New York City, New York story
A Trail Through Time
Underneath the cobblestones and gated entries of Washington Mews lies a ghost of the island's earliest geography. Long before this was a private lane in Greenwich Village, the pat…
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Underneath the cobblestones and gated entries of Washington Mews lies a ghost of the island's earliest geography. Long before this was a private lane in Greenwich Village, the path was actually part of a Lenape trail that connected the Hudson and East Rivers. As the city grew, the trail evolved into a mews—a row of stables used to house the horses of nearby wealthy residents.
By 1916, some of those two-story stables were remodeled into studios for artists like Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney. Eventually, the horses left, and by the 1950s, New York University took over the space for housing and offices. It's a quiet stretch of road that maps the city's shift from indigenous paths to equestrian luxury to academic life.
Updated June 2026