The 1827 William Cleary House - 41 Charlton Street

 

In 1827, Thomas Parker erected seven, identical rowhouses along the recently opened Charlton Street block between MacDougal and Varick Streets.  Two-and-a-half stories tall and faced in brick, their upscale details--marble stoops, double-doored entrances, and handsome stepped lintels-- elevated them above more modest homes rising in the neighborhood.  

The complex openwork wrought iron stoop newels terminated with pineapples and four acorns.  The motifs would have been familiar to potential owners.  For decades, the pineapple was a symbol of welcoming; and because it was the seed of the mighty oak tree, the acorn connoted strength.

William Cox and his family briefly occupied 41 Charlton Street.  Then, on January 20, 1831, "the house and lease of lot" were sold at auction.  The announcement appearing in The Evening Post described:

The house is one of those much admired two story, marble stoop and basement, opposite the Richmond-Hill House.  The rapid increase of this section of the city, the view of the river, the contiguity to one of the best markets, high ground and good water, having a well of excellent water in the back area not two feet from the kitchen, render this a desirable location for a genteel family.  The lease is from Trinity Church, and has 35 years unexpired from 1st of May next.

(As the announcement mentioned, the house sat upon Trinity Church property, known as the Trinity Farm.  While the purchaser would own the structure, he would not own the plot and would be obligated to pay annual land rent.)

Eugene L. Bell purchased the house.  But, unfortunately, his residency was short-lived.  The 32-year-old died at Bull's Ferry, New Jersey on July 24, 1833.  His rushed funeral was held at 41 Charlton Street the next afternoon--most likely before most acquaintances knew of his death.

The Charlton Street house was next occupied by the Coddington family.  Samuel Coddington was a commission merchant at 106 Water Street, and David J. Coddington was a copper smith at the same address.  The family was supplanted by John Bishop, a shipmaster, beginning in 1836.  John Jr. was a grocer on Front Street.

The Bishops left 41 Charlton Street in March 1840.  At the time, it was common for families to liquidate their household goods and start over at their new location.  An auction here on March 24, 1840 listed "genteel furniture" and expensive items, including a piano forte, French mahogany bedrooms suites, "elegant marble top centre tables," and an extensive parlor suite of "divans, sofas, ottomans, chairs."  Also sold were oil paintings, cut glass, silverware and "china dinner and tea sets."

Around this time, the owner modernized the house.  When he sold it in 1846, he boasted, "finished attic, marble mantels, Croton water, kitchen range."  The Croton Reservoir on the site of today's New York Public Library first brought running water into households who could afford it in 1842.

In the meantime, Samuel T. Armstrong had been leasing the house since the Bishop family moved out.  He and his son, Frederick W. Armstrong, operated a flour business, Samuel T. Armstrong & Son, at 23 Water Street. 

When 41 Charlton Street was sold in February 1846, the Armstrongs remained as tenants for another two years.  It was, once again, offered for rent in 1846.  Tenants continued to come and go until William Cleary purchased the house around 1867.

Cleary's business interests were far-flung.  He was a real estate agent, the proprietor of two saloons--one on Hudson Street and another on Varick Street--and by the 1870s added "drugs" and "lumber" to his resume, as well as a school trustee of the Eighth Ward Common Schools.

William Cleary and his wife had two sons, William H. and John.  It appears that Cleary's sister and brother-in-law, Ellen and Michael Sullivan, lived with the family.  When Ellen died at the age of 33 on April 21, 1868, her funeral was held in the parlor two days later.

In 1871, Cleary sold one of his saloons.  His advertisement in the New York Herald on August 10 offered, "For Sale--The lease, stock and fixtures of the old established corner Liquor Store 343 Hudson street, corner Charlton, price $350.  Apply on the premises, or to William Cleary, 41 Charlton street."  His price for the business--equal to $9,000 in 2025--seems a bargain.

Three years later, in February 1874, the Real Estate Record & Guide reported that Cleary filed plans to "raise one story; cost $1,500."  His builder carefully matched brick color and the original lintels, and installed a simple fascia board and cornice.  Only the change from Flemish bond to running bond brickwork testifies to the addition.

The 1874 cornice survived as late as 1941.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The Cleary boys were young adults by then.  William J. was working as a clerk by 1875, the year that his brother got into serious trouble.  On May 30 that year, the New-York Tribune reported that John Cleary "had a fight last night with George Green of No. 9 Varick-place, at West Third and Wooster sts.  Clary [sic] struck Green upon the head with a club, inflicting severe wounds."

Another funeral was held in the Cleary parlor on May 10, 1877.  John Sloane was the husband of Cleary's sister.  The 48-year-old had died, presumably here, on May 7.

The Cleary family left Charlton Street in 1879.  They were followed in the house by Levi Heyer, a provisions merchant in the Clinton Market.  Living with him and his wife, the former Phoebe Helme, were their teenaged sons, Henry H. and Louis F., and Phoebe's widowed mother, Margaret.

Unlike the Cleary's, the Heyers did not need the additional space.  In December 1879 they advertised one room per floor for rent.  "An American family will let three large Rooms, on first, second, and third floors, with or without Board on moderate terms."

Phoebe's mother, Margaret Helme, died at the age of 74 on December 29, 1879.  His funeral was held here on December 31.  Three years later, there was another funeral in the parlor.  Louis F. Heyer died on October 9, 1882 at the age of 21.  

In the meantime, Louis's brother was embarking on a medical degree.  In 1887 he was listed as Dr. Harold H. Heyer.  It was most likely their common profession that resulted in Dr. John P. Nolan leasing space from the family by 1889.

