1 Minetta Lane

The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.

Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.

1841
David Louderback builds a Greek Revival row house, later given a courtyard entrance
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Around 1839-41 David Louderback built this three-story brick row house, one of four he put up along Minetta Lane and Minetta Street. Charles F. Bisantz bought the group and had the architects Richard Berger & Son convert it into multiple dwellings in 1924. The stoop came off, and residents now enter at the back through a gated courtyard off Minetta Street.
“One of four houses along with 3 and 5 Minetta Lane and 17 Minetta Street built by David Louderback c. 1839-41.”
Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission
1922
DeWitt and Lila Wallace publish the first Reader's Digest in the basement
In 1922 DeWitt Wallace and his wife, Lila Bell Acheson Wallace, brought out the first edition of Reader's Digest from the basement of this Minetta Lane house. The Landmarks Preservation Commission's South Village report adds that a social club called the Rainbow Club also rented space in the house. The house was then more than eighty years old, one of a small group built around 1840.
“In 1922, DeWitt and Lila B. Acheson Wallace published the first edition of the Reader's Digest in the basement of 1 Minetta Lane.”
Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

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