The 1803 Stuyvesant-Fish House - 21 Stuyvesant Street

photograph by the author

Peter Stuyvesant was named director-general of New Amsterdam in 1647.  In 1651, he acquired a tract of land far north of the settlement from the Dutch West India Company.  The estate encompassed what today is all the land east of Fourth Avenue, from 5th Street to 17th Street.

In 1797, Stuyvesant’s great-grandson, Petrus, laid out a street plan on the estate using a compass to align the roads in an east-west, north-south direction.  The existing, diagonally-oriented lane that had divided his great-grandfather's two farms, Bouweire (later Bowery) One and Bouweire Two was named Stuyvesant Street.

When the engagement of Petrus’ daughter Elizabeth to Revolutionary War officer Nicholas Fish was announced, Stuyvesant had already started construction of an elegant Federal-style house as a wedding present.  Fish was the youngest commissioned major in the history of the United States Army at 18 years old and had served at Valley Force.  He became a close personal friend of Alexander Hamilton.

photograph by Dmadeo

The house at 21 Stuyvesant Street was completed in 1803 and fully reflected the young couple’s social station.  The red brick, Flemish bond façade rose three stories to the attic floor.  Two arched dormers with double keystones pierced the pitched slate roof and an elegant iron fence topped with palmettes protected the English basement.

In 1808, Elizabeth gave birth to a son, named Hamilton after Alexander Hamilton.  Hamilton would grow to become a lawyer, Governor of New York and, prior to the Civil War, a United States Senator.  When he retired in 1857, he took his wife and eight children on a two-year tour of Europe.  In 1869, he reluctantly accepted Ulysses S. Grant’s appointment as Secretary of State, becoming what some historians deem the strongest member of the Grant Administration.  The National Register of Historic Places notes, “Fish’s cautious day-by-day advice saved Grant from some embarrassing blunders.”

Prior to all that, however, Hamilton Fish's birthplace at 21 Stuyvesant Street had been threatened.  In 1811, a three-member commission laid out the famous grid plan for Manhattan Streets above 14th Street.  Rather than use strict compass direction, they based their grid on the slightly-askew orientation of the island.  Any roads and buildings that did not comply with the new plan were to be destroyed.  Petrus Stuyvesant’s network of roads did not comply.

Stuyvesant Street was a private lane for the family, lined with five Stuyvesant houses.  The family voiced their dissatisfaction, apparently quite well.  They were granted a special dispensation.  Their private diagonal road--which would now be reduced to just over a block long--was deemed a thoroughfare “for the accommodation of a large and respectable Congregation attending St. Mark’s Church as well as the owners and occupants of several large and commodious dwelling houses.”

The family houses were saved, and it was here on the evening of September 10, 1824 that the Marquis de Lafayette was entertained by Nicholas and Elizabeth Fish during his tour of all 24 states.

Nicholas Fish died in 1833 and was buried in the nearby churchyard of St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery.  Hamilton Fish and his wife stayed on in the house until 1838, and Elizabeth remained until her death in 1854.  Although the family retained ownership of the property until around the turn-of-the-century, things began going downhill for the house.

By the time of the Civil War wealthy families were moving away from the Stuyvesant Street neighborhood.  The renters of 21 Stuyvesant Street were increasingly blue-collar.

from the collection of the Library of Congress

On January 27, 1861, Daniel T. McFarland was living here when the basement door was broken into and a burglar made off with a copper boiler worth $50.  (Police officer Eagan captured the thief a short distance away with the boiler in a hand cart.)

T. E. Carey was a plumber when he rented here in 1884, the same year that he was arrested for counterfeiting.  Carey and two accomplices were drinking at Joseph P. Strack’s saloon on East 3rd Street when they tried to pass a fake dollar bill.  Strack ordered them out of his saloon and rushed to the 17th Precinct Station House.  Carey and the others were caught “in Marcus Popper’s saloon, No. 53 First-street” as reported in The New York Times.

from the collection of the New York Public Library

A year later Louis Brandt, a wood carver for the A. S. Nichols & Company's ornamental mantel works, resided here.  When the other carvers went on strike, Brandt kept working.  For days he was given escort by the police to ensure his safety; however on May 15 the police officer was late.  A group of striking carvers approached Brandt on his way home and, fearful of his safety, he pulled a gun and shot one of the men in the groin.  The entire group, including Brandt, was arrested.