Dr. Nolan received a subpoena to appear in court in June that year.  Elizabeth Ann Goodrich, alias Swan, was accused of  "a pious fraud," as worded by District Attorney William Jerome.  For years, he charged, she had collected money "for an aged woman named Goodrich" and her husband, "a paralytic," from well-to-do merchants.  Nolan had been summoned because he "could testify that Mrs. Goodrich's husband was really a paralytic."  The sometimes testy doctor, however, "had torn up the subpoena...and declared that he would not come to court," reported The Sun on June 27.

Dr. Nolan was arrested.  "He explained that he had torn up the subpoena because he had been bothered a good deal by Mrs. Goodrich and did not believe that the subpoena is a legal document.  In fact, he did not read it," said the article.  It concluded, "The Doctor paid the fine, and tried to look pleasant."

New Yorkers were incensed when they read the death of police officer George Davis in the newspapers on August 3, 1892.  He had fallen ill during duty the previous day, and was taken to Dr. Nolan's office here.  The Evening World reported, "The doctor is said to have declared that Davis's ailment was not serious."  In the cab on the way to his home, Davis died.

The damning coverage threatened to severely damage Nolan's reputation.  That evening a reporter visited him at 41 Charlton Street where he found the doctor "very indignant about the statement imputed to him."

He said the officer had been in his office for more than half an hour, "too sick to walk."  He diagnosed him with "acute cholera morbus," gave him medicine, and advised him "to go to a hospital, as I considered his home too far for him to be carried even in a hack."  He denied, "that I treated his sickness as something trifling."

Nolan treated a bizarre case following the election in November 1893.  Fred Holmes was a longshoreman and a Democrat who lived at 274 Spring Street.  That year, the Tammany candidate was defeated.  Although his wife tried to comfort him saying, "There will be another election next year," Holmes replied, "But they beat Hill and I want to die."

Dr. Nolan was called in.  He "prescribed the usual remedies for post-election paralysis," said The Sun.  Holmes went to sleep and his wife went to her housework.  An hour later, Holmes walked in the room and said, "Well, Mary, I guess I fooled you this time,"

"Of course you did, Fred.  Now do sit down.  Maybe the Democrats will win next time."

Holmes told her he did not have long, "I have just taken a big dose of carbolic acid."  Nolan was called back, this time accompanied by a priest.  Fortunately, Nolan was in time, and Holmes survived.  

Although the Heyer family moved from 41 Charlton Street around 1893, Nolan remained.  When he married in 1906, he and his bride moved to West 112th Street, but he kept his office in the Charlton Street house.

Ten years later, Elizabeth Nolan sued him in State Supreme Court to set aside a separation agreement she had signed in 1913.  She had agreed to accept $5 a month and give up her dower right.  (A dower right would have given her claims to real estate in the eventuality of a divorce.)  The Sun reported on April 7, 1916,  "They lived in the same apartment but did not speak, and Mrs. Nolan said that her husband so terrified her by his threats that she signed the agreement."

In 1917, Trinity Church sold 17 of the 375 dwellings it owned in Greenwich Village.  Among the buyers was William S. Coffin, who purchased numerous properties, including 41 Charlton Street.  He converted the house to studio apartments, advertising one of them in May 1918 as, "two large, light rooms, kitchenette and bath, electric light, stem heat, hot water, fireplaces."  The parlor floor was leased to the St. Hilda Guild Art School.

Living here in the early 1940s was journalist Edwin S. McIntosh.  Starting out just after World War I, he worked in several cities before moving to New York City in 1919 and joining The Sun.  When he moved into 41 Charlton Street, he was a political reporter for the New York Herald Tribune.  He covered the Sacco-Vanzetti execution and, according to the Daily World in 1944, reported on "virtually every political campaign in the last fifteen years."

McIntosh fell ill in the summer of 1943.  Six months later, on January 12, 1944, he died at the age of 55 in Lenox Hill Hospital.  Saying that he was "known to political figures and reporters everywhere as Ned," the Daily World reported that his funeral in Campbell's Funeral Home on Madison Avenue was "simple."

At some point around this time, the cornice was removed from 41 Charlton Street.  A photograph after mid-century shows a brick parapet trimmed with the diminutive cornice that we see today.

Although no Certificate of Occupancy is on file to document the conversion of apartments to a single family home, a listing for 41 Charlton Street in 1993 clearly confirms that.  It describes a "6-bedroom, 2 1/2 bath, 4-story one-family 1829 [sic] town house; dining room, eat-in kitchen, library, study, 8 fireplaces, original molding and detail."  

The house was purchased in 1999 by art dealer Lisa Spellman for $2.7 million.  She told Constance Rosenblum of The New York Times in 2010, it had been home to "Robert Morgenthau, the longtime Manhattan District Attorney, who was married here, and a fashion designer named Catherine Shannon, a great-granddaughter of Henri Matisse."

In 2010, Spellman authorized Oliver Stone to film here, as the home of actress Carey Mulligan's character in Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.

photographs by the author

The 1827 James R. Sayre House- 29 Charlton Street

 

A mason, James R. Sayre erected a home for himself and his family at 29 Charlton Street in 1826.  At the time, the former country estate on which it stood was seeing a flurry of development as dozens of Federal-style residences similar to Sayre's were being built.  Moving into the new house with the Sayre family were James Barnes, a mason, and John Voorhees, who was a carpenter.  It is quite possible that the two men helped build 29 Charlton Street.

Similar to its neighbors, the house was two-and-a-half stories tall.  Faced in Flemish bond brick, its peaked roof would have had two dormers.  The single-doored entrance below a handsome leaded transom was framed by delicate rope molding.

The house became home to another mason, James Webb, in the mid-1830s.  His family, too, took in a boarder.  In 1836 it was David King, a carter.  By 1845, James Webb had moved down the block to 43 Charlton Street and No. 29 was occupied by Thomas D. Rice, an actor.  

