Audrey Lorde and Ann Bannon. Read more history as part of our submission to the Landmarks Preservation Commission HERE. 

Village Preservation has been seeking landmark designation for this and surrounding buildings as part of our proposed South of Union Square Historic District, an unprotected area rich in architectural and cultural history that has been determined eligible for the State and National Registers of Historic Places and that a broad array of elected officials, civil rights organizations, scholars, writers, and leading preservationists have supported preserving. However, the City has thus far resisted landmark designation, and slowed new landmark designations citywide to less than a trickle. 

In light of this most recent and urgent danger to 86 University Place, we are calling on the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) to once again consider protecting this building and the surrounding district.

TO HELP: