PIONEER RESTAURANT
60 West 3rd Street at the corner of West Broadway
MAY 5, 1937. ABBOTT FILE 238

Running north on West Broadway, the Sixth Avenue El jogged on West 3rd Street toward Sixth Avenue, where it continued uptown. The Pioneer Restaurant, an inexpensive eatery in a building over 50 years old, stood at the corner of West 3rd and West Broadway, where the El turned. One block south of Washington Square, this corner typified bohemian Greenwich Village, where working-class immigrants rubbed shoulders with artists and tourists. Next door to the Pioneer was a sewing machine repair shop (left), and on West Broadway was the Black Cat, a well-known nightclub featuring African-American performers (right).

The Sixth Avenue El was torn down in 1939, and in 1956 three square blocks were demolished--from West 3rd to Bleecker Streets and from West Broadway to Mercer Street--for Washington Square Village, a faculty housing complex built in 1958 by New York University.

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