Epic Walking Tours’ Historic Village Walking Tour visits the Jefferson Market Courthouse, which is now the Jefferson Market Library.
In the early 20th century, the Jefferson Market Courthouse stood as a striking beacon in Greenwich Village—its red brick Victorian Gothic tower looming over the neighborhood like a watchful eye. Originally built in the 1870s and modeled after a German castle, the courthouse was known not only for its unusual architecture but for what happened inside and next door: the arrest, trial, and jailing of countless women—suffragists, immigrants, sex workers, political advocates, and the poor.
Next to the courthouse stood the Women’s House of Detention, a grim, fortress-like structure that held women awaiting trial or serving short sentences. From the 1930s until its closure in 1971, the jail became notorious—but its earlier roots in the Village were planted in the suffrage era, when the women’s movement was building momentum.
In 1917, during the height of the suffrage campaign, women from the National Woman’s Party were arrested for protesting at the gates of the White House—the first time anyone had ever picketed a sitting president. Though the initial arrests took place in Washington, D.C., many of these women—including prominent activists like Alice Paul and Lucy Burns—had strong connections to New York City and Greenwich Village. Local suffragists and labor organizers, including Rose Schneiderman and members of the Women’s Trade Union League, continued the struggle on the streets and in the courtrooms of the Village.
The Jefferson Market Courthouse became a frequent stop for women arrested during labor protests, political marches, or simply for being poor and unaccompanied on the streets. Women arrested for vagrancy or “moral offenses”—including many sex workers—were routinely processed there and sent next door to the Women’s House of Detention. Once inside, conditions were harsh: overcrowded cells, cold stone walls, and virtually no privacy. Yet it was within those walls that solidarity often bloomed.
One of the most dramatic examples of political protest connected to the courthouse came in 1935, when Angela Calomiris, a young Village resident and later FBI informant, observed women being detained for organizing tenants’ strikes and anti-eviction protests. During this period, the House of Detention held women accused of civil disobedience in service of workers’ rights, racial justice, and free speech. Women from the local labor unions passed through its gates, turning the jail into a hotbed of resistance, debate, and unlikely sisterhood.
Meanwhile, from the street below, the public could literally hear the voices of incarcerated women. The Women’s House of Detention was the only major jail in the country located in the heart of a bustling neighborhood, and its windows overlooked Greenwich Avenue. In the 1950s and 1960s, the women locked inside shouted down to pedestrians, friends, and loved ones. Locals recalled women yelling poetry and protests into the air—often heard by writer E.E. Cummins, who lived across the street at Patchin Place. It was noisy, human, and hard to ignore.
Among those jailed there in later years were prominent lesbian feminist and civil rights activist Angela Davis, who spent time in the House of Detention in 1970 while awaiting extradition to California. During her incarceration, supporters gathered outside the building with signs and songs, echoing the same pattern seen decades earlier with suffragists and union organizers. Davis would later write about the psychological toll of incarceration, and how the sounds of community—laughter, singing, solidarity—helped sustain the women inside.
By the late 1960s, the Jefferson Market Courthouse had been vacated, and the Women’s House of Detention had come under intense criticism for its deplorable conditions and treatment of prisoners. Activists from the burgeoning women’s liberation movement joined local Village residents in demanding its closure. Their protests were successful: the jail shut down in 1971 and was demolished in 1974. In its place, a community garden was planted—a quiet green space now known as the Jefferson Market Garden.
The courthouse, rather than being torn down, was transformed into a New York Public Library branch in 1967. Today, its tower still watches over the Village, though few passersby realize how many women once entered through its doors under guard, only to find themselves locked next door for acts of protest, survival, or self-expression.
Though their names may not appear in most history textbooks, the women who were jailed at the Jefferson Market site helped shape American democracy. From the suffragists demanding the right to vote, to labor leaders organizing factory strikes, to gay women demanding visibility, each brought her own fire to the fight for justice. And each left her voice echoing in the Village, even long after the cell doors had closed.
