Margaret Wise Brown House (Cobble Court)

121 Charles Street | also 713 Greenwich Street | West Village | built 1810

Open on the map5 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. 1868

    William Glass buys a York Avenue farmhouse and runs a dairy

    The wooden house now at 121 Charles Street originally stood at 1335 York Avenue, between 71st and 72nd Streets. William Glass and his wife bought the property in 1868 and ran a dairy there. Around 1869 they put up a two-story brick house in front that hid the farmhouse from view, and the cobblestones between the two buildings gave the place the name Cobble Court.

    Source: Village Preservation

  2. 1946

    Margaret Wise Brown, author of Goodnight Moon, lives in the farmhouse

    In the 1940s the farmhouse, then rented out, was home to the children's author Margaret Wise Brown, whose Goodnight Moon appeared in 1947. LIFE magazine photographed her in its doorway in 1946, when it still stood on York Avenue. Her 1952 book Mister Dog features the house.

    Source: Village Preservation

  3. 1966

    Sven and Ingrid Bernhard win ownership to save the house from the Archdiocese

    Sven Bernhard rented and renovated the house in 1960, and his wife Ingrid moved in after their marriage in December 1964. In 1965 the Glass grandchildren conveyed the property to the Archdiocese of New York, which planned to demolish the house to make room for the Mary Manning Walsh Home for the Aged. The Bernhards went to court and won ownership around July 1966, with until January 31, 1967 to move the house.

    Source: Village Preservation

  4. 1967

    March 5

    The Bernhards move the farmhouse from York Avenue to Charles Street

    Architect William Shopsin located a lot at Charles and Greenwich Streets on February 3, and its odd shape could take the 26-foot-wide house. Wooden houses had been outlawed in Manhattan, so approvals needed help from Borough President Percy Sutton and Mayor John Lindsay. After snow threatened the plan, the house moved on Sunday, March 5, 1967, and Sutton and West Village residents greeted it. The old cobblestones came along to recreate the courtyard.

    Source: Village Preservation

  5. 2014

    A 'development site' listing for 121 Charles Street sets off a preservation outcry

    An online listing in 2014 advertised the property as a potential development site, and preservationists protested loudly. The house was not actually for sale, and it is protected within the Greenwich Village Historic District. Its owners, Suri Bieler and Eliot Brodsky, had earlier restored it and added to it so sympathetically that even the new windows are crooked, which won an award from the Greenwich Village Historical Society.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Further reading

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