A Jewel in the Village

The Architecture and Legacy of Calvert Vaux

By Corinne Neary

Originally a courthouse, the Jefferson Market Library has served the Greenwich Village community since 1967. The building, a New York City landmark, was designed by architects Frederick Clarke Withers and Calvert Vaux, who also worked with Frederick Law Olmsted in the design of Central Park. Our library, which many visitors assume was once a church due to its Victorian Gothic style, was constructed along with a jail building and market complex in 1877. The buildings once covered the triangular plot of land which we now share with the Jefferson Market Garden.

A leading authority on the Jefferson Market Courthouse design and construction is Francis R. Kowsky, who wrote the book The Architecture of Frederick Clarke Withers and the Progress of the Gothic Revival in America After 1850. We have two copies of this book in our Greenwich Village Collection. It is the definitive text on the background, design, and construction of the site, as well as the city politics involved, and the critical response to the project. The New York Times called the courthouse “a jewel in a swine’s snout” because of its location in what was then an impoverished neighborhood. The Municipal Society denounced the project, stating that it would give “to the criminal a suggestion of the gaudy vulgarity connected with gilded dens of infamy” and suggested that Vaux and Withers were “incompetent and insane.” Opinion did soon change, and the building was voted one of the ten most beautiful buildings in America by a poll of architects in the 1880s.

Kowsky, author of The Architecture of Frederick Clarke Withers, which was originally published in 1980, has just published a new book, Calvert Vaux: Landscape Architect, and we are thrilled to host him here on Sunday, September 27 at 2 p.m. in our first floor Willa Cather room. Kowsky, who also wrote Country, Park and City: The Architecture and Life of Calvert Vaux, will discuss Vaux’s work in great detail, in partnership with the Calvert Vaux Preservation Alliance (CVPA). This non-profit organization, founded by preservationists, architects, and community advocates, is based in Staatsburg, New York. Staatsburg is the location of another one of Vaux’s designs: The Point, also known as The Hoyt House.

Built in 1855, The Point was a prime example of Calvert Vaux’s holistic vision combining both architecture and landscape design. The Hoyt family left in 1963 when the New York State Parks Commission acquired the entire site and incorporated it into the surrounding Mills Norrie State Park. Parks Commissioner Robert Moses’ initial plan was to raze the house and replace it with an Olympic-sized swimming pool and parking lot for 90 buses. Those plans were not realized, however, and The Point has not been occupied or used since that year, with nature and the elements taking their toll. A main focus of CVPA now is the stabilization and restoration of this house, as well as The Hoyt Carriageway Bridge, which was the historic main entrance to the estate, as originally envisioned by Vaux. This work is currently underway.

In conjunction with Kowsky’s talk, we have put together an exhibit for the month of September in our Little Underground Gallery. By visiting the exhibit in the library basement, you can learn more about the works of Calvert Vaux and Frederick Clark Withers, including historic photographs and blueprints. We will also have blueprints from our archive, which show designs for the building’s repurposing into a library in the 1960s by architect Giorgio Cavaglieri. 

To learn more about the Calvert Vaux Preservation Alliance, visit calvertvaux.org. As always, find our current event listings at nypl.org/locations/jefferson-market