40°44′11.6″N74°0′20.28″W / 40.736556°N 74.0056333°W /40.736556; -74.0056333
Bank Street is a primarily residential street in theWest Village part ofGreenwich Village in theborough ofManhattan in New York City. It runs for a total length of about 725 metres (2,379 ft) fromWest Street, crossingWashington Street andGreenwich Street, toHudson Street andBleecker Street where it is interrupted by the Bleecker Playground, north of which isAbingdon Square; it then continues toGreenwich Avenue, crossing West4th Street andWaverly Place.Vehicular traffic runs west-east along thisone-way street. As with several other east-west streets in the Far West Village, the three blocks west of Hudson Street are paved withsetts.
Bank Street is named for theBank of New York, which bought eight lots on the street in 1798 and established a branch there. A clerk in the bank's main office onWall Street had contractedyellow fever, leading the bank to buy land in Greenwich Village in order to have a branch office away from Wall Street where it could conduct business in the event of future emergencies.[1][2][3]
TheBank Street College of Education, which was founded in 1916 as the Bureau of Educational Experiments, was located on Bank Street from 1930 to 1970. It retains the name but is no longer located there.[4]
Grace Jones once lived at no. 166.[2]
The formerBell Laboratories headquarters, now aNational Historic Landmark, occupied the Westbeth complex at no. 155 on the north side of Bank Street. That complex now houses theWestbeth Artists Community where a large number of notable artists have been in residence. It also provides several performance spaces.
TheHB Studio, an acting studio founded in 1945 byHerbert Berghof and his wifeUta Hagen, is located at no. 120. Many notable actors have taught and studied there. Opposite,Pearl Bailey lived in no. 109 in 1968.[citation needed]
On October 16, 1971, the musiciansJohn Lennon andYoko Ono moved into apartment No. 105. Originally owned byJoe Butler, the former drummer of the bandthe Lovin' Spoonful, the apartment featured two large rooms, one of which the couple bought and the other they rented.[5] The couple's neighbors includedJohn Cage,Bob Dylan,Jerry Rubin[5] andMerce Cunningham,[6] whose phone they would use to avoid FBI wiretapping.[7] In April 1973, Lennon and Ono moved toThe Dakota building, located on the upper West Side of New York.[5]
The 17-year-old Betty Bacall, soon to be known asLauren Bacall, moved into no. 75.[2]
Marion Tanner, inspiration for the book, play, and musicalAuntie Mame lived at 72.[2]
On February 2, 1979,Sid Vicious died of a drug overdose in no. 63.[2]
The journalistCharles Kuralt lived downstairs at no. 34 which was built in 1844 in theGothic Revival style. The upstairs apartment of that house was described inMartin Amis' 1984 novelMoney andChristopher Hitchens was a house guest there for six months when he arrived in New York from England.Mark Knopfler bought the neighbouring no. 36 in the late 1980s. The restaurant The Waverly Inn at no. 16 was bought in 2006 byGraydon Carter who moved in at no. 22.[8]
The writerJohn Dos Passos lived at no. 11 in 1924–25 when he worked on his novelManhattan Transfer. His publisher,James Laughlin, lived next door at no. 9.[2] WriterWilla Cather lived at no. 5 from 1913 until 1927 when that building was demolished during the construction of extensions to theIRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line; it became then nos. 1–7 wherePatricia Highsmith lived with her family in 1938–39.[2]