Eliphalet Bootman and his family purchased the house around 1850.  Born in 1803, Bootman was a partner in the painting firm Bootman & Smith, which had offices at 309 Spring Street and 31 Corlears Slip.  Highly involved in public education, for years Eliphalet was a commissioner of the Board of Education.

He and his wife, Catharine G., had two sons, Robert W. and Lieff.  Both young men worked in their father's business, Robert as the firm's accountant.  While it appears his parents worshiped at St. John's Chapel,  Robert was involved with St. Ambrose Church on the corner of Prince and Thompson Streets.  In 1852, he was appointed the treasurer of The Friendly Society of St. Ambrose Church.

Living with the family by 1859 was Snap, a "black and tan dog."  On November 13 that year, the Bookmans placed an ad in the New York Herald, saying that Snap had been lost or stolen.  They offered a $5 reward (about $190 in 2025) to anyone returning him.

In 1860, Eliphalet took over the operation of Bootman & Smith, renaming it E. Bootman & Sons.  Lieff no longer lived with the family at the time, suggesting that he had married.

Around 1862, Bookman raised the attic to a full floor.  His builder, somewhat surprisingly, carried on the Flemish bond brickwork.  Rather than a foliate-bracketed cornice, so popular at the time, the house received a simple wooden cornice with no-nonsense corbels.

Eliphalet Bookman died on November 4, 1869 at the age of 66.  His funeral, interestingly, was not held in the parlor of the family's home, but at St. John's Chapel. 

Shortly afterward, Elizabeth Thompson moved into the house with Robert and Catharine.  Apparently a relative of the family, she was the widowed mother of Elizabeth Hathaway Thompson Peck.  Both the Thompson-Peck and Bookman families had roots in Newburgh, New York.  Elizabeth died on February 2, 1876 at the age of 91.

Robert W. Bookman, who appears to have never married, remained highly involved with St. Ambrose Church.  In 1878, Taintor's Route and City Guides: City of New York listed 29 Charlton Street as the headquarters for the Friendly Society of St. Ambrose Church for the Relief of the Aged.

By then, another of the Thompson-Peck family, Thomas L. Peck, was sharing 29 Charlton Street.  And in 1881, following the death of her husband, Robert Edgar, Elizabeth Thompson Peck and her daughter, Helen Hathaway Peck, moved in.

Catharine G. Bootman died on May 1, 1884 at the age of 76.  Her funeral was held in the parlor two days later.

Robert Bootman was now outnumbered by Pecks in his longtime home.  Thomas L. Peck was listed here as late as 1891.  The house was the scene of Helen's wedding reception on January 7, 1897.  She was married to Lester T. Parsons in St. Luke's Chapel on Hudson Street.  The New-York Tribune noted, "The reception was attended by about one hundred guests."  The newlyweds moved far north, to 26 Manhattan Avenue in Harlem.

On June 3, 1903, Robert W. Bootman died.  His funeral was held in the house on June 5 and, like the Bootmans and Pecks previously, he was buried in Newburgh, New York.  The house was bequeathed to John E. Gunn and his wife, the former Rose Carmichael.  Gunn's father, Rev. D. G. Gunn, had been pastor of St. Ambrose Church in the 1870s.

After John E. Gunn's death in February 1917, the house was purchased by Ellen Millett Hoyt, the widow of Russell Pratt Hoyt who died in 1905.  Living with her were her two unmarried daughters, Frances Millett and Grace Elizabeth.  They were 51 and 44 years old in 1917 respectively.

Living with the Hoyts from 1918 to 1920 was Collier's magazine editor and writer, Lucian Cary.  He had begun as a reporter for The Chicago Tribune in 1910, and had joined Collier's in 1916.  He would go on to become a well-known novelist, short story writer, and a leading authority on firearms.

Ellen Millett Hoyt died here on October 1, 1920 at the age of 76.  Two years later, an advertisement in the Yonkers, New York Statesman read,

The Misses Hoyt announce the opening of their dancing classes in the Nappeckamack Club, Saturday morning, October 28th.  Classes for children and adults in fancy, folk, aesthetic, national, ball room and toe dancing.  For terms and further information address The Misses Hoyt, 29 Charlton Street, New York.

Grace Hoyt sold the house in 1926.  It was home to diverse residents over the next decades, including D'Arcy Parrott Reynolds, a 1920 graduate of Princeton University.  While living here in 1933, he organized Parrott & Stewart, an investment counseling firm.

Daniel A. Reed and his wife lived here at mid-century.  In 1959, they participated in the annual Greenwich Village Garden Tour.  On April 23, The Villager announced that among the nine "hidden gardens" on the tour was "Mr. and Mrs. Daniel A. Reed's garden and pool."

The nearly 200-year-old Sayre house remains a single-family home.  

photographs by the author

The 1828 39 Charlton Street

 

The change in brick color testifies to the 1871 raising of the attic to a full floor.

Among the streets laid out by John Jacob Astor I around 1817 on the grounds of Richmond Hill (the former estate of Aaron Burr), was Charlton Street.  It was named in honor of Dr. John Charlton, the president of the New York Medical Society.  Astor began filling the block between Varick Street and Sixth Avenue with brick-faced homes.

In the summer of 1828, an arsonist set fire to the two unfinished houses at 37 and 39 Charlton Street, nearly destroying them.  (He would be back a few months later, on October 12, torching two more homes--at 32 and 35 Charlton Street.)  Carpenter-builders John Gridley and Samuel Martin partnered to purchase and rebuild 37 and 39 Charlton Street.  Their completed houses were noticeably grander than the middle-class homes that lined the block.

