GROVE STREET, NO. 45
OCTOBER 21, 1935. ABBOTT FILE 18

Only two blocks from Abbott's Commerce Street studio, this Grove Street apartment building was originally built in 1830 as a sumptuous, two-story mansion surrounded by grounds. Its original owner was Samuel Whittemore, a manufacturer of textile equipment with major real estate holdings in Greenwich Village. After the 1851 sale of the house and its grounds, which included stables and greenhouse, a series of alterations led to its transformation into a four-story apartment house with basement storefronts. The door and upper-floor window details remain the only evidence on the facade of the building's elegant past. With slight modifications, it appears today as it did in Abbott's time.

While Abbott's interest in 45 Grove Street may have been architectural, she may also have known that the poet Hart Crane lived there when he wrote The Bridge, his paean to New York, which Abbott greatly admired.

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