Institutional Inspiration

Margaret Anderson, founder and editor of the avant-garde literary journal The Little Review (1914-1929), and her partner and assistant Jane Heap, shared a top-floor apartment here from 1918 to 1920, when they serialized in their magazine James Joyce’s novel Ulysses, then considered obscene.  Both were prosecuted and fined, and offending issues of the magazine were destroyed by the U.S. Post Office.

For over 175 years, St. Joseph's has served the Catholic communities of Greenwich Village the students of its nearby universities.

Originally a courthouse, the Jefferson Market Library has served the Greenwich Village community for over forty years. The building, a New York City landmark, was designed by architects Frederick Clark Withers and Calvert Vaux (who also assisted in the design of Central Park) in a Victorian Gothic style. It was erected (along with an adjacent prison and market) during the years 1875-1877 and cost the city almost $360,000. What the city got for its money, in addition to an architectural gem (it was voted one of the ten most beautiful buildings in America by a poll of architects in the 1880s) was a civil court (on the second floor, where the Adult Reading Room is now) and a police court (now the first-floor Children's Room). The beautiful brick-arched basement (now the Reference Room) was used as a holding area for prisoners on their way to jail or trial. 

Founded in 1953 by Robert Joffrey and Gerald Arpino the Joffrey Ballet School is considered one of the premier ballet schools in the country. The school has produced graduates who have gone on to work for major classical ballet, modern, and contemporary dance companies. The Joffrey has also been groundbreaking; it was the first ballet school to sanction the use of rock music in its teaching. Today dance students flock to New York hoping to train at this renowned institute.
 

In 1843, a 24-year-old engineer fresh out of Columbia College was awarded   the commission to design this Episcopal Church—which turned out to be a magnificent example of Gothic Revival architecture.  His name was James Renwick, Jr., and his later accomplishments include the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. and St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue in New York City.

St.-Mark’s-in-the-Bowery Episcopal Church is one of the oldest sites of continuous worship in the City, with original construction in 1799.

The Public Theater produces Shakespeare, the classics, musicals, contemporary and experimental pieces and acts as an advocate for the theater as an essential cultural force, and leading and framing dialogue on some of the most important issues of our day.