Garret Forbes House
136 Bank Street | West Village | built 1833
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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.
- 1833
A grocer builds three Greek Revival houses on Bank Street, ending at the corner house
Grocer William E. Fink had a row of three brick houses built in 1833 on the south side of Bank Street, between Greenwich and Washington Streets. No. 136 is the corner house, laid in running-bond brick, three stories over a basement. Its attic windows were later replaced with taller ones, while the original wrought-iron stoop railings remain on all three houses.
“This charming row of three brick residences was built in 1833 for William E. Fink, a grocer.”
- 1844
Customs inspector Garret Forbes, living on Bank Street, is dismissed in a purge of about fifty
Garret Forbes, born in 1785 to a family of silversmiths and a silversmith himself from 1805, moved his family into the house in 1842, when it was numbered 126. He was then a day inspector at the Customs House, and on August 12, 1844 he was among roughly fifty officials removed in one sweep. He retired, and in April 1851 a newspaper reported that he had collapsed and died while walking in his yard.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1857
Resident William Barnes becomes secretary of a committee sending free-state settlers to Kansas
William Barnes, an insurance man who lived here with his wife's parents, joined the Kansas Free-Stater movement that began in 1854. By 1857 he was secretary of the New York State committee, and on March 25 he placed a newspaper notice recruiting emigrants to leave Buffalo on April 1 for Kansas. By 1860 he also headed the state's insurance department.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1972
A shabbily dressed landlord, William Gottlieb, buys the house and never alters his buildings
William Gottlieb, a Coney Island native, bought 136 Bank Street in 1972 for $37,000 as he quietly gathered properties across the West Village. He wore rumpled clothes, drove a car with broken windows, and never sold, so his holdings were worth an estimated $200 to $300 million when he died of a stroke on October 5, 1999. Because he refused to demolish or alter his buildings, he became an accidental preservationist.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
Further reading
- The 1833 Garret Forbes House - 136 Bank StreetDaytonian in Manhattan
- Then & Now photos: 136 Bank StreetVillage Preservation: Greenwich Village Then & Now
Nearby
- 134 Bank Street1 entry
- 132 Bank Street2 entries
- Belvedere Stables727 Washington Street | 6 entries
- 130 Bank Street1 entry
- 128 Bank Street1 entry
- 131 Bank Street2 entries