Throughout the 19th and most of the 20th centuries, historic homes received little protection or public interest.  The Stuyvestant-Fish house remained a rooming house until 1964 when advertising executive F. Philip Geraci purchased it for around $140,000 and returned it to a private residence.

Beginning in 1967, Geraci initiated an all-encompassing restoration of the property.  Using photographs and surviving elements, he brought the home back to its 1804 appearance.  The original eight-paneled front door, removed in 1838, was replicated.  Inside, fireplaces were reproduced based on the last existing original.  Doorknobs were copied from the single 1803 survivor.

After 30 years in the home, Geraci donated it to The Cooper Union’s College of Art and Engineering, which uses it to house its president and family.  The exterior of the structure, which the Landmarks Preservation Commission has said, “displays beauty of proportion, notable restraint and those details that indicate an outstanding Federal house,” appears much as it did when the Nicolas Fish and his bride moved in.

Original interior details remain despite the property’s somewhat rough handling.  In the first floor front hall, a semielliptical transverse arch survives, and the original staircase with its delicate spindles and handrail is still there.  On the second floor 200-year old stencilwork is intact.  There are even side windows from when the house stood alone.

The house was designated a New York City Landmark in 1965 and was included on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972

The Dahlgren-Cartier House -- 15 East 96th Street

In March 1912 Eric B. Dahlgren learned a painful lesson – do not cheat on Lucy Drexel Dahlgren.

Lucy was a member of the socially prominent and fabulously wealthy Drexel family of Philadelphia. Her father had founded the Parisian banking firm of Drexel Harjes Company, later to be part of the Morgan firm.  Eric Dahlgren was known as a playboy millionaire, the son of Rear Admiral John A. Dahlgren who invented the Dahlgren gun during the Civil War.

On December 11, 1890 the pair was married in Philadelphia’s cathedral by Archbishop Corrigan in the social event of the year and shortly thereafter moved to New York City.  Over the course of their 22 year marriage, Lucy bore eight children. They had an imposing mansion at 812 Madison Avenue at 68th Street as well as a “country seat” at Lawrence, Long Island.

While Dahlgren was comfortably wealthy, Lucy's personal fortune was substantial.  Upon the death of her father she inherited $20 million and in 1912 she received another $5 million from her mother’s estate.

Things in the Dahlgren household soured when the devout Catholic Lucy discovered that her husband had committed “misconduct” on the 13th and 14th of March 1912 at an apartment house at 54 East 59th Street, just two months after her mother’s death. Within a week she filed for absolute divorce in a handwritten complaint. The New York Times reported “the reason it had not been typewritten was that Mrs. Dahlgren wished the suit to be filed at once.”

Lucy gathered up her eight children, ages 9 through 21, and steamed off to Paris to wait out the proceedings. Eric took up lodging in the University Club. When it seemed that her husband might make things difficult, Lucy threatened to make the already-scandalous hearings public. Eric relented.

While abroad, Lucy was introduced to Ogden Codman, Jr., an architect and interior designer born to a prestigious old Boston family who had grown up in Paris.  Codman had fallen in love with everything French, including its architecture. He wrote, in partnership with Edith Wharton, the widely-read Decoration of Houses and from his office in New York City had decorated mansions for New York's old guard including Cornelius Vanderbilt II – refusing commissions from the nouveau riche. The pair became socially friendly.

A year later, the divorce decree was granted and Lucy Drexel Dahlgren returned to New York, establishing herself temporarily at 11 East 45th Street. She was, however, not done with Eric Dahlgren.

Immediately after the divorce was finalized, Lucy’s attorney demanded the keys to the Madison Avenue mansion from Eric Dahlgren. Insisting that the furnishings had been purchased with her money, Lucy wanted them back.  Eric resisted.

She had the house burglar-alarmed (The Times reported that “The Holmes protective wires, which were so skillfully eluded by the robbers in the Hester Street pawnshop, were strung about the house, so that no raid on the property could be made without causing complications”) and stationed sheriff’s deputies at the door. Once again Eric was forced to give in and the house was emptied of the furniture, artwork, silver and glassware. “The one room which the movers left untouched was the big room at the second story back – Mr. Dahlgren’s bedroom,” said The Times.


