West Tenth Street

West Tenth Street, in Greenwich Village, is the address of Hobart and Blackwell, the antique shop and restoration workshop that becomes the anchor of Theo Decker's adult life. More than a mere location, the street and the building at its number house the business founded by Welton Blackwell and James Hobart, and it is to this door that Welty's dying instructions—"Hobart and Blackwell. Ring the green bell"—send the thirteen-year-old Theo after the museum bombing. The shop, with its dusty windows displaying Staffordshire dogs and majolica cats, its iron gates often pulled down, and its hidden bell at a narrow doorwell half-hidden by garbage cans, is the place where Theo first meets Hobie and where, years later, he returns as a homeless teenager to begin a new life.

Identity and Setting

West Tenth Street is a slightly shabby residential block in the Village, its character established by the row of brownstones and the modest apartment buildings that flank the shop. The address itself is painted in a neat, old-fashioned arch upon the window, and the interior is packed tightly with antique furniture, stacks of old books, and bric-a-brac. The shop's front is a stage set; the real work happens below stairs, in the "shop-behind-the-shop," a treasure cave of a workshop where Hobie restores furniture. The building also contains the living quarters—a dim, richly carpeted parlor with tasseled draperies, a crowded kitchen with a skylight, and bedrooms where Pippa and Theo each stay at different times. The atmosphere is one of settled, comfortable age: ticking tall-case clocks, the smell of turpentine and beeswax, and a sense of being insulated from the city's blare.

Events and People

The street is the site of Theo's first, failed attempt to contact Hobie, when the shop is closed and he must wander the Village to kill time before returning. It is where he finally rings the green bell and is admitted by a haggard, noble-jawed Hobie, beginning a relationship that will define his future. Years later, after fleeing Las Vegas, Theo returns to this same door, feverish and homeless, and is taken in. The house is also Pippa's home when she is in New York, and her bedroom—with its Wizard of Oz poster, get-well cards, and the lingering scent of her presence—becomes a place of torment and longing for Theo. The street witnesses the comings and goings of Hobie's circle: Moira DeFrees, the Vogels, and other dealers and collectors, as well as the more shadowy figures like Grisha and the moving men who use the shop as a base.

Change and Narrative Significance

West Tenth Street represents stability and continuity in Theo's otherwise fractured life. It is the fixed point to which he returns after his father's death and his flight from Las Vegas, and it is the place where he learns a trade and builds an identity. The street itself changes little over the years, even as the world around it shifts. The shop's dim, crowded interior, with its "faded silks and dimness," offers a refuge from the glare of the desert and the cold formality of the Barbours' Park Avenue apartment. It is also the scene of Theo's greatest deceptions: it is from this address that he sells Hobie's "changelings" as genuine antiques, and it is here that he hides the painting, first in his room and later in a storage unit. The street is thus the locus of both his salvation and his moral compromise, the place where he is most himself and most hidden.