In 1794, Dr. Gardiner Jones laid out a short lane in Greenwich Village and gave the block-long road his own name--Jones Street. Half a century later, in 1843, John Moore purchased the property at 30 Jones Street upon which one of a stylish row of Greek Revival houses was being constructed. The house was completed in 1844. Its three stories of red brick sat above a brownstone basement. Typical of the style, the house was trimmed in brownstone and capped with an understated cornice.
Moore apparently purchased the house as an investment and never lived here. It was operated as a boarding house in 1845, home to blue collar tenants. Living in the smaller house in the rear yard were Elizabeth Simons, a widow, and Philip P. Ruger, a carman (a driver of a delivery vehicle). Living in the main house were another carman, Joshua Barton; James Hull, who listed his profession as "gas;" and Marvin Rowland and Jacob B. Skaats, a carpenter and cooper, respectively.
John Moore sold the property in 1848 to William Waring. The Waring family's residency was short lived. In 1851, Stephen and Jane Webster purchased 30 Jones Street. The couple had a son, Samuel A. who worked as a clerk in 1853. Stephen was a wholesale grocer in the Erie Building. That structure, erected in 1848 by the Erie Railway, filled a block on the Hudson riverfront.
Stephen Webster operated his wholesale grocery business from the Erie Building. from Between the Ocean and the Lakes by Edward Harold Mott, 1899 (copyright expired)
It was common at the time for families who had extra space to take in boarders. In June 1856, the Webster family advertised, "A suite of furnished rooms on second floor to let, with board; gas in the rooms. Also, two furnished rooms, for single gentlemen, with full or partial board. Convenient to stages and cars." (Most families avoided taking in single women in order to preserve their respectability.)
The Websters moved to Bleecker Street in 1862, selling 30 Jones Street to John McLachlan. Four years later, on March 8, 1866, an advertisement read, "For Sale--The three story and basement high stoop brick House, 30 Jones street; house 21x45...modern improvements and wash house on rear end of lot."
It was purchased by David and Ellen R. Smith. Smith was a speculator in railroad stock. The couple welcomed a baby daughter, Mary Ella, on September 14, 1867. Tragically, the toddler died on February 27, 1870, at two-and-a-half years old. Her funeral was held in the parlor on March 1.
David Smith was inadvertently pulled into a murder case that kept newspaper readers nationwide rapt in 1872. At around 3:40 on the afternoon of January 6, Smith was sitting at a restaurant, Chamberlain & Dodge, when millionaire oil and railroad man Edward S. Stokes approached. Smith later testified, "He came up and shook hands with me, and asked me to take a drink. We walked up to the bar, and he then began to speak of this horse race." The two made small talk and then parted ways.
Stokes walked to the nearby Grand Central Hotel and fatally shot his business partner and nemesis in a love triangle, Jim Fisk. Although Smith's interaction with Stokes was one of the last before the murder, he was unable to supply valuable testimony to either the defense or prosecution.
The Smiths sold 30 Jones Street in 1875. It was resold in March 1881 to Frederick M. and Julia Schmidt. Frederick was born in 1847. The couple paid $9,000 for the property, about $277,000 in 2025. The Schmidts had two daughters.
By 1894, the house in the rear yard had been replaced by a single-story structure, which the Schmidts used for storage of "pictures and household goods," according to the The Evening World. The newspaper described it as "separated from the house by a small courtyard."
At around 10:00 on the morning of April 14, 1894, Frederick noticed smoke coming from a window in the storeroom. The Evening World reported, "He rushed into the courtyard and broke open the door. At a glance he saw that the fire was climbing up the wall on one side of the building." Schmidt tried to smother the flames with a blanket, but the fire had grown too large. His clothing caught fire and "when his wife reached his side, attracted by his cries, he was a mass of flames."
By the time Julia dragged Frederick onto the lawn, their daughters, one 19 and the other 22 years old, had arrived. The article said, "The three women succeeded in tearing the burning clothes from Schmidt, but not before his body, face and hands had been frightfully burned." The daughters suffered burns to their hands.
Neighbors, attracted by the commotion, helped carry Frederick into the house. In the meantime, despite the neighbors protests, Julia insisted on re-entering the burning building to salvage "a valuable picture." When the fire fighters arrived, she was still there. The Evening World reported, "Partially overcome by smoke, she was carried out of the place. Her hands and hair were scorched." The fire fighters opined, "that rats gnawed matches that were in the building and thus caused the fire."
On October 23, 1906, Julia Schmidt died. Her funeral was held in the house on October 25. One year later, on October 15, 1907, Frederick Schmidt sold 30 Jones Street to Stefano and Adelaide Rolandelli. By 1911, the couple was leasing the house to Greenwich House, which also operated at 26 Jones Street.
Greenwich House was founded in November 1902, "for the establishment and maintenance of a social settlement [for] social, educational, and civic improvements, to be carried on in conjunction and association with the people residing in the neighborhood." The 1911 Handbook of Settlements noted,
The district in which the house is situated is known as the old American quarter. Its outward signs are the small three-story house, the small shop, the picturesque and winding streets; and permeating all, the note of torpor and decay.
The Greenwich Settlement operated from the house until about 1922, when the Rolandellis converted it to apartments. Artist Reginald Marsh lived here on September 7, 1923 when he and Elizabeth Burroughs took out a marriage license. The Brooklyn Daily Star mentioned that the 25-year-old artist's intended bride "is well known among the younger set of the North Shore."
Author Sue Jenkins Brown and her husband, James Light, had lived here for a year at the time. Their apartment was a center of the Village arts community. In his The Life and Work of Ludwig Lewisohn, Ralph Melnick describes one of Sue Jenkins Brown's gatherings:
It was a "young party," with some whose reputations were already developing--Brown's husband James Light (known to Ludwig [i.e., Lewisohn] from his involvement with the Provincetown Players), Malcolm Cowley, Kenneth Burke, their wives, and others of their group, possibly Hart Crane, William Slater Brown, Allen Tate, and Matthew Josephson.
In 1924, Sue Jenkin Brown loaned her apartment to poet and essayist Allen Tate and novelist and critic Caroline Gordon. Nancylee Novell Jonza writes in The Underground Stream, The Life and Art of Caroline Gordon, "Sue gave Carolyn and Allen the use of her apartment at 30 Jones Street, and the couple began telling friends and family that they were married." (The two would marry the following year.)
The occupants of the apartments in the three houses at 26 to 30 Jones Street purchased the properties cooperatively in 1929 as the Greenwich House Co-operative Apartments, Inc.
Many of the owners continued to be involved in the arts. On April 14, 1934, for instance, The New York Age reported, "The Theatre Union, an organization that is out to break down all the barriers that are hampering the progress of universal art...gave a very successful tea last Sunday afternoon at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Gratton, 30 Jones street, on the eve of the opening of their second venture, 'Stevedore.'"
Essentially nothing outwardly has changed since this photo was taken in 1941. via the NYC Dept. of Records & Information Services.
Maria Muldaur would become a leading figure in the American folk music revival in the 1960s. But before finding fame, she lived here. In her Bob Dylan, Intimate Insights from Friends and Fellow Musicians, Kathleen Mackay recalls,
When Muldaur ran away from home in 1960, she actually ran to the building at 30 Jones Street where she was staying during her current visit to New York. She took a job as a mother's helper for one of the families in the building. It gave her free room and board while she finished high school. At the time, the Village was a mecca for people "to be running away to" as Muldaur put it.
Outwardly little changed, today 30 Jones Street with its remarkable history contains two residences.
photographs by the author
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Very interesting tidbit about Muldaur.
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