3. Artist Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Apartment is For Sale
57 Great Jones Street was built between 1860 and 1868 as a horse stable and later served as a furniture store and auction house, a mob headquarters, and a Japanese restaurant. What it’s most famous for however is being the home of artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. In 1970, Andy Warhol purchased this building and another building around the corner at 342 Bowery. Warhol leased 57 Great Jones Street to his artistic collaborator Jean-Michel Basquiat. Basquiat used the space as both a home and a studio. Basquiat’s work famously challenged conventional standards of high and low art, race, and class, and incorporated his distinctive graffiti art with Warhol’s pop culture style.
Many of Basquiat’s famous Neo-expressionist works were created in this building, which is also where he died at the age of 27 of a heroin overdose on August 12, 1988. For many years, the building’s facade was covered with graffiti paying tribute to the artist and messages from Basquiat’s contemporaries, including his tag “SAMO.” In 2016, Village Preservation installed a plaque commemorating the building as Basquiat’s former residence. As of the time of publication, the building is for sale and seeking a new commercial tenant.