Washington Square Village

In the early 19th century, the tract on which Washington Square Village now stands was in the Eighth ward in the northernmost part of the New York City.

John Lloyd Stephens, an amateur archaeologist who rediscovered Mayan ruins in 1839, lived in 13 LeRoy Place, a house built on the area occupied now by the Building 4 of the WSV complex.

In 1892, Nikola Tesla moved his laboratory to the 4th floor of a factory building at 33-35 South Fifth Avenue (now LaGuardia Place), on the western boundary of Washington Square Village.

[1] For the first half of the 20th century the WSV area remained a neighborhood of mostly working class flats, lofts and factories.

The only parts of the project that did happen are the superblocks where Washington Square Village and University Plaza now stand, including the adjacent widened parts of West Third and Bleecker Streets and the parkland strips along Mercer Street and LaGuardia Place between Houston and West Third.

[5] In the 1950s, after the assembly of the superblock, Washington Square Village was constructed as a for-profit, middle class housing complex.

The languishing rental market led to the acquisition of Washington Square Village by New York University for $25 million.

NYU also purchased the as yet unimproved superblock to the south and built University Plaza on it, including Silver Towers, Coles Sports and Recreation Center, 505 LaGuardia Place, and a commercial building which as of 2014[update] was occupied by Morton Williams Supermarkets.

In 1962, Lescaze filed suit, claiming $550,000 in damages for the unfair use of the materials that he developed for WSV, and for which he was never officially hired and paid.

The garden between the two buildings has been designed by Hideo Sasaki and combined biomorphic shapes with a strong grid of trees and a spectacular fountain with four high jets to stand up to the high-rises.

According to a 1999 New York Times Home & Garden article, the subtleties of the design have been blurred by poor maintenance and a misguided choice of trees and shrubs.

[10] Located in a highly desirable neighborhood, Washington Square Village is one of the building complexes featured in the popular TV show Friends.