The 1883 Frank B. Houghton House - 30 West 130th Street

image via zillow.com

In 1844, when Harlem was still dotted with farms and country estates, John Jacob Astor I acquired a portion of two farms for $10,000 (about $445,000 in 2026).  Upon his death in 1848, the blockfront that would become West 130th Street between Fifth and Lenox Avenues was inherited by his son, William Backhouse Astor.  It passed to William Backhouse Astor, Jr. in 1875.  

The blockfront would become lined with 28 private homes, erected in three groups.  Architect Charles Buek designed the first--8 through 22 West 130th Street--in 1880.  They were completed in 1881 and the following year ground was broken for the second group, 22 through 38.  (The final section, 40 through 62, would be completed in 1883.)  No doubt to reduce costs, it appears that the builder simply followed Charles Buek's original designs in erecting 22 through 62 West 103rd Street, since there is no architect of record.  The resultant row was called "the Block Beautiful" in Claude McKay's 1928 novel Home to Harlem.

30 West 130th Street is the second from left.  image via streeteasy.com

Designed as mirror-image pairs separated by a carriage drive that accessed the rear yards, the homes were three stories tall above short basements.  Their neo-Grec-style facades were clad in brick and trimmed in brownstone.  Generous gardens fronted delightful wooden porches.  Dentiled brick cornices sat above brick friezes decorated with recessed quatrefoil designs.

Astor retained possession of the houses, leasing them as rental income.  His first tenant of 30 West 130th Street was Frank R. Houghton, a real estate agent, and his widowed step-mother, Virginia Patten Houghton.  Frank was born in Halifax, Vermont in 1825 to Royall and Sarah Farrell.  Sarah died in 1851 and Royall married Virginia Patten in May that same year.

In the spring of 1886, Virginia Patten Houghton was in Pass, Mississippi where she died "suddenly," according to the New-York Tribune, on April 3.  Her funeral was held in the 130th Street house on April 10.

There would be another funeral in the parlor before long.  Frank Houghton moved away soon after his step-mother's death and the next tenant, Peter Asten, died in the house at the age of 84 on January 16, 1887.  His funeral was held two days later.

The house next became home to Thomas C. and William McAlpine Wiswall, partners in the Pennsylvania-based Wiswall Paint Co., and their families.  Thomas C. Wiswall was the company's president and a sergeant in the Seventh Regiment of the New York National Guard.  He and his wife, the former Mary Brown, had no children.

Thomas C. Wiswall, Seventh Regiment Gazette, October 1923, (copyright expired)

William McAlpine Wiswall was born 1841 in Troy, New York but was educated in Port Austin, Michigan.  The New York Times would recall that one of his teachers was James A. Garfield.  William's wife was Louisa Bishop Chatterton, and also living here were Louise's parents, Thomas and Adeline M. Bishop Chatterton.  

Thomas Chatterton was born in New Haven, Connecticut in 1818 and started out as a merchant tailor there.  The New Haven Morning & Courier would recall, "he rapidly won favor, patronage and success, but his energetic spirit craving a larger field, he removed to New York."  Chatterton engaged in the wholesale, ready-made clothing business.  He retired in the 1880s.  Each year, Thomas Chatterton would return to New Haven to spend his summers at the Branford Point House.

Louisa Bishop Wiswall died in the house on September 26, 1895 at the age of 51.  Interestingly, her funeral was not held in the parlor, but at the Church of the Puritans on 130th Street at Fifth Avenue.

In 1897 Thomas Chatterton was the treasurer of the first panel of the Sheriff's Jury, a non-judicial group that assisted the Sheriff's Department in administrative work.  In January 1898, the 80-year-old attended the group's annual dinner at Delmonico's and during the evening he became ill.  He died in the 130th Street house two weeks later, on February 6.  His funeral was held in the parlor on the 9th.

Adeline Bishop Chatterton survived her husband by four years.  She died at the age of 79 on February 7, 1902.  Her funeral, too, was held in the house.

William Astor bequeathed the 130th Street row to his grandchildren, Mary, James and Sarah Van Alen.  In 1902, they sold 30 West 130th Street to Fannie and Ferdinand Braun, who operated it as a boarding house.

Among their early residents were William P. Kelly and his family, who would remain at least through 1909.  The parlor of 30 West 130th Street, which had frequently been used for funerals, was the setting of Emma Foord Kelly's marriage to Samuel Pierre Hull on October 24, 1906.

A less respectable boarder was Louisa Marcarious, who was arrested in her rooms on April 20, 1907.  Born in New Orleans in 1883, she was described by The New York Times as being "well dressed and is apparently an educated woman."  She was charged with "receiving stolen goods" from her accomplices, described by the newspaper as "two negroes" who "seemed uncouth companions for the refined-looking white woman."

The complainant against Louisa Marcarious and her cohorts was Margaret Melbourne, who said, "her home had been robbed of silverware and other property on June 4, 1906."  Some of her stolen silverware was discovered in "the rooms of the Marcarious woman and her companions."  The article said that another burglary victim had been asked to inspect "the loot recovered" in hopes they could identify "plunder stolen from his house."

Louisa Marcarious was an anomaly among the otherwise upstanding boarders, like the family of Thaddeus Moriarty, for instance, who occupied rooms in 1911.  Daughter Theresa S. Moriarty was president of the Ladies' Ursuline Provincial Auxiliary, a philanthropic and social group.  And on June 23, 1911, The New York Times reported, "Mrs. Thaddeus Moriarty and Miss Theresa S. Moriarty of 30 West 130th Street are at the North End Hotel, in Ocean Grove, N.J., until the end of August."

Susan L. Pierce purchased the house in March 1921.  She operated it as a rooming house, and among her first roomers was Elbert Butler.  He was arrested on February 1, 1923, for spitting in a subway station.  In imposing a $5 fine, the infuriated magistrate railed, "It is a disgrace the way every subway station is filled with men smoking and spitting on the platform and the track bed and nothing is done about it."

The wooden porch was painted in several colors in 1940.  via the NYC Dept of Reords & Information Services.

By the World War II era, the Harlem neighborhood was predominantly black and racial tensions were high throughout the city.  On March 19, 1943, The New York Times began an article saying, "While three Negro youths were being held in the stabbing early yesterday of a 17-year-old youth in a Harlem 'racial' fight, it was announced that 150 rookie policemen have been assigned to the Harlem area."

The incident began when, according to police, "a gang of twenty Negroes crowded around Nick Adams, 17, of 42 East 129th Street, as he was standing in front of his house."  One of the teens demanded, "Are you a white boy?"

Adams replied, "I'm a gypsy."

The gang attacked and Adams attempted to fight back until he was fatally stabbed in the back.  Police arrived in time to arrest three of the gang members, including 19-year-old James Green who lived at 30 West 130th Street.

In 1981, the house next door was vacant and boarded up, a fertile target for vandals.  photograph by Andrew Dolkart via the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission.

By the last quarter of the 20th century, the house next door was vacant and neglected.  Although the Landmarks Preservation Commission sued the owner in an effort to pressure him to repair the seriously dilapidated structure, it was demolished in 2021, leaving No. 30 isolated along what was now known as Astor Row.

image via streeteasy.com

Today there are 11 apartments in 30 West 130th Street.  More than a bit bedraggled, it nevertheless survives as part of a forward thinking community-planned project by one of Manhattan's wealthiest 19th century figures.