Twenty-five-feet wide and two-and-a-half-stories tall with two dormers, their marble stoops rose to elegant entranceways.  Here fluted marble columns and half columns on either side of the door flanked delicately leaded sidelights.  Intricately carved foliate bands outlined the leaded transom, which sat within a frame of panels and rosettes.

Martin and Gridley held title to 37 and 39 Charlton Street respectively.  Gridley appears to have initially rented his house.  Sharing it in 1827 and 1828 were Tunis Banta, a cartman who was currently erecting several homes in Greenwich Village; Samuel Martin, a carpenter; and teacher of elocution, William E. Shadgett.

For much of the 1830s, 39 Charlton Street was home to merchant Reuben Vose.  Born on February 19, 1796 in Milton, Massachusetts, he married Sarah F. Hunting in March 1825.  The couple had two children, Sarah Louise and John Gorham.  In 1860, Vose would write The Life and Speeches of Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin.

By then, the Vose family had been gone from Charlton Street for two decades.  In 1840, 39 Charlton became home to drygoods merchant Justus Earle, who lived here until moving to Waverly Place in 1851.  William Williams and his wife next occupied the house.  Williams appears to have continually reinvented himself.  In 1853 he listed his profession as "manager," in 1856 as "accountant," and in 1860 as "barber."  

In May 1854, the couple advertised, "Rooms to Let--The whole second floor, four rooms, to let to one or two single gentlemen or to a gentleman and his wife only.  Apply at 39 Charlton street."

The house continued to see a relatively rapid succession of occupants.  The family of fancygoods dealer James W. C. Anderson lived here in the early to mid-1860s, followed by Henry Miller, who operated a shoe business on Union Place.  The Miller family moved in around 1867 and would remain at least through 1873.  In 1871, Miller raised the attic to a full third floor.  Rather than installing a modern cornice in the currently popular Italianate style, Miller's builder either reused the original dentiled cornice and fascia board, or refashioned a similar one.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

In 1871, the year that Miller enlarged the house, Patrick and Catharine Meehan McKenna moved into 42 King Street, a block to the north.  Their one-year-old son Peter Joseph died there on November 20, 1871.  Although they retained possession of the King Street house, in 1876 they moved into 39 Charlton Street, renting it from John W. Ferdon.  Their landlord lived in Piermont, New York.

Patrick McKenna listed his profession as "liquors," which could refer to a liquor store or a saloon.  In his case, he had two locations, at 109 and 172 Varick Street.  

Living with the couple was Catharine's widowed mother, Mary Meehan.  The 65-year-old died on December 2, 1877 "after a painful illness," according to the New York Herald.  Her funeral was held in the house, followed by a solemn requiem mass at the Church of St. Anthony of Padua on December 5.

Having sold the King Street house around 1879, the McKennas purchased 39 Charlton Street from John W. Ferdon in February 1884 for $4,500 (about $144,000 in 2025).  They occupied it into the early years of the 20th century.

By 1917, Mary Helen Hall Smith occupied 39 Charlton Street.  She was the widow of John Jewell Smith, who died in 1901.  Living with her was at least one of her six children, Jewell Kellogg Smith, who was 27 years old in 1917.  His engagement to Margaret Shearer was announced on October 20 that year.  The elevated social-economic status of both families was evidenced in The Sun's mentioning, "The bride to be was graduated from Bryn Mawr and Mr. Smith from Princeton in the class of 1914."

William S. Coffin purchased 14 "old dwellings," as described by the New-York Tribune, in August 1919, including 39 Charlton Street.  A month later he sold it to Anne T. Safford.  She paid $10,000 for the property, or about $176,000 today.

Safford retained ownership until 1927, when she sold it to Dr. Anthony Garbarino.  He hired architect Frank B. Zontanaro to convert the top floor to an apartment in 1937.

Three decades after the physician moved in, on April 23, 1959, The Villager reported that Dr. Garbarino had sold the house to "Mr. and Mrs. Gilbert Kiggins and Miss Barbara Comfort," noting, "The purchasers bought the property for all cash for their own use."  The article mentioned that Garbarino "has owned it since 1927." 

The buyers initiated a renovation, completed in 1960.  It resulted in a duplex apartment in the basement and parlor floor, and another in the upper two stories.

In 1917 the attic of 37 Charlton Street was raised, making it and 39 Charlton Street once again identical.  The Landmarks Preservation Commission has called them, "Perhaps the two most important houses [in the district] in age, richness of style, scale and perfection of preservation."

photographs by the author

The Michael H. Norton House - 42 Charlton Street

 

Thomas B. Ridder was a successful tobacco merchant and a councilman.  In 1851 he was leasing the newly-built, three-story house at 42 Charlton Street, erected by E. Young.  Above the brownstone basement, the house was faced in warm red brick.  The paneled piers flanking the entrance were a handsome and unusual detail.  The building's simple wooden cornice was typical of the style.

Sharing the house was the Samuel Cohen family.  Samuel and Dinah Cohen had a daughter, Mary.  Samuel was a fur merchant on Water Street.  Sadly, Mary died after a short illness on September 29, 1852 at the age of 13.

On February 8, 1853, 42 Charlton Street was sold at auction.  The announcement described the 23-foot-wide home as "built with the modern improvements.  Gas introduced into the house."  It added, "Chandeliers go with the house."

The purchaser paid $8,400 (about $342,000 in 2025 terms) for the house, which he continued to lease.  The Riddles and Cohens remained through 1855, after which Moses Souza, an importer, and Rev. Morgan Dix moved in.

