8 St. Mark’s Place | Block : 463 | Lot #13

Building Date : 1889
Original Use : Residential

Original Owner : John M. Hutching
Original Architect : J. Boekell & Son

Description & Building Alterations

This five-story red brick Old Law tenement building was constructed in 1889 with a Queen Anne cornice. It replaced one of the upscale row houses built on St. Marks Place by Thomas E. Davis in 1831.

The row house was once the offices of Madame Van Buskirk, an infamous abortionist in the 1860s and 1870s. It was during this time period that the procedure came under fire as several notable cases involving patients’ deaths were publicized.

In the mid to late 1870s, the New York Cooking School operated in the row house. Run by Juliete Corson, it taught young women from prominent families how to cook in the mornings and some of those women would stay in the afternoon to teach cooking to women who were of much more modest means.

Block : 463 / Lot : 13 / Building Date : 1889 / Original Owner : John M. Hutching / Original Use : Residential / Original Architect : J. Boekell & Son

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What is the Building Blocks Project

What does a building mean to someone who lives there? A person who lives on the block? In the neighborhood? In the city? This site presents a wealth of historic information gained from GVSHP’s architectural research survey about the buildings located in the East Village.

The site explores the area generally considered today as the East Village: from a northern border of 14th Street to a southern border of Houston Street, Avenue D in the east to 4th Avenue/the Bowery to the west. You can explore the information about the blocks and buildings featured here in two ways.

Pick a block. Maybe it’s yours, or perhaps it is just your favorite place to shop, grab a bite, or just people watch. Then explore the buildings that make up that block. Or take one of the many guided tours on the site, curated by a collection of organizations and experts from the neighborhood. See how they experience the neighborhood. Then tell us what the neighborhood means to you. The site’s comments section allows you to open a dialogue with others who feel just as passionately as you do about the East Village.