The portion from Seventh to Eighth Avenues is westbound (northbound geographically) and is approximately 35 feet (11 m) wide, a legacy of the original Greenwich Village street grid.

Judson Memorial Church, located at the corner of Thompson Street and Washington Square South, was designed by architect Stanford White and stained glass master John La Farge.

The infamous Golden Swan bar (known as the "Hell Hole"), at the corner of Sixth Avenue, was a famous haunt of Eugene O'Neill and the setting and inspiration for his play The Iceman Cometh.

Reed later worked in a room in the Studio Club building to complete the series of articles that became his account of the Bolshevik Revolution, Ten Days That Shook the World, later the source for the film Reds.

[8] It started the careers of such artists as Ashcan School painter John Sloan, Edward Hopper, whose first one-man exhibit was held there in 1920, and social realists Reginald Marsh and Isabel Bishop.