Unable to maintain the upkeep, Dahlgren lost the Madison Avenue house to foreclosure by the Mutual Life Insurance Company.  On November 3, 1914 a “To Let” sign was hung on the door.

In the meantime Lucy moved on.  In February of 1915 she purchased a plot at 15 East 96th Street, just east of the French townhouse Odgen Codman had built for himself two years earlier.  It was here that he envisioned a picturesque enclave of French houses lining both sides of 96th Street.

photo from the collection of the New York Public Library

Lucy commissioned Codman to design her home, which was completed in 1916. The 30-room, three-and-a-half story, Louis XVI-style house was as Codman intended – a slice of Paris in New York. The limestone façade, the slate mansard roof and the arched dormers echoed the French architecture he so admired.  Inside were two marble fountains, eleven bathrooms, an octagonal dining room, a sweeping marble staircase, and carved marble fireplaces. To accommodate her motor-cars, a turn-table at the back of the property would reverse the direction of the parked cars so they could easily drive out again.  Three turbines ran the two-manual Estey organ and roll player installed in the second floor drawing room.

The attraction of New York had faded for Lucy Dahlgren, however. Except for occasional entertainments for her daughters at Sherry’s or The Colony Club, she spent more and more time in Paris, Florence and Newport . By 1922 she left 15 East 96th for good, renting it to Pierre Cartier and finally selling it to him in 1927.


The Cartier family used the Dahlgren house as a pied-a-terre only, preferring to stay in their 35-room, 19-acre estate in Roslyn Harbor, Long Island. The 96th Street house was used for entertaining French dignitaries, intellectuals and artists, and was frequently used during World War II to entertain exiled French countrymen. Poet and playwright Paul Claudel was often a guest in the house.

photo NYPL Collection

Upon his retirement, Cartier sold 15 East 96th Street to the Roman Catholic Church of St. Francis de Sales, which used it as a convent. Little alteration was done to the interiors while the nuns lived here and in 1981 it was sold to financier Barry Turpin for $3 million to be used as a private residence once again. Turpin updated the plumbing, wiring and temperature control systems.

A full restoration was initiated when, in 1987, businessman Paul Singer purchased the house for $5.7 million.  Singer brought in European architects most familiar with the Beaux Arts period for advice, after which a two-year restoration was executed by Thompson/Robinson/Toraby Architects, winning them the “Friend of the Upper East Side Historic Districts” Award in 1989.

In 2004 a second restoration was completed by Preserv that repaired and replaced copper cladding, replaced and restored the decorative railings, replaced the roof, and patched and repaired the limestone façade. The following year the organ, thought to be the last extant Estey Player Organ in the city, was removed to storage in order to make space for an additional bathroom.

Lucy Drexel Dahlgren’s French townhouse – at once charming and imposing -- has never been seriously altered.

The 1892 McIntyre Building -- Finials, Snakes and a Typo

Victorian architects viewed themselves as the rightful heirs to all the historic styles that preceded them and late 19th Century buildings were sometimes referred to as “a happy combination of styles.” Perhaps nowhere is that more apparent than in Robert Henry Robertson’s 1892 McIntire Building.

The riotous combination of architectural elements prompted Norval White and Elliot Willensky in the AIA Guide to New York City to call it “Unspeakable eclectic: a murmuration of Byzantine columns, Romanesque arches, Gothic finials and crockets – the designer used the whole arsenal of history in one shot.”

The seed for the building was planted in 1847 when Ewen McIntyre opened a small pharmacy at the corner of 18th Street and Broadway. At his parent’s 60th anniversary in 1911, McIntyre’s son told The New York Times that his father’s store “…was very much in the country. There was a cow yard on one corner of Broadway and pigs were kept on the other. There was no water and people carried pails to the pumps.”

Despite the rustic surroundings, McIntyre’s business grew, as did the Broadway neighborhood. By 1890 he had grown wealthy and had a second large pharmacy at 992 6th Avenue. Realizing the potential of the burgeoning Broadway commercial area, McIntyre commissioned Robertson in 1890 to design a spectacular office building with rental space on the site of his 874 Broadway store.

