In July 1822 the first case of yellow fever was reported in New York City.  Within only a few days it had become an epidemic.  The death toll reached 140 victims per day, churches and businesses were closed, and those with enough money to do so fled the city, many heading to the healthful environs of Greenwich Village.  The explosion in population required additional homes, churches, banks and shops.

Developers who rushed to erect new buildings were joined by unexpected speculators.  Among them was a cartman--a driver of a horse-drawn delivery drays--Tunis Banta.  In 1827 he erected a 21-foot wide, two-and-a-half story house at No. 529 Hudson Street between Charles Street and Amos (later renamed West 10th) Street.  Faced in red Flemish bond brick, its parlor floor sat above a brownstone stoop over an English basement.

Banta originally leased the house.  By the late 1840's it was home to the young couple Joseph P. and Phebe Ann Brouner.   Joseph was well-known in the neighborhood for his religious involvements. His father, Jacob H. Brouner, had been pastor of the North Baptist Church on Christopher Street nearly since its organization in 1827.  Joseph was a deacon and the choir director in the church.  His brother, John J. Brouner, was a Baptist minister, as well.

The couple was plunged into grief when their son, Jacob, died on Tuesday morning, June 11 one month after his sixth birthday.   The little boy's funeral was held in the house the following afternoon.

The Brouners would have three more children--Howard Osgood, Maria Louisa, and Caroline--but sadly would attend the funerals of two of them.   Howard was just over one year old when he died on June 22, 1863; and Caroline was 23 and recently married when she died in October 1879.   When Maria Louisa was married to James L. Smith in her parents house in September 1873, her uncle performed the ceremony.  By then the Brouners had lived on Sixth Avenue for at least a decade.

In the mid-1850's the owner of their former home was offering rented rooms.  An advertisement in The New York Herald on April 25, 1856 read "A gentleman and his wife and a few single gentlemen can be accommodated with good board and pleasant rooms, at 529 Hudson street, near Charles."

It was possibly Elizabeth (known as Eliza) Blauvelt Froeligh who advertised the rooms.  She was the widow of Solomon Froeligh, Jr., whose father left an indelible mark on the Dutch Church by sparking the "Great Schism" which resulted in the Reformed Dutch Church.  Eliza's husband died in 1861 and certainly by that time she was living at No. 529 her son, William Blauvelt Froeligh.

The Froelighs' ownership of the house had its roots before its construction.  When Tunis Banta erected No. 519, another cartman, Isaac C. Blauvelt, simultaneously erected No. 531 next door.  The two men had purchased the plots from Richard Amos (whose family lent its name to Amos Street) in 1826.   Blauvelt's sister was Eliza Froeligh and their father, Rev. Isaac Blauvelt had been closely involved in the Dutch Reformed secession with Solomon Froeligh.

Another funeral was held in the house on June 23, 1863 after William Froeligh died at the age of 26 two days earlier.

An advertisement in 1869 revealed the home's up-to-the-minute amenities.  "To Let--Two rooms, neatly furnished, suitable for housekeeping; good closets, gas and water; price, $8 per week."  The weekly rent would be equal to about $148 today.

The house saw a variety of residents throughout the rest of the 19th century.  In 1874 Dr. Gilford M. Morse and his wife, Emma, lived here.  That year on July 6 he was appointed Surgeon of the 55th Regiment Infantry.   And the women's activist Carrie Williams was here in 1882.   She made herself a thorn in the side of department stores that February.

Carrie and Emma Gates Conkling, who lived nearby at No. 160 Waverley Place, embarked on their own undercover investigation of the working conditions of shop girls.  A workplace law demanded that "employers of females in any mercantile or manufacturing business or occupation to provide and maintain suitable seats for use of such female employes."  Carrie and Emma wanted to ensure the rules were being obeyed.

It all started when Emma noticed "with pity that the poor girls who are employed as saleswomen in the large retail dry goods establishments are compelled to stand from an early hour in the morning until late at night behind the counters," as she explained later.  She and Carrie launched their own investigation and after visiting numerous department stores and questioning the women clerks, they headed off to court.

On February 18, 1882 they obtained arrest warrants for executives of John Daniell & Son, on Broadway; R. H. Macy & Co. at 14th Street and Sixth Avenue; and Simpson, Crawford & Simpson on Sixth Avenue.  In court John Daniell asserted that the charges were "inspired by malevolence."  Surprisingly, a group of store employees appeared to support their employers.  The New York Times reported "they said they did not need the interference of any body of ladies in their behalf, and added that the greatest kindness that ladies could do them would be to finish their shopping before 5 o'clock in the afternoon, that they might get the goods back on the shelf and be ready to depart at 6 o'clock."

