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New York - New York City - Sixth Avenue Sixth Avenue, the dividing line between that part of Greenwich Village dominated by Washington Square and that dominated by Sheridan Square, is an uninspiring thoroughfare. The old Sixth Avenue elevated structure, which darkened the street, was removed in 1938-9; and with the completion of the Sixth Avenue branch of the municipal Independent Subway, the character of the street may change. Running east, between Sixth Avenue and MacDougal Street, is Minetta Lane, with Minetta Street leading south from it. Considered in the latter part of the nineteenth century one of New York's most notorious slums, it has been improved through the renovation of some of its houses, which form an interesting group. In the triangle formed by West Tenth Street, Sixth Avenue, and Greenwich Avenue are the HOUSE OF DETENTION FOR WOMEN and JEFFERSON MARKET COURT, which handles cases of women's delinquency. The jail, which in 1932 replaced the picturesque Jefferson Market, resembles a bleak apartment building. Modern in all its equipment, probably its most striking feature is the turntable altar in the chapel, one sector fitted for Protestant service, the second for Catholic, and the third for Jewish. The court itself was designed by Frederick C. Withers and Calvert Vaux, in 1876. The fantastic Victorian Gothic building with its array of weird turrets, traceried windows, and its patterns of brick and carved stone is an exceptionally interesting work of its period. The oversized, odd-shaped block just north of the court, bounded by West Tenth Street, Sixth Avenue, West Eleventh Street, and Greenwich Avenue, is the result of the meeting at a slight angle of two gridiron systems of streets. To utilize the interior of the property the owners developed the land in an unusual way. From West Tenth Street and from Sixth Avenue blind alleys -- PATCHIN PLACE and MILLIGAN PLACE -- run into the block at right angles to the street, and give access to the houses which front on them. Patchin Place resembles a bystreet in Old London. In its modest little brick houses, only recently modernized, have lived Theodore Dreiser, John Masefield, Dudley Digges, John Reed, John Howard Lawson, and e. e. cummings. Milligan Place, whose houses were built in the 1850's, was named for Samuel Milligan, who acquired the property, part of the Warren farm, in 1799. His granddaughter married Aaron Patchin, to whom was deeded what became Patchin Place in 1848. George Cram Cook and Susan Glaspell lived here, and Eugene O'Neill came frequently when the three worked on his play, The Emperor Jones. Here, as throughout the Village, grows the ailanthus -- the "back-yard" tree, indigenous to India. It is a city tree, one that flourishes with little soil, water, and light. In the days of the pestilence it was believed that the tree absorbed "bad" air. On Eleventh Street, a few doors cast of Sixth Avenue, is the tiny second SPANISH-PORTUGUESE JEWISH CEMETERY OF NEW YORK, opened in 1805 and closed in 1829. West of the avenue, from 112 to 124 West Eleventh Street, is RHINELANDER GARDENS, part of the Rhinelander estate, which utilizes the deep lots on the north portion of the block by setting the buildings far back from the street line and thus getting a pleasant front garden. Built in the 1850's, this distinctive line of houses with castiron balconies reminiscent of New Orleans is the only remaining example of its type in the city. The NEW SCHOOL FOR SOCIAL RESEARCH, founded in 1919 by James Harvey Robinson and Charles A. Beard, is at 66 West Twelfth Street, just east of Sixth Avenue. Thorstein Veblen was a faculty member. It is devoted chiefly to adult education in political and social sciences and psychology, but advanced courses in the arts are also given. Here, in 1934, was organized the "University in Exile," its teachers being drawn from the brilliant political and racial exiles from Nazi Germany. The building, designed by Joseph Urban and erected in 1931, illustrates in striking fashion some of the characteristics of modern architecture. The central portion of the exterior is cantilevered out to form a shelter for the entrance doors below and is accented by continuous horizontal windows. An interesting feature is the progressive of the space between windows as the building rises and the inward inclination of the front wall; seen in perspective these tend to give the building additional height. On the first floor of the interior is a small auditorium of skillful design. Murals by Thomas Benton and Camilo Egas, Ecuadorean artist, and the only frescoes in New York City by the Mexican, Orozco, decorate other parts of the interior Benton's work, the artist's first important mural decorations, are in the reception room on the third floor. The three on the west wall depict the old agricultural South, lumbering, and the growth of the West; the three on the east, phases of the coal and iron industries; the one facing the entrance, power; and those on either side of the entrance, phases of city life. Egas' work is in the Caroline Tilden Bacon Memorial Room on the mezzanine floor and in the foyer. Those in the foyer depict the harvest festivals of the Indians of Ecuador; the two panels on the mezzanine floor, harvests in South America and Minnesota (Mrs. Bacon's native state). The Orozco Room is on the fifth floor. The fresco on the south wall is entitled The Table of Universal Brotherhood and embodies the theme of the group. Those on the west wall are concerned with attempts to achieve this brotherhood, one in the Soviet Union, the other in Mexico. A portrait of Lenin, leader of the Russian Revolution, is in the first, and in the second, one of Felipe Carillo Puerto, Yucatan hero. On the north wall is a representation of the Universal Family, the worker and his wife. Gandhi is portrayed in the painting on the east wall, which depicts the plight of India and its enslaved masses. The DOWNTOWN GALLERY, 113 West Thirteenth Street, always has examples of the work of six outstanding painters on view: Marin, O'Keeffe, Sheeler, Karfiol, Laurent, and Kuniyoshi. An excellent collection of folk art is exhibited on the upper floors.