Minetta Street
Atypical street patterns creating uniquely shaped building and unusual cul-de-sac-like spaces are a prominent feature of the South Village. Minetta Street connects Minetta Lane and Sixth Avenue, but due to its bend appears at a glance to be a dead end.
Houses, south side of Minetta Street
The name comes from Minetta Brook, a stream which ran from 23rd Street through what is now Washington Square Park to the Hudson (from the Dutch Mintje Kill, for small stream). The Minetta Lane Theater (below), at the head of Minetta Street, one of the few remaining active theaters in the area, was carved out of a deserted tin factory in 1984.
Minetta Lane Theater
5 Minetta Lane and 19 Minetta Street date back to as early as the 1840’s, and were part of an early development of the area by local entrepreneur Vincent Pepe.
Rear courtyard entry to Minetta Lane Houses
At the bend in Minetta Street (below) at 11-13 Minetta Street (which is also the rear of 103 MacDougal Street – see map item #5 “Tenements on MacDougal Street”), you can see the faded painted wall sign, “Fat Black Pussycat Theatre,” a notorious establishment of the 1960’s previously located in this space but long since gone.
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