Born on November 1, 1827, Dix was the son of Major General John Adams Dix, a U.S. Senator from 1845 to 1849, Secretary of the Treasury in 1861, Governor of New York from 1873 to 1874, and a notable figure during the Civil War.  Rev. Morgan was assistant minister of Trinity Church.

Rev. Dix and the Souza family remained until the spring of 1863.  In April the house was offered "for sale or to let."  By now, according to the ad, running water had been introduced.

It was purchased by Dr. Edward Fields.  Living with him and his wife, Iodema, were their daughter Jennie and her husband John D. Slayback.  In April 1865, the population of the house increased by one with the birth of the Slaybacks' daughter, also named Jennie.  Four months later, on August 17, the infant died.  Her funeral was held in the parlor.

It was most likely the Fields who modernized the house.  Italianate stoop railings and hefty newels were installed and the parlor windows were extended nearly to the floor.

Dr. Fields was drawn into a scandalous case in 1865.  On the night of September 25, Dr. Grindle, who ran a lying-in hospital brought a patient, Lucy Sagendorf, to the boarding house of Mary Julia Rolf.  According to Mary, he had told her that Lucy "had inflammation of the bowels."  The doctor's wife stayed with Lucy overnight.  The next evening, Mrs. Grindle brought a young man, James J. Hicks, and after about ten minutes, according to Mary Rolf, Mrs. Grindle came down in great haste and inquired of me whether she could find a minister."  Before long, Rev. Dr. J. K. Wardle arrived and performed a marriage at the bedside.

Mary Rolf became concerned around midnight, and sent for Dr. Fields.  He later told investigators, "she was very pale and...she complained of intense pain in the intestines."  He noted, "she had been leeched."  When he asked Mary if Lucy had been treated by another physician, she said no, apparently protecting Dr. Grindle.  Fields visited Lucy that afternoon, and she died later that night.  He issued a death certificate citing the cause of death as peritonitis.

Dr. Grindle's lying-in hospital (a facility for pregnant women) doubled as an illegal abortion clinic, as it turned out.  And Mary Julia Rolf's boarding house was often used for the recuperating women.  Rolf testified on September 27, "I have recently had two cases of confinement and about twenty cases of miscarriage in my house."  In the trial that followed, Fields had to defend himself against suspicion of collaborating in the fatal abortion by having falsely listed the cause of death.

Dr. Edward Fields died in 1866.  Iodema sold the house to Michael H. and Marietta L. Norton in June 1870 for $30,000 (about $723,000 today).  Born in Ireland in 1838, Michael H. Norton was brought to New York as a child.  He "developed into an athlete and acquired considerable science as a sparrer," said The Sun.  He gave up boxing for politics and was elected an alderman in 1864 and to the State Senate in 1868.  Also elected to the Senate that year was William M. Tweed, later known as "Boss" Tweed, and the two became close friends.

Living with Michael and Marietta were Michael's brothers Peter and Edward.  (Another brother, John, and his family lived nearby at 50 King Street.)  

The Charlton Street house was again the scene of a funeral on May 21, 1871.  Edward H. Norton died at the age of 25.  The Sun reported that the parlor was filled members of several political groups, who followed the procession to the Church of St. Anthony of Padua afterward for a solemn requiem mass.

Michael Norton's generosity kept him from amassing wealth.  His financial condition was hinted at in an article on December 4, 1872 in The Evening Telegram, which said,

Yesterday Senator Michael Norton left his house, 42 Charlton street, with a large diamond stud fastening his shirt collar.  He got into a Bleecker street car and rode down to the Court of Special Sessions.  Soon afterward he discovered that while the gold setting remained attached to his collar the diamond was missing.  The Senator is a poor man, and can illy afford to lose so large a diamond.  He will pay a liberal reward for its return.

Peter Norton and his wife had a son, John M., in 1866.  The little boy died at the age of 7 on June 7, 1873.  The New York Herald reported on June 9, "The funeral will take place from the residence of his uncle, Michael Norton, No. 42 Charlton street, at twelve o'clock to-day."

Michael H. Norton, The Sun, April 24, 1889 (copyright expired)

In 1885 Michael H. Norton was appointed a justice in the District Court with a salary of $6,000 (about $196,000 today).

On April 23, 1889, The New York Sun reported, "Civil Justice Michael Norton is lying dangerously ill at his residence, 42 Charlton street."  The 55-year-old judge had slipped and fallen a week earlier resulting, according to the newspaper, "as he is a heavy man, in serious internal injuries."   The New York Evening World remarked, "Justice Norton is one of the most widely known and popular public men in New York.  He has earned a good deal of money in his lifetime, but has been so generous and charitable that he has remained poor."

Norton died just before midnight in the Charlton Street house on April 23, 1889.  Two days later, The Evening World reported, "The modest, old-fashioned house No. 42 Charlton street, in which Civil Justice Michael Norton passed the latter years of his life, was this morning visited by throngs of friends and admirers of the dead leader, who came to take a last look at his face and to condole with his family."

Amazingly, the day after Norton's death, his brother John died.  The Evening World remarked, "When he died he did not know that Michael had passed away twenty-three hours previously."

On April 26, The Evening World reported on Michael Norton's funeral.

A sweet, languorous perfume from a room full of flowers drifted through the open doors of the old-fashioned mansion at 42 Charlton street this morning.

In the centre of the room, in the midst of the perfume-giving flowers, stood a crape-covered casket containing the earthly remains of Civil Justice Michael Norton, who in life was called "The Thunderbolt."

Among the mourners were prominent politicians like Mayor Hugh J. Grant, Tammany bigwig Richard Croker, aldermen and a senator.  The Evening World remarked, "In the street in front of the house there were hundreds of people who had known and loved Mike Norton."

