Bleecker Street is an east–west street in Lower Manhattan, New York City. It is most famous today as a Greenwich Village nightclub district. The street connects a neighborhood popular today for music venues and comedy as well as an important center of LGBT history and culture and bohemian tradition. The street is named after the family name of Anthony Lispenard Bleecker, a banker, the father of Anthony Bleecker, a 19th-century writer, through whose family farm the street once ran. Bleecker Street connects Abingdon Square (the intersection of Eighth Avenue and Hudson Street) in the West Village, to the Bowery in the East Village and NoHo.

History

Bleecker Street was named by and after the Bleecker family because the street ran through the family's farm. In 1808, Anthony Lispenard Bleecker and his wife deeded to the city a major portion of the land on which Bleecker Street sits. Originally Bleecker Street extended from Bowery to Broadway, along the north side of the Bleecker farm, later as far west as Sixth Avenue. In 1829 it was joined with Herring Street, extending Bleecker Street north-northwest to Abingdon Square.

LeRoy Place

LeRoy Place is the former name of a block of Bleecker Street between Mercer and Greene Streets. This was where the first palatial "winged residences" were built. The effect was accomplished by making the central houses taller and closer to the street, while the other houses on the side were set back. The central buildings also had bigger, raised entrances and lantern-like roof projections. The houses were built by Isaac A. Pearson, on both sides of Bleecker Street. To set his project apart from the rest of the area, Pearson convinced the city to rename this block of the street after the prominent international trader Jacob LeRoy.

Transportation

Bleecker Street is served by the at Bleecker Street/Broadway–Lafayette Street station. The serve the Christopher Street–Sheridan Square station one block north of Bleecker Street. No bus route runs on Bleecker Street. The following routes intersect with it: Traffic on the street is one-way, going southeast. In early December 2007, a bicycle lane was marked on the street.

Notable places

Landmarks

In addition, there are several Federal architecture-style row houses at 7 to 13 and 21 to 25 Bleecker Street on easternmost block of Bleecker Street, in NoHo between Lafayette Street and the Bowery. 21 and 29 Bleecker Street were also once the home of the National Florence Crittenton Mission, providing a home for "fallen women". 21 Bleecker Street's entrance now bears the lettering "Florence Night Mission", described by The New York Times in 1883 as "a row of houses of the lowest character". The National Florence Crittenton Mission was an organization established in 1883 by Charles N. Crittenton. It attempted to reform prostitutes and unwed pregnant women through the creation of establishments where they were to live and learn skills. The building at 58 Bleecker Street (formerly 64 Bleecker Street) was built in 1823 for James Roosevelt, great-grandfather of president Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It was there that Elizabeth Blackwell, America's first female physician, established a clinic with her sister Emily. Across the street from the former home of the National Florence Crittenton Mission is both the headquarters of Planned Parenthood, and the Catholic Sheen Center, immediately adjacent to it. Bleecker Street now features the Margaret Sanger Square, at the intersection with Mott Street. Bleecker Street was the original home of Sanger's Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau, operated from another building from 1930 to 1973. The street features in the 2020 drama film Never Rarely Sometimes Always, written and directed by Eliza Hittman.

Night spots

Restaurants

Former

Notable residents

In popular culture

Literature

Film and television

Music

Other