The extension of Seventh Avenue resulted in a chamfered corner. from the collection of the New-York Historical Society.
Construction of the new Trinity Church was completed in 1790. It replaced the 1697 original that was burned during the Revolution. Historian Martha Lamb, in her 1877 History of the City of New York, noted that among the vestrymen who resolved "to set apart a pew in Trinity Church for the President" on March 8, 1790, was Nicholas Carman.
Carman owned a large amount of land north of the city. Three decades after he signed that resolution, streets were laid out on his property, one of which was named Carmine street, named for him despite the misspelling. As early as 1827, Federal style homes were being erected along Carmine Street.
Typical of them was 84 Carmine Street a two-and-a-half story, brick-faced house. Twenty-feet wide, its entrance above a two-step porch most likely had narrow leaded sidelights and a transom. Piercing the peaked roof were two dormers in the front and one in the rear. The muntins of their round-arched windows created elegant, interlocking pointed arches.
As early as 1851, William H. Devoe and his wife, the former Susanna Hadden, occupied 84 Carmine Street. Devoe was a principal in Devoe & Taylor, shipjoiners. (Shipjoiners employed skilled craftsmen to manufacture the interior finished carpentry of vessels--like the cabinetry of staterooms, cabins, and such.)
Living with the couple was Susanna's widowed mother, Catherine Hadden. They rented unused rooms, as well. An advertisement in the New-York Tribune on February 24, 1852 read, "To Let--The upper part of the House No. 84 Carmine-st. Apply from 11 A.M. to 3 P.M. Rent $160." (The figure would translate to about $550 per month in 2026.)
The Haddens' tenants in 1851 were Albert Weber and his wife. Weber was a well-known pianomaker on West Broadway. The following year, August H. and Harriet N. Poe moved in. Tragically, on Christmas morning that year, their only son, Charles Augustus, died. His funeral was held in the house the following afternoon.
A son, William H. Devoe Jr., was born here on June 3, 1853.
Catharine Hadden died at the age of 69 on September 21 "after a short illness," according to the New York Daily Herald. Her funeral was held in the parlor on the morning of the 23rd.
It might be that Catharine was the only musician in the family. A week before her death, an advertisement in the New York Daily Herald read:
Great Sacrifice--An exceedingly fine-toned rosewood pianoforte, not three months used and fully warranted, with stool and cover, will be disposed of at an immense sacrifice, at 84 Carmine street, (on the Sixth avenue railroad).
(The Sixth Avenue streetcar was the closest public transportation at the time. Varick Street ended at Houston Street and Hudson Street did not have a streetcar line.)
There would soon be another funeral in the house. Little William H. Devoe Jr. died on November 22, 1855 at two years old.
The Devoes left Carmine Street around 1858, and their former home became a boarding house. Living here that year were John H. Cooke, who listed his profession as "segars;" seaman Lewis Turin; and a newly-arrived woman from France. She advertised on April 25, 1858:
A Parisian lady, having great experience in teaching her language, wants a few more scholars for private lessons. Terms moderate. Inquire at 84 Carmine street, near Varick.
The Moses Sammis family moved into the house in 1860. Born in 1819, he and his wife, the former Harriet Anna Crocker, had nine sons and a daughter. Son Clark Sammis would recall to the Brooklyn Eagle in 1909 that at the time of his parents' marriage, Moses "was known through Brooklyn in the old days as Colonel M. Sammis, and the product of the marriage was a very large family."
Moses Sammis's brothers were well-known in theatrical circles. William and George were theatrical managers (George was the manager of the Grand Opera House). Moses, on the other hand, took a more civic job. He was a letter carrier when the family moved into 84 Carmine Street, and by 1864 he was a tax collector for the city.
The parlor was yet again the scene of a funeral on February 21, 1864. Three days earlier, Jay J. Sammis, the youngest son of Moses and Harriet, had died at the age of four. Later that same year, the Sammis family moved to Brooklyn.
Perhaps because 84 Carmine Street was relatively remote from major streets, its parlor floor was not converted to a shop. Owner John Flanagan leased the house. Printer George Gregory and his family lived here from 1868 to '69, followed by another printer, Peter Vanbeuren. Flanagan's tenants continued to rent unneeded space. An advertisement in the New York Daily Herald on April 12, 1868 offered, "Furnished comfortable attic room to let--For one or two gentlemen or a single lady, for light housekeeping."
The advertisement was telling. Because the attic was now being rented, the families obviously no longer had a live-in servant. And offering a room to an unmarried lady was shocking at the time. It suggests that the neighborhood was already declining.
