Elias Hubbard Ryder House
1926 East 28th Street | Madison | built 1920
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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.
- 1834
Elias H. Ryder moves his family into a new Dutch Colonial farmhouse in Gravesend
Elias H. Ryder had inherited farmland from his father Bernardus and married Ann Stillwell in 1822. According to a family record quoted by the Landmarks Preservation Commission, he and his family took possession of the house on March 25, 1834. It stood at the edge of his farmland beside Ryder's Lane, then the road linking the Ryder homesteads, at a spot that city planners would later put in the path of East 29th Street.
“Gravesend, March 25th in the Year of Our Lord One Thousand Eight Hundred and Thirty Four Elias H. Ryder and his family took possession of his house.”
- 1928
The city condemns the Ryder house for a street and sells the building back to the family
Street surveys of the area found the farmhouse sitting in the middle of the planned roadbed of East 29th Street, straddling the blocks on either side. In 1928 the city acquired the property by condemnation and sold the house, without the land, back to the Ryder family. Its main body was then moved to 1926 East 28th Street, where it still stands.
“In 1928 the City acquired title through condemnation to the property and sold back the house, but not the land, to the Ryder Family.”
- 1929
The move to East 28th Street costs the Ryder house two rooms and its end porch, and new space is added
To fit the new lot and for structural reasons, two rooms on the west side and an end porch were removed before the house was moved. The family made up for the lost space by replacing the south porch with a room, adding a dormer-windowed bedroom and bath upstairs, and building a rear second-story wing for another bedroom. The Landmarks Preservation Commission dates these alterations to 1929.
“…two rooms on the west and an end porch had been removed for structural reasons and in order to adjust the house to the dimensions of the new lot.”
- 1976
The Landmarks Preservation Commission designates the Ryder house, held by one family for over 130 years
The Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the Elias Hubbard Ryder House a city landmark in 1976, after nineteen witnesses spoke in favor at its hearing and none opposed. The designation noted that the house was a rare survival from the early 1800s and had stayed with one family for more than a century and a third. The commission described it as a reminder of Brooklyn's rural past.
“…the house remained in the possession of one family for over one hundred and thirty years…”
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