102 Bedford Street.
102 Bedford Street began its life around 1830 as a 2 1/2 story wood-frame Federal style house — the kind of simple structure one sees throughout Greenwich Village and Lower Manhattan. It seemed to live a pretty unremarkable life until 1925 when Clifford Daily purchased the building. According to NY Times Streetscapes columnist Christopher Gray, records show Daily, 39 years old at the time, was unmarried, lived in an old house on Sheridan Square, and was the decorator of “The Little House,” a tea room located next door at 100 Bedford Street in the tiny former back shed of 17 Grove Street.
The 1910s and 1920s saw a lot of new interest in Greenwich Village from artists and those who simply wanted to live around artists. Like today, real estate developers were quick to try to capitalize on this trend, and rundown buildings in the neighborhood were often given makeovers intended to project an artistic image. Few, however, were as complete, or as fanciful, in their transformation as 102 Bedford Street.
The two and a half story building was raised to five stories and given a sort of Tudor/Medieval/Swiss Chalet facade, including the twin-peaked roofs, from which its name is derived. The building was specifically intended to attract artists, with 10 one-room studios with casement windows, similar to the “artists’ studios” which had been popping up on the top of houses throughout the Village during this time. Again according to Gray (citing the NY Herald Tribune) the building was originally painted black, green, orange, and blue — a color scheme which has long since been replaced with the more conventional brown and beige we see today, and of which there seems to be little or no photographic record.
Perhaps most notable, however, was the building’s dedication ceremony:
On May 21, 1926…the actress Mabel Normand stood on a platform on top of one of the gables and shattered a bottle of Champagne over the roof. Next to her, Princess Amelie Troubetskoy (an American novelist who had married a Russian prince in czarist days) burned acorns in a charcoal brazier in honor of the Greek god Pan. Holy water, flowers, and other rites also inaugurated the building.
The studio apartments in the building are all tiny, approximately 20 by 18 feet. However, many maintain original details, and the interiors of the building literally ooze Village bohemian charm. Despite the incredible appeal of the apartment’s unique charms, their modest dimensions have given rise to some skepticism about claims that Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Walt Disney, Cary Grant, and Miles Davis each lived there for a time
