1053 Clay Avenue

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.

1905
A dressmaker's large family and a railroad clerk share No. 1053
The 1905 state census found two households in this Clay Avenue two-family house. Dressmaker Helen Seamen lived with four sons, among them a teacher and an architect, plus her daughter and a niece who was a charity worker. The other apartment held railroad clerk Frederick Bonesteel and his wife. The house was one of a semi-detached pair that developer Ernest Wenigmann built in 1901-02 to plans by Bronx architect Warren C. Dickerson.
Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission
1965
No. 1053 is divided into five apartments
Built for two families, No. 1053 was converted into five apartments in 1965, according to surviving Buildings Department records cited by the Landmarks Preservation Commission. Such subdivisions were the most common change to the Clay Avenue houses, beginning in the early 1940s and accelerating in the 1950s and 1960s, while their facades stayed largely intact apart from new windows and paint.
Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

Nearby