Washington Square North, also called “The Row,” presents a unified line of Late Classical townhouses along the northern side of Washington Square Park.
In the 1840s, New York City’s elite established Washington Square, far from the increasingly commercial environment of Lower Manhattan, as the address of choice. Anchored by the mansion of William C. Rhinelander at the center of Washington Square North, “the Row” of Greek Revival townhouses on either side of Fifth Avenue presented the unified and dignified appearance of privilege. When the center of New York society moved north after the American Civil War, the houses on the square came to represent the gentility of a bygone age. Henry James, whose grandmother lived at 18 Washington Square North, brilliantly depicted this nostalgic view in his 1881 novel “Washington Square.” Today, most of the buildings belong to New York University’s campus facilities.
“The ideal of quiet and of genteel retirement, in 1935, was found in Washington Square, where the doctor built himself a handsome, modern, wide-fronted house, with a big balcony before the drawing-room windows, and a flight of white marble steps ascending to a portal which was also faced with white marble. This structure, and many of its neighbours, which it exactly resembled, were supposed, forty years ago, to embody the last results of architectural science, and they remain to this day very solid and honourable dwellings.” - “Washington Square,” Henry James
To purchase “Washington Square,” please visit bn.com.
Info courtesy Wikipedia. Image courtesy Dwell.
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