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Whitney Museum of American Art (original building)

1838 establishments in New York (state)Greenwich VillageHouses completed in 1838National Historic Landmarks in ManhattanNeoclassical architecture in New York (state)
School buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in ManhattanUse mdy dates from June 2019Whitney Museum of American Art
Whitney Museum 8 12 West 8th Street
Whitney Museum 8 12 West 8th Street

The Whitney Museum of American Art original building is a collection of three 1838 rowhouses located at 8–12 West 8th Street between Fifth Avenue and MacDougal Street in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. In 1907, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney established the Whitney Studio Gallery at 8 West 8th Street adjacent to her own MacDougal Alley studio. This, and the later Whitney Studio Club at 147 West 4th Street, were intended to provide young artists with places to meet and exhibit their works. In 1918, American artist and friend Robert Winthrop Chanler was commissioned to redesign the interior of the 8th Street property, adding an allegorical bas-relief ceiling, a 20-foot-high plaster and bronze fireplace, elaborate stained glass windows, and decorative screens.In 1929, when the Metropolitan Museum of Art rejected Whitney's offer of the gift of nearly 500 new artworks that she had collected, Whitney established the Whitney Museum of American Art. In 1931, she had architect Auguste L. Noel of the firm of Noel & Miller convert the three row houses at 8–12 West 8th Street into a gallery and residence for herself, and the museum's first home.In the 1940s, plans to incorporate the collections of the Whitney into the Metropolitan Museum of Art as part of the 75th-anniversary celebration of the Met were unrealized. In 1954, the museum moved uptown to new quarters on 54th Street between 5th and 6th Avenues – eventually settling in 1966 at 945 Madison Avenue at East 75th Street – and the building, with the addition of #14 West 8th Street, an Italianate house built in 1853–54, became the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture. The building is located within the Greenwich Village Historic District, established in 1969 by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, and was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1992. Listed on the World Monuments Fund's 2012 Watch list, it has been the focus of an extensive restoration project on the part of the University of Pennsylvania's Architectural Conservation Laboratory, in collaboration with the fund.

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Whitney Museum of American Art (original building)
West 8th Street, New York Manhattan

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N 40.73295 ° E -73.998306 °
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West 8th Street 40
10011 New York, Manhattan
New York, United States
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Whitney Museum 8 12 West 8th Street
Whitney Museum 8 12 West 8th Street
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Hangman's Elm
Hangman's Elm

Hangman's Elm, or simply "The Hanging Tree", is an English Elm located at the northwest corner in Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, New York City. It stood at 135 feet (41.15 m) tall when last measured nearly 35 years ago, and has a diameter of 67 inches (1.70 m).In 1989, the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation determined that this English Elm was 310 years old, although that was subsequently revised to "more than 300 years old".). As a result, it is considered to be Manhattan's oldest, outliving Peter Stuyvesant’s pear tree at the northeast corner of 13th Street and Third Avenue, and the great Tulip poplar at Shorakapkok in Manhattan's Inwood neighborhood.The earliest references to the elm as a "hanging tree" date from the late 19th century, long after the supposed hangings were said to have taken place and many come from the accounts of the Marquis de Lafayette. Recent extensive research into the park's history by more than one historian has shown that the tree was on a private farm until the land was bought by the city and added to Washington Square in 1827. No public records exist of hangings from this tree. The only recorded execution in this area was of Rose Butler, in 1820, for arson. She was hanged from a gallows in the city's potter's field, on the eastern side of Minetta Creek, about 500 feet (150 meters) from the elm; at that time, Minetta Creek ran in a shallow ravine between the potter's field and the farm where the elm stood.

New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture
New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture

The New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture at 8 West 8th Street, in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, New York City, New York State is an art school formed in 1963 by a group of students and their teacher, Mercedes Matter, all of whom had become disenchanted with the fragmented nature of art instruction inside traditional art programs and universities. Today it occupies the building that previously housed the Whitney Museum of American Art. From its start, the Studio School was founded on the principle that drawing from life should form of the basis of artistic development. Furthermore, rather than attending a series of disjointed classes, students were encouraged to develop their artistic practice along lines similar to the "atelier" approach favored by European art schools. Faculty has included painters Charles Cajori, Louis Finkelstein, Philip Guston, Rosemarie Beck, Alex Katz, Earl Kerkam, George McNeil, and Esteban Vicente; sculptors Peter Agostini, Sidney Geist, Ophrah Shemesh, Reuben Nakian, and George Spaventa. Nicolas Carone and Mercedes Matter focused on drawing instruction and Meyer Schapiro and Leo Steinberg taught art history. Former deans of the school have included the renowned composer Morton Feldman and artist/critic/curator Robert Storr. The present dean, since 1988, is the British-born painter Graham Nickson who instituted the two-week intensive Drawing Marathon, staged twice a year ahead of each semester and which is now fixture of the academic program.When founded, the school did not—by intention—offer formal degrees. However, today, students are able to obtain a Master of Fine Arts. The MFA program's first graduating class was in 2005.The School presents an Evening Lecture Series in the Fall and Spring semesters, generally twice a week, featuring an international roster of speakers including artists talking on their own work and critics and scholars covering a range of historic subjects. The School's exhibition program, in its committed gallery space, was described by critic Mario Naves in the New York Observer as "one of the city's most significant venues for contemporary art."In 2005, the school was among 406 New York City arts and social service institutions to receive part of a $20 million grant from the Carnegie Corporation, which was made possible through a donation by New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg.