washington mews

If I'm walking crosstown in the village I always pick a route that takes me down Washington Mews. It's just one block north of Washington Sqaure Park between 5th Ave and University. It feels like it's from another era. Approached from the east, this is the first taste of Greenwich Village.

The buildings were built as stables and have been converted to houses and some of the NYU language departments. If you keep walking further west, little nooks like this appear more frequently until you get to Christopher Street where all hell breaks loose in the street layout.



Forgotten NY has a ton of stuff on little alleys, or any other topic related to historic New York for that matter.

mew

–noun

1. a cage for hawks, esp. while molting.
2. a pen in which poultry is fattened.
3. a place of retirement or concealment.
4. mews, (usually used with a singular verb) Chiefly British.

• (formerly) an area of stables built around a small street.
  
• a street having small apartments converted from such stables.
  

–verb (used with object)

1. Archaic. to shut up in or as in a mew; confine; conceal (often fol. by up).