77 St. Mark’s Place | Block : 450 | Lot #36

Description & Building Alterations

This three-bay wide, four-story with basement tenement was originally built in 1844-45 as a three-and-a-half-story house, and was raised to four stories in 1875-76. The present facade features a bracketed cornice with a curved pediment and a paneled frieze. The window lintels and sills have been stripped, and the entrance moved to ground level.

In 1917, Leon Trotsky ostensibly lived across the street at No. 80. At the time, he contributed to Nikolai Bukharin and Alexandra Kollontai’s pro-Communist newspaper Novy Mir (The New World), which was published out of this building. Anglo-American and openly gay poet W. H. Auden resided at the first floor of 77 St. Mark’s Place from 1953 to 1972, especially during winter times when the poet returned from Oxford University, where he worked as a professor. The poet recalled, “I can shop for Polish and Jewish food in the markets, and cabs are plentiful.” A previous tenant in Auden’s apartment was an abortionist. The painter Larry Rivers, a collaborator of Frank O’Hara’s, lived at the second floor apartment.