Breese Carriage House

150 East 22nd Street | Gramercy | built 1920

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. 1901

    Eloise Breese commissions a Flemish Revival carriage house on East 22nd Street

    In 1901 the wealthy, independent Eloise L. Breese hired architect Sidney V. Stratton to design a private carriage house at 150 East 22nd Street, a few blocks east of her home at No. 35. Stratton gave the two-story building a stepped gable recalling Manhattan's Dutch past, warm Roman brick on a limestone base, and a fan of oversized limestone voussoirs above the double carriage doors. In that era a private stable was as much a sign of social standing as the house itself.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1906

    Eloise Breese, Gramercy's 'bachelor maiden,' marries Adam Norrie

    Eloise L. Breese is said to have been the only woman in the New York Yacht Club, sailing a steam yacht, the Elsa, whose prow was shaped like a swan in tribute to her love of opera. She also kept her own box at the Metropolitan Opera. Newspapers called her a "bachelorette" or "bachelor maiden" because she stayed single. In 1906, fifteen years before her death, she surprised society by marrying the widower Adam Norrie in a Tuxedo wedding.

    Source: Ephemeral New York

  3. 1948

    July 24

    A retired police officer dies of a heart attack after a child darts in front of his car

    By the 1930s the former carriage house served as a garage with an apartment upstairs, and in the mid-1940s retired police officer Thomas A. Smith lived above. On July 24, 1948, the 63-year-old Smith was driving when a seven-year-old girl ran into the path of his car. About thirty minutes later, while trying to explain what happened to police, he collapsed with a fatal heart attack. The building later housed an architect's studio, and in 2006 a glass-walled house was built behind its preserved front.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Further reading

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