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New York
Architecture Images- Gone STUDIOS: 51 WEST 10TH STREET |
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architect |
Richard Morris Hunt |
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location |
51 WEST 10TH STREET Between Fifth and Sixth Avenues |
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date |
1857 |
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style |
Victorian Warehouse |
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construction |
brick |
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type |
artists' studios House |
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images |
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notes |
In 1857, James
Boorman Johnston commissioned the young Richard Morris Hunt, America's first
French-trained architect, to design studios for artists to create, exhibit,
and sell their work. The highly successful Tenth Street Studios, in which
interconnected rooms radiated off a central domed gallery, became the center
of New York's art world for the remainder of the nineteenth century. From
his own studio, Hunt established the country's first architectural school,
and an impressive array of academicians, including most of the Hudson River
School, worked there.
In 1879, J. B. Johnston deeded the building to his son John Taylor Johnston, who subsequently became the first president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The same year, French-trained Impressionist painter William Merritt Chase took over the domed gallery, breathing new life into the establishment. With Chase's 1895 departure, the 10th Street Studios lost its place of prominence in New York art circles. In 1920, members purchased the building to fend off a commercial takeover. That arrangement lasted until 1956, when the building was razed to make way for the Peter Warren Apartments, an 11-story building named after an eighteenth-century Village landowner. Special thanks to the Museum of New York, www.mcny.org |