The McIntire Building in 1895 - from "King's Photographic Views of New York" - author's collection

Two years later the McIntire Building was complete. The often-fearsome architectural critic Montgomery Schuyler at once loved it, calling it “unscrupulously picturesque.” The McIntyre Building, he said, was “one of the most effective bits of our street architecture. . . with the long colonnaded attic and the picturesque corner tower. . ."

photo Superstructures, Engineers & Architects

Robertson blended yellow brick, terra cotta, and carved stone, along with a clay tile roof to create the structure that so confuses architectural historians. Tagged variously as Gothic Revival, Romanesque Revival and Victorian Eclectic it is a wonderful hodgepodge of visually pleasing elements.

The architect kept stone carvers busy for months creating grotesque and whimsical faces, animals, Celtic knots, vines and gargoyles. In the entrance, mosaic tiles boldly announced the name of the building – with an unfortunate misspelling. In a mistake that has never been explained, a swirling mosaic ribbon on the floor reads “MAC INTYRE BUILDING” with an additional “A.”

photo CurbedNewYork.com

McIntyre’s real estate gamble paid off. A fantastic building in a prime location, it filled with diverse businesses. A bank opened on the street level and in 1895 the Raritan Hollow and Porous Brick Company was headquarters here.  The firm provided "fireproof" building materials for such structures as the Schribner Building and the New York Stock Exchange.  The National Gramophone Company had its headquarters here in 1898 and in 1905, S. Herzig & Company, manufacturers of petticoats and women’s underwear was here.

In 1931 the Central Hanover Bank and Trust had taken over the ground floor while the rest of the building was mainly leased to china and fabrics wholesalers.

In the 1970s the McIntyre was purchased by a cluster of artists who moved in, despite not having a certificate of residential occupancy. At some point an illegal nightclub called The Cobra Club operated out of the 7th floor.  Not all of their snakes stayed in the glass terrariums.   For several years afterwards live snakes were found slithering throughout the building.

By 2000 the owners had legalized their co-op and a full-scale restoration was underway. In a surprising move, they contracted Restoration Management Services to restore the original wooden windows rather than replace them. Superstructures & Engineers Architects addressed the exterior walls and roofs, providing investigation and design input and earning the Lucy G. Moses Preservation Award from the New York Landmarks Conservancy.

photo by Alice Lum

 In its 2006 Annual Report, the Conservancy noted the “restoration work is ambitious and complex given the age and ornate character of the façades, which are composed of limestone,granite, marble, brick, terra cotta, and various metals.”

By 2008 the building was enveloped in scaffolding and netting as Skyline Restoration, Inc. managed a $2.5 million complete restoration.

Today the scaffolding is gone and Ewen McIntyre’s spectacular building is a sensation again – even with a typo in the entryway (but no more snakes).

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Photo curbednewyork.com

The 1899 Federal Archives Building

At the end of the 19th Century, the United States Custom Service was in need of a large warehouse building near the waterfront where customs agents could appraise imported merchandise and assign duties. In the days before income taxes, the federal budget depended on customs duties as a major source of income. In 1892 Congress authorized the new warehouse and the site of the Christopher Street Market, two blocks from the piers, was decided upon. The trapezoid-shaped lot was bounded by Greenwich Street, Christopher Street, Barrow Street and Washington Street.


The land, most of which was owned by Trinity Church, was purchased for about $4 a foot and construction began later that year. Willoughby J. Edbrooke, chief architect of the Treasury, worked with William Martin Aiken and James Knox Taylor to design a massive Romanesque Revival structure – the largest in Greenwich Village. Each floor covered an full acre of storage. Known as the United States Appraisers’ Warehouse, its substantial brick walls were three feet thick at the base. The architects diminished its enormous bulk with vertical granite courses and horizontal, recessed arched bays.

Fourteen years after construction was completed in 1899, federal income taxes were enacted and, little by little, the importance of the custom assessors was diminished. The government, coveting the 10 acres of storage, took over the structure as a general warehouse and renamed it the United States Federal Building.

During the Great Depression it was converted into the National Archives Record Center which additionally contained a post office and office space for government agencies. By the 1970s, however, the offices were relocated, the post office closed and the building sat vacant and essentially abandoned. In 1976 the General Services Administration deemed the old building to be Government surplus, much like an extra filing cabinet or metal office desk.

The Government now had the problem of how to dispose of a red brick elephant. The sheer size of the structure made viable conversion into something useful challenging at best. It sought the counsel of the New York Landmarks Conservancy.

What happened next forever changed the way Federally-owned historic properties will be transferred to public hands.

