Hudson Square

Hudson Square is a relatively new name for the Manhattan neighborhood generally bounded by West Houston Street on the north, Canal Street on the south, 6th Avenue on the East and Greenwich Street on the West. The neighborhood is broadly surrounded by Greenwich Village, TriBeCa, and SoHo, and as a result is known by some as West SoHo. Noticing the different architectural feel of the two neighborhoods as well as the disparate types of ground level retail, many began to identify it as its own neighborhood - Hudson Square - as early as 1999.

Building on the neighborhood’s past as New York City’s major printing district, Hudson Square has emerged as a creative neighborhood and is home to over 30,000 people working in advertising, design, media, communications, and the arts. Large, open spaces in converted printing buildings lend themselves to open floor plans and continue to draw businesses for whom space is especially important- theaters, design firms, media companies and others- while maintaining the presence of printing companies in their oldest New York neighborhood.

Fun Facts about Hudson Square
Hudson Square was home to the first African American newspaper in the United States, called Freedom's Journal; it was edited by John Russwurm and Samuel Cornish from March 16, 1827 to March 28, 1829. The newspaper provided international, national, and regional information on current events and contained editorials declaiming against slavery, lynching, and other injustices.

George Washington When George Washington lead the defense of the city against the British in 1776, his headquarters were located at the Mortier House at what are now Charlton and Varick Streets. He also penned the term 'New Yorker' at that time - the earliest known use of the term in a published work is found in a letter that he wrote from Lower Manhattan.

The Ear Inn One of the oldest bars in NYC,(est. 1817) This pub was built by George Washington’s aide and was a speakeasy during prohibition. After the liberation from Prohibition, the bar had no name. It was known as “The Green Door" to sailors and longshoremen. Then in 1977, new resident-owners christened the place the Ear Inn. The new name was chosen to avoid the Landmark Commission’s lengthy review of any new sign. The neon BAR sign was painted to read EAR, after the musical Ear Magazine published upstairs.

SoHo Playhouse The SoHo Playhouse stands on land that was once Richmond Hill, a colonial mansion that served as headquarters for General George Washington and later home to Aaron Burr. Purchased from Burr in 1817, the land was then developed into federalist-style row houses by fur magnate John Jacob Astor. 15 Van Dam Street was designated at the Huron Club, a popular meeting house and night club for the Democratic Party. The turn of the century brought the Tammany Hall machine to the Huron Club. Prominent regulars included "Battery" Dan Finn and the infamous Jimmy "Beau James" Walker, known as "The night Mayor" due to his predilection for jazz clubs and chorus girls. The main floor was transformed into a theater in the 1920s, and in the 60's operated as the Village South, home to Playwrights Unit Workshop under the direction of Edward Albee. The playhouse now acts as a 199 seat off-Broadway venue.

The Holland Tunnel was once the longest underwater tunnel in the world. After nearly seven years of construction, and the (unrelated) deaths of two of the tunnel's chief engineers, the Holland Tunnel officially opened at midnight on November 13, 1927. On its first day of operation 51,694 vehicles passed through the tunnel, the first of which was a truck making a shipment to Bloomingdale's Department Store in Manhattan.

Steinway & Sons was founded in 1853 by German immigrant Henry Engelhard Steinway in a Manhattan loft on Varick Street.