Macmillan-Forbes House

11 West 12th Street | Greenwich Village | built 1847

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. 1847

    William Way builds twin Greek Revival houses for himself and his partner

    Merchant William Way bought a double lot in 1846 and had two matching Greek Revival houses built there, No. 11 for his own family and No. 13 for his partner, Samuel S. Barry. The firm of Barry & Way was successful, and the houses suited the newly fashionable blocks near lower Fifth Avenue. Shipping magnate Peter I. Nevius Jr. owned No. 11 with his wife and daughter after the Civil War.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1912

    January

    Suffragist Emmeline Pankhurst meets society women at the house before a Carnegie Hall farewell meeting

    Dr. John Winters Brannan and his wife leased the house, and Mrs. Brannan, a leading figure in the suffrage movement, had hosted meetings there since 1911. In January 1912 the New York Times noted that automobiles lined West 12th Street and society women crowded her parlors to hear the English leader preview her speech at Carnegie Hall that night. Dr. Brannan, chairman of the trustees of Bellevue and Allied Hospitals, had written to President McKinley in 1898 about the inhuman transport of sick and wounded soldiers.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1915

    The Macmillan Company buys the house along with the site of its new headquarters

    Macmillan bought the house in 1915 together with Thomas Fortune Ryan's other property along Fifth Avenue, the site of its new headquarters. The house was spared demolition, and a garage entrance cut through its English basement linked it to the new office building. The Macmillans hired architect Thomas Hastings, who designed the richly paneled double drawing room.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Further reading

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