A contractor, or "builder," Edward Towner, lived in the house in 1887 at a time when Hudson Street was changing from one of quiet residences to a business thoroughfare.  In the spring of 1899 real estate operator Charles Spear, head of Charles Spear & Co., purchased the house, placing its title in the name of his wife, Emma.   By the time they sold it to John M. Foote in February 1902, they had increased its height to a full three floors above the basement level.

The property was sold at "voluntary auction" in 1910 and purchased by Charles Winter, who soon made significant renovations.  His architect, William S. Boyd filed plans in March 1911 to replace the front and rear walls of the basement and convert that level into a business space.  A new staircase was added, suggesting that it was at this time that the parlor floor was also converted to a shop.

The new store did not become the home of a dress shop or millinery boutique, as some ladies in the neighborhood might have hoped.  Instead The Potmend Company moved in.  In July 1912 the Inland Storekeeper explained the firm's one product.

There is a constant demand for a cement or adhesive for repairing broken china, bric-a-brac, toys, pots and pans, etc.  "Potment," manufactured by the Potmend Company, 529 Hudson street, New York City, fills every need of this kind.  It is a universal mender--mends anything.  It is a heat, water and acid proof and never deteriorates.

The Island Storekeeper, July 1912 (copyright expired)

A retailer, the Pickering Hardware Company of Cincinnati, Ohio, chimed in, saying "We have sold several thousand cans of Potmend and have yet to hear of a dissatisfied customer, or a single complaint.  We have, however, heard a large number of people sing its praise."

The store was replaced two years later by the newly-organized C. H. & R. C. Peckworth company, a contracting firm.  It was incorporated in January 1914.  Charles H. and Ralph C. Peckworth would not only work from the building, but lived there.   The firm was successful, landing a lucrative contract in June 1916, for instance, for the masonry work on the five-story Floersch Hotel in Perth Amboy, New Jersey.

C. H. & R. C. Peckworth remained in the building through the World War I years, replaced around 1920 by the Shawmut Construction Company on one floor and the National Metal Bead Co. on the other.

Year Book of the New York Society of Architects, 1921-22 (copyright expired)

The commercial tenants continued to be less than glamorous.  The Faber Iron Works was here for years, beginning around the beginning of the Great Depression until mid-century.

A sign reading "Faber Iron Works" hangs from the wall, third building from the corner, in this 1933 photograph.  Note the commercial cornice details added, most likely, by Charles Spear.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

Change in the Greenwich Village neighborhood caught up to No. 529 in 1978 when Inglenook Antiques took over the store space.  The New York Times said on November 9 that year that it "has examples of nearly all of the Victorian subperiods, and specializes in three of them: American Empire, Renaissance Revival and American Eastlake."  The store was a destination for antiques hunters until around 1988.

That year the upper section was converted to one apartment per floor and the store became home to Crunch Aerobics Studio.  Starting in 2010 chef Joe Ng of the Chinatown Brasserie and restaurant consultant Ed Schoenfeld opened an American-Asian eatery, RedFarm, in the space.  Ng, deemed by The New York Times food critic Florence Fabricant "a dim sum specialist," announced he would serve "some unusual dim sum, including saffron soup dumplings and Peking duck sliders."

The restaurant was a hit and four years later Time Out New York commented that the "high-end ingredients and whimsical plating [of the] interpretive Chinese restaurant have helped pack the narrow contemporary dining room since opening night."



Nearly 195 years after its completion and having survived decades of various uses and remodeling, No. 529 Hudson Street survives unnoticed by most.

photographs by the author

On July 1, 1823 Helen Lispenard Stewart was married to James Watson Webb in the mansion of her father, Alexander L. Stewart.  The three-and-a-half story Federal-style mansion sat at the southwest corner of Hudson and Hubert Streets.  Directly behind it was a two-story brick stable.

By the outbreak of the Civil War the days of wealthy homeowners and fashionable gatherings in the neighborhood were nearly a memory.

As late as 1937 altered houses similar to the Stewart mansion survived along Hudson Street one block south.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

By the 1890's the Stewart mansion had become a seedy rooming house, occupied by dockworkers and other rowdies.  Among those was longshoreman William Goonan and his wife, and William Cleary, another dockworker.

