Village Trivia. A Most Unusual Parapet

This “remuddling” took place well before the 1969 designation of the Greenwich Village Historic District, and it certainly would not pass muster today. As the designation report describes it, these three buildings, altered to accommodate a restaurant at street level, share a new common cornice, with a striking undulating profile. The three homes were all built in 1861 for George P. Rogers. One displays the segmental-arched window lintels with heavy cornices of this period. The other two houses have different floor levels and square-headed sash with single vertical muntins. As they are all four stories high, it is interesting to note that one is much lower than the others. We also note the bricked-in windows, which so greatly alter the character of the façade. But it is the unique parapet that is most striking; is it a French curve, or Rococo style? Where is it?

Photo by Brian J. Pape, AIA.

ANSWER TO VILLAGE TRIVIA

On one of Greenwich Village’s oldest plotted streets, the diagonal stretch from Gansevoort Market to Washington Square Park, sits this mixed-use set of buildings at 54-58 Greenwich Avenue. The ground floor is now the
home of Fiddlesticks, an Irish Pub.