Samuel Whittemore operated a factory in Greenwich Village in the early decades of the 19th century, making machinery for the textile industry. He was a politician as well, serving as State Assemblyman in 1816. Whittemore owned substantial property in the district. In 1830, the year he became the president of the newly-formed Greenwich Bank, the family moved into a lavish mansion at 45 Grove Street. At the time, the house and its outbuildings sat alone on the block. The Whittemores' stable was accessed on Christopher Street.
Six years later, Samuel Whittemore erected two two-and-a-half-story houses on the south side of Christopher Street between Bleecker and West 4th Streets (Seventh Avenue would not appear until 1917). Originally identical, they were faced in Flemish bond brick. Three bays wide, two dormers would have pierced their peaked roofs. The houses straddled the Federal and Greek Revival styles. The anthemion motif of the ironwork was important to both styles, however the substantial fluted columns and carved entablatures of the handsome entranceways anticipated the "pure Greek" of the rising latter style.
Whittemore most likely rented 86 Christopher Street initially. Sharing the house in 1836 were Jane Hyslop, a teacher; and Dr. T. Marselis. In the early 1840s, auctioneer Andrew C. Tuttle and his family occupied the house.
It was offered for sale in April 1843 and became home to the William Sullivan family by 1847. That year Sullivan was part of the "committee of arrangements" for "The First Ball of the La Fayette Guards." Sullivan was a member of the First Company of the New York State Artillery. After the militia unit was made part of the escort for Marquis de Lafayette during his visit in 1824, the marquis dubbed the group, "the Lafayette Guards."
As early as 1849, Dr. William Ezra Parsons owned 86 Christopher Street. Born in Massachusetts in 1813, he and his wife, the former Catharine Louisa Sweeny, had three children, Reuben, William Jr., and Mary Louise--8, 3 and 2 years old respectively in 1849. Three other children, Emily, Francis H. and Josephine would come in 1853, 1855 and 1856. (Francis would die shortly after birth.)
Boarding with the family in 1849 and 1850 was a widow, Elizabeth Alexander Pouder. Born in England in 1804, her husband, George Washington Pouder, died in Baltimore in 1830 at the age of 37.
Parsons opened his dental office in the basement level. He would take care of the teeth of Greenwich Village residents for years to come.
American Advertiser, 1850 (copyright expired)
In 1857, 16-year-old Rueben Parsons was working as a clerk. Three years later, the teen listed his profession as real estate and had moved out of the Christopher Street house to 25 East 24th Street.
Catherine Louisa Parsons died at the family's summer home in Pound Ridge, New York on May 7, 1890 at the age of 68. Parsons, now 77 years old, almost immediately left New York to live in the Pound Ridge house year-round. He, additionally, almost immediately found a new wife. He and Margaret Strange Kellogg were married before the end of the year.
On March 14, 1891, the Record & Guide reported that Parsons had leased 86 Christopher Street to Jeremiah Rogers for five years at $600 per year. (The yearly rent would translate to about $21,300 in 2025.)
William Ezra Parsons transferred title of the Christopher Street house to Margaret. In February 1893, she transferred it to her 21-year-old daughter, Jessie Kellogg Parsons, from a previous marriage. (William had adopted his step-daughter, by then.)
The year 1897 would be grief-ridden for Margaret Parsons. William died on April 11 at the age of 84 and Jessie died six months later on November 2 at the age of 25.
The 1836 Federal-style ironwork with its anthemion finials survives.
In January 1903, the trustees of Jessie K. Parsons's estate sold 86 Christopher Street to Georgianna M. Tucker for $5,000 (about $184,000 today). The anachronistic relic was apparently operated as a rooming house for the next few years. Living here in 1918 was the Casey family. They received terrifying news on December 12, 1918 when the War Department listed their son, William J. Casey, missing in action in Europe.
The changing times within the Greenwich Village neighborhood caught up to 86 Christopher Street in the fall of 1926. On September 24, the New York Evening Post reported that James Nicolini had purchased the property saying, "The buyer will alter the house." While preserving the vintage ironwork, the stoop, and other exterior elements of the lower floors, Nicolini's architect raised the attic to a full story. A studio window, popular in Greenwich Village renovations at the time, flooded the top floor with northern light.
The original peaked roofline can be seen from the side in this 1941 photograph. The owner has added cast lions to the brownstone newels. via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.
The top floor studio was home to painter Vincent Canadé in the 1930s, according to the Landmark Preservation Commission's 1969 Greenwich Village Historic District designation report. Born in Italy in 1879, he and his wife, Josephine Picciulo, had six children. Canadé's work is today exhibited in the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Hirshhorn Museum, and the Phillips Collection as well as more than 20 other institutions.
Poet Charles John Olson moved into 86 Christopher Street with Constance Wilcox, known as Connie, in October 1940. Their relationship was described at the time as a "common-law marriage." Describing Olson in the Washington Post on April 14, 1991, Bradford Morrow said he was a "key figure" in transitioning American poetry from modernism to postmodernism.
Charles Olson, from Britannica.com
A month after moving into 86 Christopher Street, according to George F. Butterick's A Guide to the Maximus Poems of Charles Ols0n, Olson began working as the publicity director for the American Civil Liberties Union. In November that year, he took the position of chief of the Foreign Language Information Service, Common Council for American Unity.
A renovation in 1974 resulted in one apartment per floor. The basement apartment was converted to a store in 1989. It was home to Exotiqua in the early 1990s, described by Newsday in August 1992 as a "decorative object gallery," carrying merchandise from 20 countries.
Despite some alterations (most significantly the raising of the attic), 86 Christopher Street is a remarkable survivor of the first phase of development in this Greenwich Village neighborhood.
photographs by the author
many thanks to historian Anthony Bellov for suggesting this post.
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