On Saturday night, March 24, 1894 Cleary began drinking.  It would be the last time the roughneck got drunk.  At around 1:00 in the morning he was in Goonan's room and the two got into a vicious fight after Cleary claimed "that he was the best man along the docks."

According to The Evening World, "Goonan disputed Cleary's claim and the two men clinched.  They rolled out of the room into the hallway and down a flight of stairs.  On the landing below a big pool of blood tells that a fearful fight took place there."

Roused by the noisy affray, a boy ran from the house and called Policeman Schoenfield.  When the officer arrived he found Cleary stabbed in the face and neck and Goonan with a knife in his fist.  The Evening World reported "Goonan, who was also badly beaten in the fight, was committed to the Tombs without bail."

The old mansion was soon gone.  It had been purchased a year earlier, on April 14, 1893, by Joseph H. Bearns, who owned several properties in the area.  The principal in the liquor importing firm Joseph H. Bearns & Co., he had hired architect Julius Kastner to design a five-story loft building on the opposite corner of the block, at No. 10 Hubert Street, two years earlier.  In fact, the two had worked on similar projects since the 1880's.  They would collaborate again for No. 151 Hudson Street.

Kastner's completed structure was similar to several of his other designs for Bearns.  A handsome, industrial take on Romanesque Revival, it was faced in yellow Roman brick and trimmed in brownstone and red sandstone.  Designed in four parts separated by brownstone cornices, it exhibited expected husky Romanesque Revival elements like undressed bandcourses, lusty medieval-style carvings, arched openings at the top floor.  But Kastner softened the  design with the use of bullnosed bricks which rounded the corners.  While he could have saved Bearns money with terra cotta decorations, he opted for carved ornaments throughout and executed the complex cornice in stone.

The rounded edges soften the overall appearance of the building.  Note the spiraled corner detailing of the top floor.  The stone elements that drip like stalactites from the cornice are somewhat hidden today behind metal sheathing.

As the building rose, Aspell & Co. was operating from Nos. 314-316 Greenwich Street.  The wholesale grocery dealers embarked on an unusual marketing scheme that year.  It opened a new department that offered certain items at wholesale prices to individual shoppers--a savings of up to 50 percent.

An advertisement on August 19, 1894 promised the housekeeper that on top of the savings, she could have "the goods delivered free of charge in or out of the city" (foreshadowing by more than a century retail giants like Amazon).  There was "a full line of staple and fancy groceries and wines, etc., also table delicacies suitable for city, country or seaside use."

New-York Tribune, November 13, 1895 (copyright expired)

Before the turn of the century Aspell & Co. had moved into No. 151 Hudson Street.  It shared the building with the Cincinnati-based S. A. Sloman Co.  Samuel A Sloman had made a drastic change to his family's business a few years earlier--from trading in furs to the manufacture of liquor.

Since the mid-1890's he marketed his Diamond Wedding Whiskey as a remedy rather than an intoxicant.  His ads promised it "invigorates feeble constitutions, renews life and arrests disease."  Others said it restored "power and suppleness to the muscles, warmth and richness for the blood."

This ad promised the whiskey was "invaluable to nursing mothers."  original resource unknown

Apparently the military bought into the restorative powers of Diamond Wedding Whiskey, for in 1900 both S. A. Sloman & Co. and Aspell & Co. were bidding on contracts with the U.S. Navy.

Three years later the directors of Aspell & Company agreed to dissolve the corporation.  It was replaced at No. 151 Hudson Street by Wm. A. Leggett & Co., wholesale grocers and dealers in condensed milk.  William Leggett had established his company in 1870.

In January 1908 Joseph H. Bearns leased the entire building to Bennett, Day & Co. "for a long term of years."  Wm. A. Leggett & Co. was allowed to stay on as a sub-tenant.

There was no long a Bennett in Bennett, Day & Co.  The wholesale grocery business was owned by husband-and-wife partners Henry Mason Day and Emily Garnett Day.  The Virginians had come to New York in 1874 and opened a dried fruit and nut business.  The New-York Tribune noted decades later that for "many years [Day] imported whole crops of fruits from Brazil and other countries and disposed of them to wholesalers in this country."

