Building: 29 Perry Street

Located in the heart of the West Village, 29 Perry Street is an intimate, 5-story, 10-unit walk-up co-op established in 1985. Originally built in 1871 as early tenement housing, the building began a new life in the 1920s when it was purchased by the Church of St. John the Evangelist, around the corner on Waverly Place. At the turn century, the church was in danger of being swamped by teeming tenements, rundown boarding houses, and indifferent neighbors. In an effort to keep stable the area adjoining the church property, the vestry began acquiring one by one the surrounding buildings on Perry Street and West 11th Street to form what became known as St. John’s Colony. By the 1920s, Greenwich Village had become a haven for artists and the Church envisioned an artists’ colony with a communal garden that joined the rear of the church. As the adjacent 19th century houses and buildings were procured, gradually St John’s Colony took shape. Drab tenements and rooming houses were renovated into unusual apartments of distinction and charm. Rear yard fences were removed, rubbish cleared away, and the little backyards were thrown into one communal garden. It was around this time that 29 Perry’s entrance, lobby and apartments were remodeled into their current form with two equal-sized apartments per floor.

Description provided by Rudi Hanja