Joseph Lamb and his family moved in in 1873. Lamb was in the furniture business with locations at 59 Carmine Street and 223 West Houston. He was a partner with Richard Lamb, presumably a brother. In 1878, son Frederick William Lamb was enrolled in the City College of New York.
While the previous tenants did not have a servant, the Lambs did. An advertisement on May 20, 1880, read, "Wanted--A girl to do general housework in a private family; must be willing to go in the country; wages $12 per month." (The monthly salary would equal $380 today. And the mention of going to the country disclosed that the Lambs maintained a summer home.)
John Flanagan sold the house at auction on November 23, 1885 for $9,300 (about $313,000 today). The ground floor became home to the Saint Bartholomew's Hospital and Dispensary following its incorporation in December 1888. Its presence reflected the changes within the Greenwich Village neighborhood. In its January 26, 1889 issue, The Medical Record reported that the dispensary provided "the free treatment of the diseases of the genito-urinary organs, both venereal and non-venereal, and of the skin."
The house was sold again in November 1898. Mrs. Delli Fitzsimmons, who leased it in May 1904, operated it as a rooming house. The following year, on December 1, 1905, the New-York Tribune reported that the tenants "were thrown into a panic last night when fire broke out in the cellar and filled the building with smoke." Patrolmen Bunn and Walker rushed into the house and woke up the residents. "As soon as the tenants were aroused they rushed from their apartments, shouting and struggling to get to the street," said the article.
Mary Sexon lived in the attic. When she did not respond to the rapping of the policemen's nightsticks on the door, they broke it in. "Mrs. Sexton was lying unconscious, overcome by the smoke which filled the rooms," reported the New-York Tribune. She was removed to St. Vincent's Hospital where she was revived.
As early as 1910 a Frenchwoman, Jeanette Borrine, operated the "lodging house," as described by The New York Times. Lodging houses were the lowest form of accommodations, and rooms were rented out on a daily basis. No amenities other than a bed were provided.
On January 6 that year, a couple--Deaf Lilly and Billy the Gink--rented the attic room. The New York Times explained, "the Frenchwoman, who had known her years ago, gave her lodging." The newspaper said that Lilly once "was the beautiful wife of 'Big Barney' in the days when every one in McGurk's 'Suicide Hall' would push their tables back to the wall while the couple waltzed down the middle." Lilly earned the nickname in those days as "The pride of the Stevedores."
But that was 15 or 20 years earlier. "Big Barney" disappeared and Lilly resorted to prostitution to survive. She was repeatedly arrested and sent to Blackwell's Island until, according to The New York Times, "she was scarcely admitted to the places where she had one reigned as queen." Her new husband was a drunk and a brute. The newspaper explained that he was known as Billy the Gink "because somebody once knocked out his right eye."
Two days after they moved in, another lodger, Maggie Whalen, told Jeanette Borrine, "Lilly took an awful beating to-night. I could hear Billy walloping her." On January 12, 1910, Borrine "began to worry at Lilly's non-appearance," so she entered the room. The New York Times reported, "Deaf Lilly was found dead yesterday lying half under her bed in the little furnished room at the top floor." The article said that police were looking for Billy the Gink.
At the time, discussions to extend Seventh Avenue (which began at 11th Street) south to Varick Street were being held. In 1913, work began on a two-pronged project--the extension of the avenue and the construction of the Seventh Avenue subway. Like a titan-sized lawn mower, the work cut a swatch through Greenwich Village, erasing scores of buildings and leaving others with sections sheared off.
No. 84 Carmine Street nearly escaped the project, although it skimmed a few feet off the western corner, resulting in the doorway and second-floor window to be placed at an angle.
84 Carmine Street (right) barely escaped the construction project. Shelby White & Leon Levy Digital Library
Following the minor renovations, Vincenzo Cesareo moved into 84 Carmine Street. He opened his Universal Scientific Institute in the ground floor. Describing his business as a "school of hypnotism," he was also listed in the 1914 Directory of Publishers, Printers and Authors Issuing Books.
Cesareo's residency here would be short-lived. On April 24, 1915, the New York Herald reported he was sentenced "to three months in the penitentiary for unlawfully practising [sic] medicine by hypnotizing patients into the belief that they were well." The article said that Cesareo not only "used his own spiritual powers to persuade persons that his treatment was actually improving their health, but he employed his wife as the medium whose oracular utterances guided the patient to a cure."
A renovation completed in 1923 resulted in a commercial space on the first floor, home to the National Flexible Packing Co.'s general offices, and a single apartment in the upper floors.
image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.
The greatly altered, venerable structure survived until 1996, when it and the apartment building next door were replaced a single-story structure.
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