The Days were prosperous and maintained a summer home in Greenwich, Connecticut, where Henry moored his yacht.  But Henry's health had begun failing by the time his company leased the Hudson Street building.  He had essentially retired in 1903, spending most of his time in Europe, California and Florida because of his ill health.  On January 18 1909, a year after signing the lease, he died at the age of 58.

About the time of Day's death William A. Leggett suffered an attack of bronchitis.  His condition did not improve and a year later, in September 1910, he succumbed at the age of 81.

Kastner's attention to detail included delightful miniature Romanesque Revival columns incorporated into the upper portion of the cast iron storefront.

Although his death brought an end to Wm. A. Leggett & Co.; Bennett, Day & Co. continued under the control of Emily Day and her son, Lee Garnett Day.  Lee was, perhaps, less interested in the wholesale grocery business than in adventure.

On December 25, 1914 The New York Times noted that he had graduated from Yale University in 1911 and "has hunted big game from India, and recently returned from a trip of five months' exploration in Brazil."  The purpose of the article was to announce he was setting off on yet another expedition, this time "to explore unknown parts of the South American jungles under the auspices of the American Museum of Natural History and the Field Museum of Chicago."  Day personally managed and financed the extensive undertaking.

Day told the reporter "Not a specimen of the mammal or of bird life has ever been obtained there.  Should we be successful in getting specimens some of them at least should prove to be of value to the collections of the museums because of their rarity."

Bennett, Day & Co. remained at No. 151 through 1917, before moving to No. 165 Hudson Street.  That year Simon W. Greenbaum & Co. was incorporated by Simon and his brother, H. M. Greenbaum, and J. Socoloff to import and export peas and beans."  In February 1918 the firm leased the Hudson Street building.

The Produce District edged up against the wholesale shoe district.  As the years passed shoe merchants pushed out the grocery dealers in some areas of Tribeca.   When Simon W. Greenbaum & Co. signed the lease on No. 151, the O'Sullivan Heel Company was operating from nearby No. 131 Hudson Street.  By 1922 they had taken over the Greenbaum lease.

Founded by James and Humphrey O'Sullivan in August 1899, the firm manufactured replacement heels for men's shoes.  It marketed its rubber heels as being less jarring than the more common leather versions.  An advertisement in 1922 explained "One of the chief causes of fatigue is the strain of standing--the jar of walking on hard floors and pavements."  The hard leather heels gave no relief and "ordinary rubber heels are little better."  But as in the Goldilocks story, O'Sullivan's Safety Cushion Heels "combine just the right toughness for long hard wear with the greatest amount of springiness."

The Evening World, June 12, 1922 (copyright expired)

In 1908 author William Richard Cutter wrote "Countless imitators, in all countries, have paid their sincerest flattery, by their unscrupulous attempts to foist upon the public, their imitations of rubber heels, and the inevitable results, that none have been, as yet, successful, each claiming for his own to be as good as the 'O'Sullivan'--'The Standard'--the yard stick of the rubber heel industry."

O'Sullivan Rubber Co. was still in the building in 1950 when the Bearns estate sold No. 151 "to an investor," as reported by The Times on March 1.  The article noted that it was the last of Bearns's many properties to be sold and that the "sale was the first involving the property in fifty-seven years."

At the time the Tribeca renaissance was still a few decades away.  The first signs of change would come in 1980 when the ground floor became home to Sheba, an Ethiopian restaurant.  The New York Times food critic Mimi Sheraton approved, saying "Huge napkin-size crepes are the eating implements in which are wrapped curried stews such as the doro watt, and minchet abesh wott.  Kitfo, a raw ground beef specialty is a personal favorite."

Sheba made way for Thai House Cafe in early 1987.  Six months after its opening New York Magazine said "This is food you'd expect to find in a Thai home, carefully cooked and tamely spiced."  The restaurant remained in the space at least through 1991.

In the meantime the building had experienced cinematic exposure when it posed as the Hotel Broslin in the 1982 film Basket Case.  A large neon sign was hung from the fire escape for the outside shots of the fictitious hotel.

Although a Certificate of Occupancy for the commodious loft dwellings at No. 151 was not officially rendered until 2010; the building had become residential decades earlier.  In 1992 Birnbaum's New York, written by Stephen and Alexandra Mayes Birnbaum noted "Only the most urban personalities tend to live in TriBeCa--Harvey Keitel, Robert De Niro, and Martin Scorsese are among the pack who have lived in converted lofts at 151 Hudson Street."

