Ruth McKenney's My Sister Eileen house
14 Gay Street | West Village | built 1828
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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.
- 1827
Curtis Hitchcock, a plough manufacturer, has a Federal row house built next to No. 12
No. 14 Gay Street was erected in 1827-28 for Curtis Hitchcock of New York, a plough manufacturer, by the builders Daniel H. Weed and Joseph D. Baldwin. It was two and a half stories high, with Flemish-bond brick and a central dormer with triple sash. Its doorway is almost a twin of No. 12's, but simpler, with four panes in the transom. The small-bracketed roof cornice is a later replacement.
“No. 14 was erected for Curtis Hitchcock of New York, a plough manufacturer.”
- 1935
Writer Ruth McKenney and her sister Eileen share a basement apartment at 14 Gay Street
In 1935 the author Ruth McKenney lived with her sister Eileen in the basement apartment of this 1827 house. Daytonian in Manhattan says details of their life on Gay Street became part of her book My Sister Eileen. The same apartment was later the scene of a fatal fire.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1938
McKenney's New Yorker stories of the Gay Street basement are collected as My Sister Eileen
McKenney's experiences in the one-room basement at 14 Gay Street became a series of stories in The New Yorker, gathered into the book My Sister Eileen in 1938. Wikipedia says the apartment was moldy, rented for $45 a month, and was burgled in the first week of the six months the sisters stayed. The stories were later adapted into a Broadway play.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2003
Community activist David Ryan dies in a Christmas Day fire in the basement apartment
A fire in the basement apartment at No. 14 Gay Street killed the community activist David Ryan on Christmas Day 2003. Daytonian in Manhattan notes that this was the same apartment where Ruth McKenney had lived with her sister in 1935.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 2022
The city orders the landmarked house demolished after unpermitted work weakens its structure
On November 11, 2022, the Department of Buildings ordered the demolition of the landmarked house at 14 Gay Street, which was nearly 200 years old. Village Preservation says unpermitted work done at the site had put the structure in danger. The house stood on the west side of the street, between Christopher Street and Waverly Place, in the Greenwich Village Historic District.
Source: Village Preservation
Further reading
- Then & Now photos: 14 Gay StreetVillage Preservation: Greenwich Village Then & Now
- Why a modest 1827 home is missing from its row in Greenwich VillageEphemeral New York
Nearby
- 16 Gay Street1 entry
- 12 Gay Street4 entries
- 18 Gay Street2 entries
- 10 Gay Street2 entries
- William Kunstler House13 Gay Street | 2 entries
- 15 Gay Street1 entry