A deal was drawn up by which the government would turn over title to New York State’s Urban Development Corporation for $10, which in turn could lease the property to a developer for 99 years. The developer would make payments of $10,000 per apartment, plus interest, to the Landmarks Conservancy’s loan fund. This money would be distributed to owners of historic properties, like brownstones and churches, for renovation and restoration – a windfall for the Conservancy of approximately $5.5 million for the apartments and about $100,000 annually for the next 75 years from commercial rents.

After a bumpy start with different developers, the partnership of Teitlebaum and Rockrose began conversion of the building. After years of planning and six years of construction, the $115 million project was completed on June 10, 1988.

Now called The Archives, its 479 apartments (with 242 different floor plans) had views of the Village or into the newly-created interior courtyard. It was the largest residential conversion in New York City history. The immense lobby features vaulted ceilings, wrought iron and terra cotta details. Arched windows in some apartments rise 16 feet.

Laurie Beckelman, then executive director of the Landmarks Conservancy, told The New York Times that the restoration was the largest project completed under the Surplus Property Act of 1949, meant to promote the restoration and recycling of historic properties.

''This proves that it certainly is possible both to preserve a valuable old building and to put it to good use,'' she said.

The revolving Historic Properties Fund, made possible largely through the Archives project, has provided millions to owners of historic properties across the city.

240 Centre Street - the 1909 Police Headquarters

photo by Alice Lum

After the consolidation in 1898 of the five boroughs into the New York City we know today, the police department rapidly and necessarily grew. By the turn of the century plans were being laid for a new police headquarters.

In those days of the City Beautiful Movement – the principle that civilized buildings foster civilized behavior – a grand civic edifice was envisioned. Architects Hoppin & Koen, known principally at the time for their building of ornate Beaux Arts mansions, were commissioned for the project.

Photo NYPL Collection

The site for the new headquarters was the unexpected, pie-shaped wedge of land surrounded by Broome Street, Centre Street and Grand Street, sitting squarely in the middle of Little Italy’s tenement district. In 1905 Mayor George McClellan laid the cornerstone and construction was completed in 1909. Here, surrounded by dingy brick dwellings, Hoppin & Koen created a domed palace sometimes called Beaux Arts, sometimes “Edwardian Baroque.”

Label it what you will, the building is extravagant and grand.

postcard from author's collection

Diana S. Waite, in her book Architects in Albany, says "Hoppin's Beaux Arts training is evident in ornate town houses for such clients as James Lanier but is apparent more dramatically in the New York City Police Headquarters at 240 Centre Street. This monumental, domed structure, constrained on a triangular lot, was designed ‘to impress both the officer and prisoner with the majesty of the law.’”

The interior of the building housed both the functional and the imposing. The marble-clad reception area was palatial. In the basement was a gymnasium and a firing range. On the top floor was an observation deck.

Hoppin & Koen based the beautiful dome loosely on that of the Hotel des Invalides in Paris and stopped the building short of the northern point of the triangle of land in order to provide a small fenced garden, a highly unusual touch for a government building.

photo by Alice Lum

Here was the office of controversial Police Commissioner Theodore A. Bingham. On one hand, Bingham was a reformer with a history of fighting Tammany Hall and the Black Hand–the Italian gang loosely relating to today’s mafia. From here Bingham ran the first “secret service” in the country to infiltrate and convict gang members.  On the other hand, the commissioner was a notorious racist–what we would today call a profiler.

The Jewish community was enraged when Bingham told The North American Review “It is not astonishing that with one million Hebrews in the city (one quarter of the population) perhaps one half of the criminals should be of that race; when we consider the ignorance of the language, more particularly among men not physically fit for hard labor, is conducive to crime…They are burglars, firebugs, pickpockets and highway robbers–when they have the courage; but though all crime is in their province pocket-picking is the one to which they take most naturally…”

Mayor McClellan eventually fired the commissioner.

Graceful caryatids hold the names of each borough -- photo by Alice Lum

It was here on June 9, 1970 that the radical Weathermen group planted ten sticks of dynamite.  Jane Alpert and William Ayers admitted responsibility, claiming the bombing was in response to “police repression.”