The building stretches back to No. 2 Hubert Street, where the Stewarts' two-story stables once stood.

Meticulously restored, the facade of Julius Hastner's 1894 structure is essentially unchanged.  Its three-color design stands out among its neighbors in the constantly-evolving Tribeca neighborhood.

photographs by the author

Architects Charles Rentz, Jr. and Rudolph L. Lange were busy in 1889.  The two had partnered only months earlier, in 1888, to form Rentz & Lange, and commissions to erect tenement buildings throughout the city poured in.  They included the project for developer Frank Schaefler at the northwest corner of Hudson and West 10th Streets.

It was a substantial commission--a total of six flat buildings, two on West 10th and a block of four facing Hudson Street (Nos. 519 through 525).  The Hudson Street buildings, which melded architecturally as a unit, would each contain a store at street level.  They were completed within the year and would be among the last the short-lived firm designed.    On December 21, 1889 The Record & Guide announced "The firm of Rentz & Lange, architects, has been dissolved, Mr. Lange retiring."

The firm went out with a bang.  Its Nos. 519-525 Hudson Street was a visually delightful blend of styles--Queen Anne, Romanesque Revival and Renaissance Revival--and materials.  Brick, limestone, brownstone and terra cotta created a contrast of color and texture.   Renaissance Revival window pediments and decorative panels coexisted with muscular brownstone Romanesque Revival voussoirs (on the 10th Street elevation) and an unrestrained Queen Anne cornice.  A make-believe turret that clung to the corner of the fourth and fifth floors sprouted a witch's hat cap topped with a cast iron weather vane.

The eye-catching turret managed to capture three historic styles.  Miraculously the Queen Anne weather vane survives.

The corner store, at No. 519, would be home to Albert Kramer's butcher shop for years.  In 1901 he branched out by adding a fruit stand out front.  He lived in the building with his wife Gertrude and her daughter from a former marriage, Evangeline.

Gertrude had divorced her first husband, named Prosser, but did not bother with those formalities in 1903 when she left Albert for a street car conductor, William Murphy.  She and her daughter moved to a three room apartment at No. 209 East 80th Street with Murphy.   As far as any of the tenants or the landlady knew they were Mr. and Mrs. Murphy.   Despite his wife's romantic rebuff, Kramer gave her $5 a week.

Trouble began in June 1904 when Murphy lost his job.  With only Kramer's $5 (about $525 per month today) to live on, things got tense in the household.  Sometime in the middle of July Gertrude and Murphy had what Evangeline called "a violent quarrel" which turned physical.  During the altercation Gertrude bit him on the cheek.

Evangeline, who was 12-years old now, would later tell police "He didn't say anything at first, but finally he said: 'I'll have a sweet revenge for this.'"

At around 9:30 on Monday morning, July 18, all three left the building.  Suddenly Murphy said he forgot something and turned back.  Gertrude followed, telling "Evangeline, run over to your grandmother's for a while."  (Gertrude's mother, named Herz, lived only a few blocks north on Third Avenue.)

After staying at the Hertz apartment until 11, the girl returned home.  She rang the buzzer to their apartment, but got no answer.  Another tenant let her in.  She found the door padlocked from the outside; so she went back to her grandmother's.  But throughout the day she returned to the 80th Street apartment, trying to get in.

Monday turned to Tuesday and the Herz family became worried.  The Sun reported on July 21 that Evangeline's two uncles found Policeman Mathew McGrath and related the story.  He said the room should be broken into.

"The Kramer rooms are o the third floor back," said The Sun.  "On the second landing McGrath stopped, almost overpowered by a sickening odor.  'Some one's dead,' he said, and he kicked in the door."

Gertrude was found on the couch.  The state of decomposition in the hot apartment testified to her having been dead for the full two days.  On the table near the body was a beer glass with a white sediment at the bottom.  Inspection showed that no one had come in or out of the windows.  "The last person who left the rooms had gone out by the door and snapped the spring padlock.  To fasten that lock from the inside was an impossibility," said the article.

Detectives quickly theorized that Gertrude had taken her own life.  The Sun reported "The police believe that she died suddenly or committed suicide; that Murphy came back, found the body, locked the room and disappeared to keep out of trouble."  They dismissed the purple bruising around her neck saying that may "have been due to decomposition."

While the police searched for Murphy as "a witness," The Sun reported "Capt. Stevenson is inclined to believe the case one of suicide.  Coroner Jackson rather disagrees with him."