Marietta L. Norton sold the house to John C. and Catherine McGinn in July 1891 for $20,000 (about $691,000 in 2025).  Living with the couple were their adult children: Edward F., who was in the bottle business; Mary T. Sinnott and her husband; and Julia L. Bishop, her husband, and their young son, James.  Another son, Jonathan J. Bishop, lived elsewhere.

Despite what must have been snug conditions, they took in a boarder.  In 1892, Norman J. Osborne, a clerk, lived here; and in 1894 and 1895 Elizabeth Schaefer, a widow, lived with the family.

On August 21, 1904, James Bishop, now a teenager, placed an advertisement in the New York Herald looking for a job.  He obviously had not yet settled on a career path.  "Young man (17) wishes a position at anything.  James Bishop, 42 Charlton st."  Seven years later, however, he seems to have charted a course for himself, and applied to the city for a job as a police patrolman.

By March 20, 1915, the McGinn siblings had inherited the house in equal shares.  It was sold in November 1920 to their tenants, Lucy and Joseph Tomasullo.  Like Michael Norton, Tomasullo was a former boxer, known in the ring as Kid Thomas.  He now was a part owner of the White Poodle cabaret at 216 Bleecker Street.

While the Tomasullos were still renting 42 Charlton Street, the White Poodle was the scene of violence.  The New York Morning Telegraph reported that when members of the Hudson Dusters Gang attempted to rob the restaurant, it became "the scene of a battle" with police.  One patrolman, Michael Batto, was stabbed in the face.

On the morning of December 26, 1923, Joseph Tomasullo left an apartment at 216 Hancock Street where The New York Times said, "several men had been playing cards."  An assailant who was lying in wait in the hall shot him twice.  The New York Morning Telegraph said one of the bullets, "entered the chest and ploughed its way to the heart, and the other lodged in the left side."  

Tomasullo's brother Anthony heard the shots "and found his brother on the floor of the hallway," reported The New York Times.  He took him in a taxi to St. Vincent's Hospital where he was pronounced dead.  Police surmised that Tomasullo was "the victim of a Greenwich Village gamblers' feud."

It is unclear how long Lucy Tomasullo remained at 42 Charlton Street.  By the last decades of the century, the house received a coat of blue paint.

The house in 1983 retained the stone stoop railings and flat lintels, and was painted blue.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

In 2009, The Little Red School House, which owned the former Elisabeth Irwin High School next door, purchased the house and hired the architectural firm ABA Studio to connect the structures internally.  Included in the extensive renovations was the removal of the blue paint, and the addition of molded window cornices.  Writing in Curbed on February 22, 2010, Peter Davies reported, "From the street it all looks perfectly historical...But behind the landmarked facade there's all sorts of new stuff."

photographs by the author

The Marietta Zanfretta House - 22 Charlton Street

 

George Paulding erected three identical, brick-faced houses at 20 to 24 Charlton Street in 1826.  Each just under 19-feet wide, they were two-and-a-half stories tall.  While more upscale homes on the block had elegant doorways with fluted columns and leaded sidelights, these had modest entrances with simple pilasters and transoms.

No. 22 appears to have been initially rented.  In 1827, the families of Dr. John F. Gray and James Perkins, a broker, shared the house.  It was no doubt Dr. Gray who placed the anonymous ad in the New York Morning Courier on June 3, 1828:

Notice--German Anatomy--Whoever bought a volume of Explanation of Mayer's Anatomical Plates, at Henry's auction room, in February or March, last, will find a purchaser of the same (if disposed to sell) by calling at 132 Fulton, or 22 Charlton street.  The volume in question is a small folio and in the German tongue.

The two families soon moved on--the Grays to 28 Vesey Street and the Perkins family to 37 Charlton Street.  In 1830, the Joseph Finch family occupied 22 Charlton Street.  They suffered a heartbreaking loss on August 30 that year, when their seven-month-old daughter, Elizabeth Margaret, died.  Her funeral was held in the parlor on September 1.

It was most likely while a new tenant was moving in in 1836 that thieves made off with unusual items.  A notice in the New York Morning Courier on May 27 read:

10 dollars reward--stolen from No. 22 Charton street, one Brussel Rug, red, white and yellow ground, 10 or 12 yards, three-fourth damask Venetian stair carpet.  Also, large blue table cloth cover.  Pawn-brokers and others are requested to stop if offered for sale, and shall be entitled to the above reward.

A rapid succession of tenants came and went through the next decades.  In October 1870, a "well-to-do Texas family named Denis" arrived in New York "and took up their residence at 22 Charlton street," according to The New York Sun.  Their eldest son, Edward, was about 15 years old and found a job in a bookstore near the Cooper Union.  The New York Sun said, "His habits were studious and domestic."

On April 10, 1871, Edward left work and headed home.  Four days later, The New York Sun reported he, "was seen at Eighth street and Fourth avenue, but since that time he has been missing.  His employers speak of him in the highest terms."  It is unclear if the teen was ever found.

No. 22 Charlton Street finally found a long-term resident around 1880 in Marietta Zanfretta, also known as Madame Siegrist.   Born in Venice, Austria, in 1832, The World said, "She had been a marchioness, a clown's wife, an acrobat, a tight-rope walker, a dancer, a chanteuse, an impresario, a modiste, an artist and what not besides."  

An early cabinet card depicted Maria Zanfretta in costume.

She grew up in a family that performed in circuses and became a favorite of audiences because of her skill on the tightrope.  She performed pirouettes and somersaults above enthralled audiences.  Following her marriage to Francois Siegrist, the two organized the Zanfretta Troupe, which included Marietta's brother, Alexander; and Francois's brother, Auguste.