Three years later the New York City Police moved to its new headquarters at One Police Plaza, leaving 240 Centre Street abandoned for years while a new use was debated.  For a while it seemed that the majestic old headquarters would become a luxury hotel.  The design firm S.I.T.E. partnered with architects and Canadian-based developers for this goal; however because of the awkward geographical placement of the building, funding was elusive.

photo by Alice Lum

Finally, after sitting empty for over a decade, the building was converted into cooperative apartments by developers Arthur D. Emil, John J. Ferchill and Edward R. Downe Jr.  Having purchased the building from the City in 1983 for $4.2 million, the group commenced a $20 million renovation.  The firm of Ehrenkrantz Group & Eckstut adapted the space for 55 apartments.  The original stately lobby was preserved, however most of the interior was gutted and reworked.

With high ceilings and floor plans unique to each apartment in the former headquarters attracts residents like Calvin Klein, Stefi Graff and Leonardo DiCaprio.  

Living room of the apartment in the former gymnasium -- photo Corcoran Realty

240 Centre Street is an exceptional example of early 20th century monumental architecture in a most unexpected location.

Ernest Flagg's 1903 "Little Singer Building"

When Isaac Singer died in 1875 he left a fortune of $14 million, most of it gained through his Singer Sewing Machine Company.  Although Singer did not invent the machine, and despite his numerous other inventions and improvements on other inventor’s ideas, his remarkable marketing–a housewife could take home a machine for a down payment of $5.00 and start sewing that same day–resulted in a hugely successful business.

In 1896 Frederick Bourne, president of the company, hired Brooklyn-born architect Ernest Flagg to design a new headquarters at Broadway and Liberty Streets.  Six years later the booming Singer Company had outgrown the building and Flagg was brought in again to design a new structure.

The site chosen was at 561 Broadway where Henry Wood’s Marble Hall Theatre stood–a 2000 seat theater where popular minstrel shows were staged.  A second plot at 88 Prince Street was acquired to accommodate an L-shaped building with entrances on both streets while preserving the classic 1860 white marble Black and Ball Jewelers building on the corner.

Trained in Paris, Flagg was known for his use of avant-garde materials, his interest in natural light and healthful ventilation and his unconventional treatment of the Beaux Arts style. This all came together in the Singer Sewing Machine Building when ground was broken in 1902.

Using a rusty-red and green color scheme, he combined red brick, cast iron and wrought iron, expanses of glass and terra cotta detailing.  The architect’s creation is at once whimsical and elegant.  By recessing the windows, he allowed for row upon row of lacy cast iron balconies which at a glance appear to be identical yet each has subtle differences.

Surmounting the soaring recessed bay of windows is an elaborate wrought iron arch; a similar one appears on the second floor. The ornate cornice is supported by decorative, scrolled iron brackets, reminiscent of those found on Flagg’s earlier Mill’s House on Bleecker Street.  At every floor the broad expanses of glass allowed light to pour into the factory spaces and offices.

By exposing structural steel and iron as part of the overall design, Flagg was pioneering architectural trends.  While in Paris he embraced the forward-thinking ideas of Viollet-de-Duc, called the father of modern architecture.  Viollet-de-Duc urged the use of fresh materials, such as cast iron and glass, and espoused exposing functional elements as design components.

In their AIA Guide to New York City, authors Norval White and Elliot Willensky remarked “The façade foretells the curtain wall, that delicate metal-and-glass skin in which much of Manhattan in the 1950s and 1960s is clad–grossly it seems when compared to this post-turn-of-the-century charmer.”

The Prince Street façade mimics the Broadway façade with just a little less enthusiasm.  In the decorative iron work of the second floor “The Singer Manufacturing Company” survives.

Only six years later Flagg was working on a new Singer headquarters downtown–a 41-story building that would briefly be the tallest in the world.  As the tall building rose, 561 Broadway became known as “The Little Singer Building.”

As its Broadway neighborhood encountered a renaissance towards the end of the 20th century, with trendy boutiques lining the streets and celebrities moving into now-pricey loft spaces, the Little Singer Building was converted to residential and commercial co-op space.

Headed by Bone/Levine Architects, a full-scale restoration took place.  The original Flagg colors were restored, much of the original iron lattice system was removed in order to repair the steel frame which, along with the terra cotta cladding, were then re-assembled.  Where missing wrought iron components were missing or damaged beyond repair, replacements were made.