Alfred Kramer would continue his butcher business in the Hudson Street building at least through 1912.  With thousands of doughboys returning home from the war in 1918 Kramer's former store was briefly home to the Government's Federal Employment Bureau.  It helped find jobs for skilled and unskilled laborers at no fee.  It was followed by Harry Nadel's grocery store, here until 1922.

In the meantime, the store at No. 523 held Meyer Waeldner's cigar store.  He had one employee and his cigars were hand-made on the premises.

Waeldner nearly lost his business on May 30, 1894.  Twelve-year old John Meyers lived nearby at No. 9 Cornelia Street.  He sneaked into the cellar at 9:00 that morning, carrying a lighted candle to see in the darkness.  A leak in the gas pipes resulted in an explosion and fire.  Firemen were able to extinguish the flames, but the face of the adventurous boy was badly burned.  "He was taken home," concluded The Evening World.

As would be expected, the apartments in the buildings were rented by blue collar families.  At the turn of the century two horse-drawn cab drivers lived in No. 521, Samuel Morse and Thomas Moss.  Both had problems in 1900.

Morse worked for the Frank Bros.'s stables on 24th Street.  On May 13 he was looking for a fare on Sixth Avenue near 8th Street when the breech strap (used as a brake of sorts to prevent the vehicle from moving forward) broke.  The cab pushed into the horse, spooking it and causing it to bolt.

Morse held on for his life, trying to control the animal, as it ran into Washington Square.  The jolt of the wheels hitting the curb nearly upset the vehicle, and threw Morse to the ground.  The New York Times wrote "Washington Square was filled with children and men and women who were enjoying the summerlike day, and all fled in terror out of the way of the on-coming runaway as fast as they were able."

Near the fountain three brothers, James, Anthony and Gaetano Ouletto, were walking hand in hand.  James, the oldest at 11, heard the hoof beats of the galloping horse coming from behind and tried to drag his brothers out of its path.

"But," reported The Sun, "it swept by, knocking them all down and the cab wheels crushing the life out of Gaetano."  The toddler was just one and a half years old.

Policeman Martin found Morse.  "His left arm was broken, his right foot crushed, his head cut open, and he was injured internally," said The Sun.  The New York Times added "His wounds were dressed and he was then locked up as being responsible for the damage done."

Thomas Moss had experienced a no less horrifying ordeal a few weeks earlier.  On April 20 he had picked up Marie Rosalie Dinse who gave him a Brooklyn address.  Unknown to Moss, she had tried her hand a running a boarding house and had failed.  For some time now she had suffered severe depression over it.

He had already started onto the Brooklyn Bridge when he asked her for the toll.  She said she had no money, but offered her moonstone ring as payment for the toll and promised her Brooklyn friends would pay the fare.  Moss later said "I should have been warned by this."  In fact, he tried to turn the carriage around, but hampered traffic and was yelled at by irate cabbies.  So he continued.

When his hansom reached what was about the highest point of the bridge, "there were sudden exclamations from people on the driveway behind it and from passengers on the walk above," according to The New York Times.  Moss turned to see Marie jump out.  The Times said she "went without faltering to the guard rail, climbed over the crosspiece with the neatness of an acrobat, and in six seconds from the time of leaving the hack was hurtling down to the water."

The newspaper viciously blamed Moss for the suicide.  "The driver, Thomas Moss of 521 Hudson Street, is lethargic and slow of observation, and did not remark much about his fare except that she spoke with a German accent."

The extended Moss family would experience tragedy two years later.  On Saturday afternoon, August 23, 1902, 8-year old John Moss was playing with a group of neighborhood boys on a Hudson River pier a few blocks west.  Three days later The Evening World reported that his father, also named John, "reports to the police of the Charles street station that his son...had been drowned in the North River Saturday afternoon and asked that the body be sought for."

While the majority of the tenants appear to have been hard working, John McGrath was an exception.  McGrath lived in No. 523 in 1902, as did his sister, Jennie Spring, and her husband.  On June 19 he was sentenced to a six-month term in the workhouse.

But when Magistrate Mayo received a glowing letter a month later from Jennie Spring, he reconsidered McGrath's fate.  Jennie's letter insisted that McGrath had been reformed and "had promised to mend his ways."  The prisoner was released on July 19, five months early.

