12 Waverly Place
Greenwich Village | built 1800
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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.
- 1890
Chocolate maker Henry Maillard sells his Waverly Place house to developers who plan a warehouse
An earlier building on the site: the 25-foot-wide residence at No. 12 belonged to Henry Maillard, who ran the candy company Henry, Maillard, Inc. and a confectionery in the Fifth Avenue Hotel. In November 1890 he sold the house to Samuel and Henry Corn, and the Real Estate Record noted that a six-story warehouse would rise on the lot.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1890
Alfred Zucker draws a Romanesque loft of cast iron, stone, brick and terra cotta for the Corns
Zucker finished plans on December 6, 1890 for a building estimated at $45,000, first described as a warehouse. He turned it into an asymmetrical loft with a cast-iron storefront, two heavy stone floors, lighter brick above and winged arches over paired windows on the top three floors. The Corns often hired him for such loft projects.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1893
A court ends the standoff in which the contractor kept the Corns out and they hired Pinkertons
When the November 1891 completion date passed, the owners stopped paying contractor K. N. Smith & Co., which then barred them from the site. The Corns sent in Pinkerton guards to take the building by force, and the unfinished shell sat idle through a lawsuit. On May 8, 1893 the Superior Court found the contractor lacked diligence and dismissed its case, and the building opened late that year.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1906
A fire burns out clothing makers Abramson & Werblin, who go bankrupt when insurance is slow
The firm had begun business in the building on July 15, 1905. A fire on August 18, 1906 wrecked its shop, and its insurance broker was slow in paying the $1,800 policy. By September 8 it could not meet its bills, and a petition in bankruptcy was filed against it.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1915
The Peruvian Panama Hat Co. adds lofts here during the Panama hat craze
Having taken the entire lower floor for offices and showrooms in 1914, the company later advertised that in 1915 it had added lofts at 12 Waverly Place for manufacturing, advance orders and shipping. It also boasted of its largest line of Panamas yet.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1974
A young aspiring actress is found strangled on the building's roof
Karen Schlegel had moved from Cresskill, New Jersey, to No. 9 Minetta Street and worked as a program analyst at McGraw-Hill. After her pocketbook turned up in a trash can near City Hall and her parents could not reach her, her body was found on the roof of No. 12 that night, August 20, 1974. An autopsy found strangulation and no sexual assault.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 2010
NYU's genomics center hosts a meeting on the science of chocolate chip cookies
By around 2010 NYU had converted the former factory into the Center for Genomics and Systems Biology, joined internally to Nos. 14 and 16. On December 15, 2010 the Experimental Cuisine Collective met in Room 108 to discuss gluten formation, chocolate behavior and chewy versus crispy cookies, as the Times announced.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
Further reading
- Alfred Zucker's 1892 No. 12 Waverly PlaceDaytonian in Manhattan
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