The 1826 row now was completely transformed.
"In 1826 Mayor Philip Hone transformed the former execution grounds and potter's field at the base of what would be Fifth Avenue into a parade and drill grounds, called Washington Square. Greenwich Village was experiencing a population explosion as thousands of New Yorkers fled northward to escape the terrifying cholera epidemic which began a year earlier. Well-heeled businessman and former politician Thomas R. Mercein recognized the potential. In 1826, two years before the first mansion would appear on Washington Square, he erected a row of nine upscale brick-faced homes on West Sixth Street, between the park and Sixth Avenue. Three bays wide and three-and-a-half stories tall, the Federal-style houses sat above shallow English basements. Handsome paneled stone lintels adorned the openings and two tall dormers pierced the peaked roofs. ..."
Dayton In Manhattan
NY Times: In the Village, an Intersection of Paint and Quaint
A member of the Ashcan School of painters, Everell used Washington Square as the subject of at least 20 paintings, including this 1910 example.
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