8. Edward Hopper’s Studio is Preserved in an NYU Building

Edward Hopper had a live-work studio at #3 Washington Square with his artist wife Jo from 1913 until his death in 1967. He even painted the rooftop of the row house which was known as the “studio building,” and found much inspiration from the view for his urban paintings. It would later also be the addresses for artists such as Clara Driscoll, William Glackens, Rockwell Kent, Ernest Lawson, Guy Pène de Bois, Walter Pach and Mary Tillinghast.

The building was threatened with demolition by New York University in 1947, highlighting the long, on-going battle between institutional expansion and preservation in Greenwich Village, but the building is now part of NYU Silver School of Social Work. On a visit you can find hopper’s Easel, a press for etchings, a stand he used for his models, an original refrigerator, gas burner, oven and stove, along with reproductions of his art and portraits of him and his wife by Arnold Newman and Berenice Abbott.