MUSEYON BOOKS Smart City Guides for Travel, History, Art and Film Lovers
Every street in New York holds a story and in the historical Greenwich Village, every corner does too.
Few of the millions of tourists who come to Washington Square Park every day notice the small alleyway tucked away off of MacDougal St. but hidden amongst the buildings lies MacDougal Alley. Built in the 1830s to house the horses of the gentry living along Washington Square Park, a century later Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (who later went on to found the Whitney Museum) turned these stables into artist studios. Critics named this enclave, “the Ashcan School” and it became the home of artists such as Robert Henri, George Bellows, William Glackens, George Luks, Everett Shinn, and John Sloan. In 1949, troubled artist Jackson Pollack moved into #9.
Much hasn’t changed on MacDougal Alley from the photo above and visitors can still peek down the private residential lane that instead of horses now houses cars.
