17 Downing Street

West Village | built 1877

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.

1877
Jacob and Joseph Wilson build a ten-family neo-Grec tenement designed by Gage Inslee
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Architect Gage Inslee designed 17 Downing Street in 1877 as a five-story tenement for ten families, built for the owners Jacob and Joseph Wilson. Within three years the census counted 17 working-class families inside, half of them headed by immigrants, and two led by single women who took in boarders. By 1900 the count stood at 16 families.
Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission
1905
Owner Isaac Rubenstein has two stores added to the front of 17 Downing Street
Under owner Isaac Rubenstein, architect Alfred Kehoe reworked the ground floor in 1905 and 1907, adding two stores at the front and upgrading the plumbing. Cast-iron columns at the corners of the first story date from that 1907 work. In 1959-60 the shops were replaced by apartments behind a new brick first story.
“In 1905 and 1907, under the ownership of Isaac Rubenstein, Alfred Kehoe reconfigured the first story adding two stores in the front of the building…”
Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

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