Francois Siegrist died in 1878.  On May 17, 1881, The New York Times recalled, "Mrs. Marietta Siegrist...under the stage name of Marie Zanfretti [sic], some years ago was a performer on the tight-rope, and her husband was noted as a pantomimist.  Mrs. Siegrist is reported to be well off.  She lives in good style in Charlton-street, in a house which she owns."  Living with Marietta in the Charlton Street house were Alexander Zanfretta and Marietta's grown daughter, Blanche Siegrist, a "serio comic" whose stage name was Anneta L. Siegrist.

In March 1881, Marietta took in a boarder, Themoleon Calteau, described by The New York Times as, "a young Frenchman, who claims to be an educated electrician."  Blanche Siegrist, whom The Times said was "a young and prepossessing woman," caught Calteau's romantic eye.  Blanche spurned his "marked attentions," but Themoleon Calteau was undeterred.  He "continued his attentions until they became persecutions," according to the newspaper.

Finally, on Sunday evening, May 15, Marietta called her boarder into the parlor.  Blanche was already there.  When Marietta told him he could no longer remain in her house, he snapped, drawing a large revolver from his coat.  Blanche screamed and ran to her room, directly over the parlor.  According to Marietta, Calteau exclaimed, "Ah, that is it.  Since you will not give your daughter to me no one else shall have her."

When he heard Blanche's footsteps over his head, he fired three times into the ceiling.  The New York Times reported, "The bullets passed through the ceiling of the parlor and the floor of the room above, but without doing any further damage."  Calteau threw the revolver to the floor and ran out of the house.  He was arrested shortly afterward.

In 1883, Marietta married Francois (known as Frank) Victor Kenebel.  He listed his profession as "actor" as the time, and as "manager" in 1892.

In the meantime, Blanche had married the well-known athlete William J. "Billy" Madden, a champion boxer, trainer and manager.  He was, as well, an author, playwright and sports promoter and until 1891 ran the Athletic Hall.  By the fall of 1892, Blanche was back in the Charlton Street house.  On September 17, The Evening World reported that she sought, "her most novel divorce suit from a common law marriage."  As it turned out, according to Blanche, "Billy fixed up a fake marriage certificate at the store of his friend George Block in Harlem, to fool her mother, who couldn't read English.  They lived together a long time, and acknowledge each other as man and wife."

But when Marietta refused to lend him money on July 15, 1892, "Billy got mad" and the next day the notice of his marriage to Eileen McGuinness at Mechanicville, New York was published.  Despite the notice, there was no record of the marriage with the village clerk.  Blanche stressed that despite the lack of marital documentation, Billy and Eileen were living together and "therefore she asks for a divorce," said The Evening World.

Alexander Zanfretta, called by the New York Herald "a professional dancer and acrobat," would also be having domestic problems before long.  His second wife, Emma, was a dancer.  The newspaper said, "The Zanfrettas, husband and wife, appeared at Miner's Eighth Avenue Theatre in the spring of 1895."  During that appearance, they met railroad mogul Andrew Anderson, Sr. and his wife.  Before long, Mrs. Anderson, was imploring her husband to cease his attentions to Emma Zanfretta.  The New York Herald reported, "Zanfretta says his wife on May 1, 1895, left him, and took up her residence with Anderson not long afterward.

Zanfretta moved back to Marietta's house.  A year later, he was appearing at a Coney Island music hall, when he looked into the audience and saw his wife and Anderson.  Following his act, he changed into his street clothes, went into the auditorium, and "struck Anderson several times in the face, continuing the assault until he was dragged away," according to the New York Herald.  In August 1897, he began divorce proceedings and filed damages against Anderson.

On March 20, 1898, The World began a lengthy article saying, "The head and progenitor of the most numerous and talented family of dancers, pantomimists, acrobats and chanteuses in all the world, died unnoticed in this city the other day."  Marietta Zanfretta Siegrist Kenebel had died on February 8.

The Charlton Street house almost immediately became home to James Drury.  He was the secretary of the Continental League, which railed against the United States' imperialistic expansion beyond the North American continent.  On January 9, 1899, The Evening Post reported that the group met "to oppose the permanent retention of the Philippine Islands and entangling alliances with any European Power."

In 1919, William Sloane Coffin and his wife, Katherine, began buying up vintage houses in the neighborhood.  In August alone, they purchased 14 properties, including 22 Charlton Street.  They raised the attic to a full floor, giving it paired sets of casement windows.  The Coffins sold the remodeled house in November 1921.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The vintage house was renovated again in 1987, resulting in a basement apartment and single-family home on the three main floors.  It drew the attention of entertainer Taylor Swift in the winter of 2014.  On January 15, Metro reported she "checked out" the $6.25 million property.  The star told Vanity Fair that she buys, "houses near every boy I like."  In the end, she did not purchase 22 Charlton Street.

photograph by the author

The Lost Jenssen Drugstore and McKenna Saloon - 172 Varick Street

 

The sign on the window, Apotheke, reflects the drugstore's German owner.  taken June 13, 1913, from Colonial Architecture In New York City, 1913 (copyright expired)

Around 1824, the two-and-a-half story house and store was erected at the northwest corner of Varick and Charlton Streets.  Unlike the neighboring houses, the Federal architecture of which featured peaked roofs, this building had a gambrel roof that harkened to the Dutch houses that once lined the streets of Lower Manhattan.  Faced in Flemish bond brick on the front and clapboards on the Varick Street side, its attic level had an arched window below the gable that mimicked those in the dormers.

The original occupant of the upper floors seems to have been Catharine Moncrieff, listed here in 1827.  By 1830, William Cornell, a "measurer of grain," and his family lived here.

Around 1840, Lewis Radford moved his family into the upper floor and established his L. & T. Radford grocery in the store.  He and his brother, Thomas, operated another grocery store at 653 Greenwich Street, as well.