Perhaps most noticeable and welcomed was the Richard Levine’s 2008 installation of the glass and iron sidewalk canopy along the Broadway side, copied from records and photographs of the original which had long ago disappeared.

from the collection of the New York Public Library

Ernest Flagg’s Little Singer Building looks much as it did the day the Singer workers first entered in 1903.  It remains, as White and Willensky called it, a real “charmer.”

Those Very Old, Very New Houses on Harrison Street

If you can count on one thing in New York City, it is that neighborhoods change.

The area around Washington Street and Harrison Street was originally part of Annetje Jans’ 62-acre farm.  Eventually it became property of the English crown, then in 1705 it was transferred to Trinity Church.  By the end of the 18th century, prosperous merchants were erecting fine Federal-style houses here.

John McComb, Jr., New York’s first native-born architect, built his home at 317 Washington Street in 1797, five years before he would design City Hall with Joseph Francois Mangin.  In 1804, across the street at 314 Washington, wealthy merchant Jonas Wood built his house. By the 1820s construction was booming along Washington and Harrison Streets as homes were built to specification for individual buyers--unlike the speculative developments being constructed elsewhere.

Ebenezer Miller, who ran a printing business on Greenwich Street, built 33 Harrison Street.  Wilson Hunt, a well-heeled merchant on Pearl Street, erected 327 Washington Street.  By 1830, the neighborhood was completed and fashionably dressed home owners greeted one another before their elegant red brick homes.  Inside, detailed plasterwork adorned the ceilings and parlors were decorated with costly carpets and Duncan Phyfe furniture.

But if you can count on one thing in New York City, it is that neighborhoods change.

Slowly the Washington Street Market crept closer to the Harrison Street area.  Although two of the original families were still in occupancy in 1850, by the end of the Civil War the homes were being converted to rooming houses, crammed with immigrant workers.

As the 20th century neared, the Washington Street Market had engulfed the old neighborhood.  Loft buildings and warehouses replaced elegant Federal homes, however for some reason a handful of the houses were simply recycled rather than razed.  The residences of John McComb and Ebenezer Miller were turned into businesses.  The Columbus Celery Company did business out of 314 Washington–ripping out the parlor floor façade and replacing it with warehouse doors.  McComb’s home was taken over by Silverbank and Arbeiter, who junked the elegant mantles and interior details to make room for modern commerce.

Astonishingly, most of the surviving houses retained their second floor details, roofs and dormers.

Washington Street in 1940.  Note surviving keystone lintels and arched doorway - NYPL Collection

The houses remained as warehouses for three-quarters of a century until the entire area was threatened with demolition by the planned Washington Market Urban Renewal Area in the mid 1970s.  A wide swath of buildings were slated to be demolished.  The fledgling New York Landmarks Preservation Commission, however, deemed nine of the Federal-period buildings worthy of preservation, even in their severely altered condition.  The Commission negotiated funding to move and restore the houses as part of the Renewal project.

Washington Street mid-20th Century with four Federal Houses - NYPL Collection

Architects Oppenheimer, Brady & Vogelstein who were designing the 40-story Independence Plaza Tower nearby, were given the task of salvaging the old homes.  The three Washington Street houses were moved to Harrison Street, creating a row of six.  Three other Harrison Street houses remained on their original sites, forming an L-shaped enclave.

The architects replicated the lost facades, installing new doors, windows and trims.  The replacement bricks were sandblasted to simulate aging; but, according to Herbert Oppenheimer, “we didn’t want it to match perfectly.”

Immediately architectural critics and historians complained.  In his The City Observed: New York, Paul Goldberger disparaged the project saying, "There are facades at Disneyland that look more real, and all that these houses make you want to do is run back again across Greenwich Street where old buildings are still real and not kept alive by artificial respirator.”

Norval White and Elliot Willensky, in their AIA Guide to New York City, noted, “They have been lovingly restored - perhaps too lovingly; the patina from the passage of time has been totally erased.”

New Yorkers, however, didn’t seem to mind.  The city began offering the properties, all with unfinished interiors, for between $35,000 and $75,000 and the houses quickly found new owners.

Today the lost “patina from the passage of time” is coming back. Three decades of weathering has given the replacement brick a warm, aged look.

Despite the critics who denounced the impure restoration; an important remnant of early 19th century Manhattan has been salvaged and a charming residential enclave created in the midst of a bustling city.

Which just proves that if you can count on one thing in New York City, it is that neighborhoods change.