17 Commerce Street

West Village | built 1830

Open on the map4 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. 1830

    Stonecutter Abraham Bogert razes a small house at No. 17 and builds a brick one to rent

    In 1830 the stonecutter Abraham R. Bogert tore down the little house on the lot and built a two-story brick one with a dormer as an investment. It had Flemish bond brickwork, paneled brownstone lintels, and stoop newels of wrought iron topped with pineapple finials, the old symbol of hospitality. Bogert apparently rented it out almost at once.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1859

    A cooper's blended family, including his wife's grown children, crowds into the small house

    Richard Israel Decker, a cooper, was left with two daughters when his wife Mary died in 1833. He soon married a neighbor, the widow Euphemia Cloyd Hart, who was 23 years his senior. By 1859 their household, which included her grown children and their spouses, was packed into the house, and they stayed until at least 1861. It had only three main rooms plus a dormered attic.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1929

    Playwright Katharine Thatcher Clugston writes and stages the three-act play Headlines while living at No. 17

    Katharine Thatcher Clugston lived at No. 17 in 1929. That year she wrote and staged Headlines, a three-act play. The house was then in the hands of Elizabeth S. Forrest, who had bought it in 1921 from the Williams-Dexter Company and said she would live in it after alterations.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1960

    May

    Illustrator Tomi Ungerer buys No. 17 and keeps it a single-family home

    In May 1960 the illustrator Tomi Ungerer bought the house. Like the owners before him, he used it as a one-family home, which suited a house with so little room: it is too small to work well as apartments or a boarding house. That small size is credited with helping the 1830 building survive. It was put on the market in 2012 for $4.475 million.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

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