Over on Vanishing New York, Jeremiah searches for the real-life inspiration of Edward Hopper’s iconic painting, Nighthawks, depicting the late-night customers of a city diner.
Legend had it being modeled after one located at Mulry Square, where Seventh Avenue South, Greenwich Avenue, and 11th Street, all intersect. His investigation revealed that there was very likely never any diner at that corner. Several other spots on Seventh Avenue South were also looked at, but no diners there, either.
A big reason that street was a prime suspect, is that the painting portrays a sharply angled street corner, and that stretch of Seventh Avenue has a lot of them.
That’s because Seventh Avenue originally went no further south than 11th Street, and was extended down to Carmine, where it met Varick, only in 1917. As the Greenwich Village streets were already extant, the new road cut through the middle of many blocks. It resulted in those acute intersections, and all those odd-shaped lots.
That lengthening of Seventh Avenue allowed the IRT Seventh Avenue Line to be extended as well. Without the street being built first, the subway would have had to cut-and-cover its way through the middle of residential blocks for half-a-mile.
That same need in fact, is the sole reason for the existence of Kenmare Street in Nolita. It was built to provide the right-of-way for the BMT Nassau Street Line to turn west and south from Delancey Street to Center. It’s the only street in Manhattan built expressly for the subway.
As for the Nighthawks diner? It appears that it’s been in the same place all along — in the imagination of the artist, and the viewers of his works.