169 Suffolk Street

Lower East Side | built 1900

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. 1853

    A brick house and a taller rear tenement share one lot, an unusual pairing

    The front house at 169 Suffolk Street, faced in brick, was built around 1853, three stories above an English basement and 23 feet wide. A tenement two stories taller went up behind it, and a horsewalk tunneled through the front house at sidewalk level to reach it. Daytonian in Manhattan calls a house and tenement on one lot unusual, perhaps unique. Early occupants were working-class German families, including a peddler, a tinsmith and a musician.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1864

    Saloonkeeper Paul Kratt moves his bar into the basement and is arrested twice

    By 1864 Paul Kratt had moved his beer saloon from 171 Suffolk Street into the basement here, and he and his wife Eva lived in the main house. The Times reported his arrest on April 23, 1867, for keeping the saloon open on election day, and again in June 1868, for having the bar open on a Sunday. After Kratt died in 1881, Eva took over and was still listed as the saloon's owner in 1892.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1910

    September 1

    A widowed buttonhole maker is summoned to eviction court during his mourning week

    Nathan Hyman, a buttonhole maker living here, lost work to the 1910 citywide cloakmakers strike and fell behind on rent. His wife died that August, and days later landlady Katherine K. Phelan had him summoned to court for eviction. On September 1 he stood before Justice Snitkin in tears, saying the summons forced him to break the seven days of mourning that Jewish law requires, as the Times recounted.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1916

    Anshei Polen Talmud Torah buys the house and turns it into a synagogue and yeshiva

    The congregation Anshei Polen Talmud Torah bought the property in 1916 and converted the front house into a synagogue and school, while the rear building stayed a tenement. In 1918 the yeshiva had 100 boys and three teachers, meeting weekday evenings from 4 to 7 and Sunday mornings. The congregation also added a new cornice topped with Stars of David. Its president, Henry Michael Greenberg, had been born in Russia in 1852.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  5. 1938

    June 6

    Burning wax sets a candelabrum alight during Shavuoth services in the basement

    During Shavuoth prayers of the Ottynier Society in the basement, wax set a freshly painted candelabrum on fire and the flames reached a wall. Six men in prayer shawls carried out the Torah scrolls while about forty worshipers fled to the street. Firefighters put the blaze out with only slight damage, and 75 members of the Society of Gwozelte upstairs finished their own service undisturbed, according to the Times.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Further reading

Nearby

All 78 buildings with stories in Lower East Side