The party was getting into groovy gear in the backyard of 50 West Eighth Street in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village.

Inside a cottage apartment tucked behind this residential building, revelers could almost kiss the sky through the solarium’s sunroof. The revelry in the garden had a psychedelic “Apocalypse Now” theme, with partygoers dancing to Jimi Hendrix’s “Voodoo Chile” among bamboo stalks and tiki torches illuminating a tall shrinelike stone from Bali.

Then the host, Rob Key, an internet entrepreneur who lives in the rental cottage, turned down the Hendrix and explained that the point of this party, on a recent weeknight, was to gather support to get the block of Eighth Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues named after Hendrix, who is believed to have lived in the cottage toward the end of his life.

“Before he died, he built his studio on the other side of this wall,” said Mr. Key, referring to Electric Lady Studios next door, which Hendrix opened just before his death in 1970.