Building: 20 Jane Street

20 Jane St. is situated on a beautiful, quiet, tree-lined street in the West
Village. It is a 5-story walkup building with 2 front and 2 rear apartments
on each floor. The 1880 census listed 57 residents from 9 foreign
countries, the oldest merely 44 years, including 24 children, the youngest 3
months. All the children were native-born but only four of the adults
were—all wives. A report in 1916 noted 2 ground-floor stores: “grocery at
east, metal & old iron at west.” The basement housed coal, wood, and ice
dealer. Up to 1953, the building was listed as a class “A” old-law tenement.
That year the rooms were reconfigured and the small interior bedrooms (with
windows opening to the hallway) were converted to vented bathrooms. A
tenement no longer, this created the conventional studio-sized living spaces
that remain today. The co-op became effective in 1984.

The description provided by Reynold Weidenaar