1061 Clay Avenue

Concourse Village | built 1902

Open on the map3 entries

The lot about 1940
About 1940. Via 1940s.nyc
The lot about 1985
About 1985. Via 80s.nyc

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.

  1. 1901

    Ernest Wenigmann's houses go up on the old Fleetwood Park trotting track

    Before this block was built up, Clay Avenue between East 165th and East 166th streets lay inside Fleetwood Park, a trotting track run by the New York Driving Club. After the track closed and the Morris family heirs sold the land, developer Ernest Wenigmann put up this house and 27 other two-family houses starting in 1901, the first buildings raised on the former racetrack grounds.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  2. 1902

    Warren C. Dickerson gives No. 1061 a rounded bay and a gabled roof

    Architect Warren C. Dickerson designed this house as one of a semi-detached pair with No. 1059, built in 1901-02 for developer Ernest Wenigmann. Its two-story rounded bay sits on a smooth stone base with rock-faced bands, and above the cornice a mansard with sunburst-pedimented dormers rises to a brick gable topped by a finial. Its beige brickwork remains unpainted.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  3. 1905

    Builders Robert Cluse and George O'Rourke share the house, then the O'Rourkes buy out the Cluses

    No. 1061 was owned jointly by the families of Irish-born Robert Cluse and American-born George O'Rourke, partners in the Bronx building firm Cluse & O'Rourke, with offices on Willis and Third avenues. The Cluses had one apartment; O'Rourke, his wife Mary, their two daughters and a servant had the other. In 1905 the Cluses sold their share to the O'Rourkes, who in turn sold the whole house in 1906.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

Nearby

All 85 buildings with stories in Concourse Village