The Radford grocery made way to Patrick Boylan's saloon around 1854.  Boylan had another saloon at 68 Broome Street.  By now, the upper portion was operated as a boarding house.  Along with the Boylans in 1854, William Brown, a painter, boarded here and would remain at least through 1857.  

By 1859, William H. Cleary and Charles Stammler owned 172 Varick Street, and around that time, Cleary became a partner in Boylan's saloon.  The boarding house portion was now operated by Mary A. Wallace, whose husband Alexander, was an engineer.  

On October 14, 1861, Mary visited the village of Fort Washington in the northern part of Manhattan.  When she returned, she discovered her small purse was gone.  Her advertisement in the New York Herald the following day read:

Lost--On Monday morning, on the Hudson River Railroad, half-past-nine train leaving Fort Washington, a Portemonnaie, containing about $50, the earnings of a hard working woman.  The finder will be liberally rewarded by leaving it at 172 Varick street, corner of Charlton, with Mrs. Wallace.

Alexander Wallace died at the age of 47 on July 14, 1864.  His funeral was held in the house the following afternoon.  Mary A. Wallace would continue to operate the boarding house for a decade.

The saloon, in the meantime, became P. J. McQueeney & Co. around 1867, run by Edward and Patrick J. McQueeney.  The brothers lived at 55 Charlton and 229 W. Houston Street, respectively.  The saloon changed hands again in 1870 when Patrick McKenna, who had a second saloon at 107 Varick Street, took over the lease.  McKenna and his wife, Catharine, lived at 89 Charlton Street.

An improbable situation began in 1880 when William H. Cleary and Charles Stammler divided the ground floor to two spaces.  While Patrick McKenna continued his saloon here, the owners gave the second lease to Charles F. Jenssen for his drugstore.  It was most likely at this point that the corner entrance was added.

The unconventional bedfellows seem to have coexisted well.  The Irish saloonkeeper and the German pharmacist were well-known in their respective professions.  In 1888, Patrick McKenna was on the committee of the annual ball held by the Wine, Liquor, and Beer Dealers' Central Association at the Metropolitan Opera House in March.

A month earlier, Charles F. Jenssen was involved in the death of the two-year-old daughter of William Seiberg, a shoemaker who lived at 241 Spring Street.  According to the New York Press on February 27, 1888, the girl, "died from the effects of poison put up by mistake by the clerk of Charles F. Jensen [sic], a druggist at 172 Varick street."  Jenssen was exonerated by Deputy coroner William T. Jenkins, who said the toddler died of "diphtheria and scarlet fever" and that the poison "did not in his opinion hasten the child's death," reported the New York Press.

Interestingly, in 1893, the Heath Department distributed "Culture Outfits" to certain pharmacies.  The kits, free of cost, would be used to detect diphtheria in suspected patients.  The Health Department's Annual Report that year noted that the Jenssen pharmacy was one of those "stations."  In 1900, the Jenssen store was officially deemed a "Health Board Station."  Here, said The Medical Directory of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, physicians could obtain, "culture Outfits, Bottles for Sputa, Antitoxin, etc."

A bizarre incident occurred on July 8, 1905.  The New York Sun explained that Mrs. Annie Shaughnessy, who lived on Charles Street, was on Broadway near Bleecker Street when she, "blew her nose in a handkerchief that contained a pin, then snuffed the pin up her nose."  The 30-year-old realized what she had done, and made it as far as the Jenssen pharmacy, "when she became hysterical."  A police man responded, who took Mrs. Shaughnessy to St. Vincent's Hospital, "where the pin was soon removed," reported the article.

Around the time of Annie Shaughnessy's unfortunate pin incident, George H. Brennan took over the saloon portion of the ground floor.  The family lived upstairs, including his adult sons William and Joseph R.

On the evening of March 15, 1907, George Brennan, described by The New York Times as, "an elderly man, who runs a saloon at 172 Varick Street," went uptown to attend the Hammerstein's Victoria Theatre on Times Square.  As he started across the street, he was knocked down by a wagon.  George told the driver "It wasn't your fault; drive along now."  The article said, "He also tipped a boy who brushed him off and another who picked up his spectacles."

Police Sergeant Archie Taggart, "the giant of the traffic squad, an old friend," according to The Times, rushed over to see if Brennan was all right.  George lamented to him,

It's a shame.  Why couldn't this have happened two days later?  I took out an accident policy only this morning, but if I put in a claim to the company for this they'd say it was a fake.  Such luck!

Later that year, William H. Brennan had a much more serious encounter with the law.  Unlike his brother, who worked in their father's saloon, William worked at Feltman's Pavilion in Coney Island.  When the manager, Jesse F. Sherwood, fired him that summer, he suspected that Brennan, "harbored a grudge."

On the night of August 20, Sherwood was told that Brennan was "hanging around with a gun."  The Brooklyn Standard Union reported, "Believing that a stich in time saves nine, Sherwood didn't wait for Brennan to get 'mussy.'"  He had several waiters seize and frisk him.  They found a loaded revolver.  He was arrested for carrying a concealed weapon, although Brennan pleaded innocent.

William H. Cleary died in the spring of 1914.  His estate noted he still owned "one half interest in equity" of 172 Varick Street.  At the time, the Jenssen pharmacy and the Brennan saloon still occupied the ground floor.  But they--and the venerable building as well--would soon be gone.  

When this photograph was taken in 1912, the relic had less than two years left. from the collection of the New York Public Library.

On February 25, 1912, The Sun had reported on the proposed widening of Varick Street.  "To carry out the proposed improvements the city will have to purchase all or parts of about 265 properties."  By October 1914, 172 Varick Street was gone.