In fact, Jennie and her married sister, Ellen Sipp, could not have been more surprised when they discovered their brother was freed,  After being told how his release came to be, they marched into the Jefferson Market police court, asking Magistrate Cornell to send him back to the workhouse.  "Mrs. Spring declared that the signature was not hers and insisted that a woman friend of McGrath has personated her," explained The Sun on August 7.  After 18 days of freedom, McGrath was shipped  back to the workhouse to fulfill his full six month sentence.

For years the ground for space at No. 525 was E. F. Donovan's Funeral Parlors.  The business would be a familiar neighborhood fixture into the 1920's.  Like Albert Kramer, Edward Donovan had domestic problems.

In 1907 his wife, Bridge, left him.  He agreed to give her $25 per week, or around $2,700 per month today.  But by the beginning of 1908 she complained that she needed more.  Edward's refusal to increase her support led to what The New York Times said was "the beginning of the quarrel."

The quarrel ended violently.  On January 23, 1908 Bridget waited outside the funeral parlor for two and a half hours.  Finally Edward walked out.  The Times reported that she "shot her husband, Edward, through the chin, wounding him painfully, but not seriously."  Bridget was locked up for felonious assault while Edward was taken to St. Vincent's Hospital.  There "it was found that the bullet had passed through the husband's chin and left cheek."

Following Prohibition the corner store was converted to a saloon, owned in part by James McCann.  He closed up early on the morning of September 16, 1935 and headed to his home on West 15th Street.  He never made it there.

At around 2:30 that morning he was found dead on the sidewalk in front of No. 700 Greenwich Street with a bullet wound to the head.  The police deemed it a suicide, The New York Times reporting "They were told McCann had been drinking heavily."

The first decades of the 20th century saw Greenwich Village become the epicenter of Manhattan's artist colony.  By mid-century No. 521 was home to several struggling artists who lived and worked in their apartments.  Among them was Virginia Admiral, who had divorced her artist husband Robert De Niro in 1945.  She moved in with their son, Robert De Niro, Jr.    The boy, of course, became one of the best known motion picture actors of all time.  According to Andy Dougan in his Untouchable: Robert De Niro: Unauthorised, he and his mother remained in "an unheated top-floor tenement" here for "a year or so."

Frank Serpico was a New York City cop in the late 1960's when corruption was rampant among the force.  His information led to corruption charges against 20 policemen and a clean-up of the NYPD.  In the summer of 1971, now a detective, he heard rumors that 46-year old Angelo Pacelli, a building inspector, was extorting money and taking bribes from property owners.

As it happened, Serpico was friends with Robert Shulman, who managed No. 525 Hudson Street.  He provided Shulman with marked bills and when Pacelli dropped by for his payment, the trap was sprung.  On June 17 Pacelli was arrested on "charges of extortion, receiving [a] bribe, and official misconduct," as reported by The New York Times.

By now the days of funeral parlors, butcher shops and saloons in the Hudson Street block were gone.  This section of Greenwich Village filled with antique stores, wine stores and cafes as a new wave of residents took over the old apartment buildings.

The stores at Nos. 519 and 521 were joined to become home to the House of Treasures antiques store in the late 1960's, then The Village Stripper in the 1970's.  The shop would strip off years of paint from old furniture using a chemical process.  It was following by the Yankee Peddler antiques shop in the late 1970's before becoming home to the Cowgirl Hall of Fame restaurant.

No. 523 was home to the Cadet General Store, Inc. in 1981.  The clothing store was the brain child of Joe De Filippis, who stood 5 feet, 5 inches tall.  It provided apparel to men under 5' 8".  He explained to The New York Times journalist Ron Alexander on July 19 that year "We short guys are neglected by stores."

For more than a decade, starting in 1990, Taylor's Prepared Food & Bake Shop was at No. 523, followed by Elixir, which sold healthful smoothies and juices, and then The Meadow where vegan chocolate can be had.

E. F. Donovan's Funeral Parlor had become A Pilgrim's Progress in 1973 where Dick Dulany and Philip Balestrino sold antique furniture.  It was followed by another antiques shop, The Salvage Barn, and in 1986 by the eccentric Statue of Liberty Gallery.  It sold only items relating to the monument, like vintage snowglobes and souvenirs.  Since 2009 the space has been home to Mexicana Mama restaurant.


Without the considerable talent of Rentz & Lange, the block of buildings could have been ponderous.  Instead, the visually entertaining structures continue to command attention.

photographs by the author