Tenth Street Studio Building at 51 West 10th Street between Fifth and Sixth AvenuesinNew York City, photographed in 1870Tenth Street Studio Building photographed in 1938
The Tenth Street Studio Building, constructed in New York City in 1857, was the first modern facility designed solely to serve the needs of artists. It became the center of the New York art world for the remainder of the 19th century.[1]
Situated at 51 West 10th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues in Manhattan, the building was commissioned by James Boorman Johnston[notes 1] and designed by Richard Morris Hunt. Its innovative design soon represented a national architectural prototype,[citation needed] and featured a domed central gallery, from which interconnected rooms radiated. Hunt's studio within the building housed the first architectural school in the United States.[citation needed]
In 1895, Chase departed the studio, and the building subsequently lost its prominence as an art center.
Kahlil Gibran lived on the third story from 1911 until his death in 1931.
In 1920, the building was purchased by a group of artists in order to forestall commercial takeover. From that time forward, a number of New York City artists rented studio space in the building.
In 1942, the building's basement became the meeting place for the Bombshell Artists Group, an alliance of 60 modernist painters and sculptors, a number of whom had studios in the building. Henry Becket, writing in the New York Post newspaper on March 2, 1942, noted that "The artists meet in a cellar that they call The Bomb Shelter at 51 West 10th Street." He also stated that the Bombshell Group's "exhibition chairman" was Joseph Manfredi and the Group's first show was then on display at the Riverside Museum.[4]
In 1956, the Tenth Street Studio Building was razed to make way for an apartment building.[5] A penthouse apartment in the subsequently constructed apartment building, 45 West 10th Street, was purchased by the actress Julia Roberts in 2010.[6]
^James Boorman Johnston (1822-1887) was a son of the prominent Scottish-born New York merchant John Johnston, in partnership with James Boorman (1783-1866) as Boorman & Johnston, developers of Washington Square North, and a founder of New York University; an 1831 Johnston Children group portrait is in the inventory of the Museum of the City of New york.
^Becket, Henry (March 2, 1942). "Rembrandt Doesn't Eat, Bombshellers Do - Hence an Exhibit". New York Post.
^Jackson, K. T.; Keller, L.; Flood, N., eds. (2010). "Tenth Street Studio Building". The encyclopedia of New York City (2nd ed.). New Haven: Yale University Press. p. 1291. ISBN978-0300182576.
