{"id":646427,"date":"2026-03-10T21:08:28","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T21:08:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/646427\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T21:08:28","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T21:08:28","slug":"robert-frank-and-june-leafs-bleecker-street-studio-for-sale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/646427\/","title":{"rendered":"Robert Frank and June Leaf\u2019s Bleecker Street Studio for Sale"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n Photo: Evan Joseph for Corcoran\n <\/p>\n

On Bleecker Street, between Elizabeth and the Bowery, a shabby storefront, painted murky green, was once a destination for generations of photographers who had learned their trade by poring over the off-kilter images of Robert Frank. For more than 40 years, 7 Bleecker was Frank\u2019s studio and home, the place where he snapped his friend Allen Ginsberg<\/a>, shot sections of his experimental films<\/a> (Home Improvements and C\u2019est Vrai!), and worked with the bands he put on film<\/a> \u2014 Patti Smith, New Order. Unlike other artists who showed at MoMA and sold at auction for hundreds of thousands, Frank made himself easy to find \u2014 setting out a folding chair onto the sidewalk, often alongside a second seat for his wife, the sculptor June Leaf. On Purim one year, a group of Jewish photographers came out to meet<\/a> them there \u2014 starting an informal tradition. And when Frank died, in 2019, flowers threaded through the storefront grill turned the space into a monument.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

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Price: <\/strong>$6.5 million ($1,778 in monthly taxes)<\/p>\n

Specs: <\/strong>2 units over studio, storage, and office space with 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms<\/p>\n

Extras: <\/strong>Basement, backyard, roof access, three offices or studio spaces<\/p>\n

10-minute walking radius: <\/strong>Codex Books, New Museum, KGB Bar<\/p>\n

Listed by:<\/strong> Laura Weinkam, Corcoran\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Leaf died in 2024<\/a>, and their home is now on the market for the first time since they arrived in the late 1970s as renters. The three-story brick building looks like it might have been squeezed into a busy row. But it was actually one of the block\u2019s earliest, an 1817 home built on \u201cwhat was essentially still a field\u201d<\/a> by a prominent owner (James Roosevelt, great-grandfather<\/a> of FDR). As the city grew around it, tenants included a laundry, decades of fur dealers, and a stationery shop. Upper floors served as workspaces, then as the rooms of an SRO,<\/a> with bedrooms and bathrooms opening directly off the staircase.<\/p>\n

When Frank and Leaf arrived, the block had already been staked out by artists, who had founded an alternative gallery and studio space<\/a> across the street at 10 Bleecker. Frank and Leaf planted a tree out front and treated the old ground-floor space, just a few steps up, as a studio. One floor above, the front room \u2014 with sunny windows over Bleecker and a wood-burning fireplace that might date back to the Roosevelt era \u2014 served as a living and dining area. When the critic Richard B. Woodward stopped<\/a> by for a visit in the 1990s, he saw the couple\u2019s decision to live amid peeling paint and crumbling brick<\/a> as a way of announcing \u201cthat the occupants could care less about money, dirt, post-modern convenience or what passes for good taste.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Maybe so, but now the home \u2014 which they bought<\/a> in 1982 \u2014 is a rare specimen of untouched, old-world Bowery life; a \u201cfortress against time,\u201d as the poet and journalist Cary Abrams put it after Frank\u2019s death<\/a>. A riser in the shop window, where<\/a> Frank shot Ginsberg\u2019s portrait, looks like it might have survived from the stationery-store days. A tiny bedroom with a sink and skylight could serve as a film set for an SRO. Bare planks serve as bookshelves. When I sent the listing to a Frank acolyte, she replied right away, as many other photographers would, \u201cWouldn\u2019t touch a thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n An air shaft and arched windows on the third floor are clues that the extra story was added later. Historian Tom Miller dated it to the 1840s or 1850s.
\n Photo: Evan Joseph for Corcoran\/B) 2026 Evan Joseph Studios\n <\/p>\n

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\n The three doors in front open to different levels: up half a flight to a shop area, down a half-flight to a finished basement, or up a full level through a private hall to the second and third stories.
\n Photo: Evan Joseph for Corcoran\n <\/p>\n

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\n In later years, Frank made raw, experimental films, but agreed to shoot a portrait of his friend Allen Ginsberg on this riser, which might have once helped a shopkeeper to display wares.
\n Photo: Evan Joseph for Corcoran\/B) 2026 Evan Joseph Studios\n <\/p>\n

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\n The second floor was once a separate unit with its own kitchen and bathroom.
\n Photo: Evan Joseph for Corcoran\n <\/p>\n

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\n June Leaf, the sculptor, worked in the house until her death in 2024.
\n Photo: Evan Joseph for Corcoran\n <\/p>\n

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\n The second-floor kitchen.
\n Photo: Corcoran\n <\/p>\n

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\n The third floor of the building has an open living room and studio.
\n Photo: Evan Joseph for Corcoran\/B) 2026 Evan Joseph Studios\n <\/p>\n

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\n A lofted storage space is open to the living area and the kitchen.
\n Photo: Evan Joseph for Corcoran\n <\/p>\n

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\n Frank could have funded a full renovation with a few rolls of film, but that wasn\u2019t his style. He left surfaces as raw and unvarnished as his images.
\n Photo: Evan Joseph for Corcoran\n <\/p>\n

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\n The building is actually L-shaped, with a narrow wing in back that allowed for quiet bedrooms off the main staircase \u2014 a layout that might date to the building\u2019s SRO days.
\n Photo: Evan Joseph for Corcoran\n <\/p>\n

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\n A rear bedroom.
\n Photo: Evan Joseph for Corcoran\n <\/p>\n

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\n The view on Bleecker.
\n Photo: Evan Joseph for Corcoran\/B) 2026 Evan Joseph Studios\n <\/p>\n

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