Mori (1883 – 1937) was a

Greenwich Village Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...

eating establishment that featured

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

cooking. It became bankrupt during the aftermath of the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

. Its building later housed the

Bleecker Street Cinema The Bleecker Street Cinema was an art house movie theater located at 144 Bleecker Street in Manhattan, New York City, New York. It became a landmark of Greenwich Village and an influential venue for filmmakers and cinephiles through its screenings ...

History

The building at 144-146

Bleecker Street Bleecker Street is an east–west street in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is most famous today as a Greenwich Village nightclub district. The street connects a neighborhood today popular for music venues and comedy, but which was ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

was originally built in 1832 as two

rowhouse In architecture and city planning, a terrace or terraced house ( UK) or townhouse ( US) is a form of medium-density housing that originated in Europe in the 16th century, whereby a row of attached dwellings share side walls. In the United State ...

s. Placido Mori converted 144 into the restaurant Mori in 1883 or 1884. As architecture historian

Christopher Gray Christopher Stewart Gray (April 24, 1950 – March 10, 2017) was an American journalist and architectural historian,Schneider, Daniel B (August 27, 2000)"F.Y.I. Hell's Kitchen in the Raw" ''The New York Times''. March 4, 2010. noted for his week ...

wrote, The restaurant began as a small bar and eatery and expanded to fully occupy a "rambling, old-fashioned" five-story building near

Sixth Avenue (Manhattan) Sixth Avenue – also known as Avenue of the Americas, although this name is seldom used by New Yorkers, p.24 – is a major thoroughfare in New York City's borough of Manhattan, on which traffic runs northbound, or "uptown". It is commercial ...

. It survived the

Prohibition era Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacturing, manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption ...

and the worst years of the

, when it was temporarily padlocked. Mori closed in 1937, and Placido Mori filed a petition for bankruptcy in early January 1938, stating that the corporation had no assets and liabilities totaling $70,000. The building formerly occupied by Mori was sold by Caroline Bussing through A.Q. Orza, broker, in October 1943. Mori's gravesite in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx is marked with a sculpted memorial designed by Hood and sculptor

Charles Keck Charles Keck (September 9, 1875 – April 23, 1951) was an American sculptor from New York City, New York. Early life and education Keck studied at the National Academy of Design and the Art Students League of New York with Philip Martiny, ...

References

{{Restaurants in Manhattan, state=collapsed History of Manhattan Cultural history of New York City Defunct Italian restaurants in Manhattan 1937 disestablishments in New York (state) 1883 establishments in New York (state) Restaurants established in 1883 Restaurants disestablished in 1937 Greenwich Village