A Walking Tour of Radical New York: The Cutting of Lafayette Street

As was this one.

Lafayette Street between Bond and Great Jones streets

From the 1840s, Lafayette Place was a street of fine residences. The La Grange Terrace (Colonnade Row) built by A.J. Davis in 1836 was one of the distinguished buildings on the street. The Astors and the Schermerhorns also had mansions there. Originally Lafayette Place ran only as far south as Great Jones Street. Between Broadway and the Bowery was no street carrying traffic to the north and south.

By the 1870s Lafayette Place had changed its character from residential to commercial. The romanesque DeVinne Press building was one of the new commercial structures. It was built in 1885.

The photograph below [omitted] shows the 1900 construction work that opened Lafayette Place (now Lafayette Street) as a north-south artery. In the far distance on the left in the photograph can be seen the La Grange Terrace.

Source: Edmund T. Delaney, New York's Greenwich Village (Barre Publishers, 1968, pp. 76-78, 91).