Hugh Martin House

20 King Street | Hudson Square | built 1841

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. 1841

    20 King Street is built in Greek Revival style among Federal neighbors

    John Jacob Astor I laid out King Street in 1817 on Aaron Burr's former Richmond Hill estate and began building Federal row houses in the mid-1820s. Number 20 came later, in 1841, and follows the Greek Revival style, with three red-brick stories over a brownstone English basement. The doorway is framed by paneled pilasters, with leaded glass beside and above the door.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1855

    Boot and shoe dealer Hugh Martin buys the house and raises his family there

    Hugh Martin bought 20 King Street around 1855, after Post Office clerk George Coffin left. Martin owned a boot and shoe business at 192 Broadway and lived here with his wife Sarah and daughters Mary and Caroline. Caroline married Thomas Sloane, a Canal Street ribbon dealer, in 1863 and stayed on in the house. Mary died on her thirtieth birthday in 1865.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1899

    February 11

    The Sixth Avenue Extension threatens 20 King Street

    On February 11, 1899, the Record and Guide listed 20 King Street among the properties that lay inside the proposed Sixth Avenue Extension's lines, which ran from Minetta Lane to Canal Street. The project was delayed until 1925, and the new route ended up passing the house by only a few feet. In 1906 its owners, the Shear family, sold it to Nichola de Francesco Mileo, who appears to have run it as a rooming house in a neighborhood by then full of Italian immigrant families.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1967

    Owner Helen-Jean Dunn protests a new firehouse on Sixth Avenue

    By the 1960s Helen-Jean Dunn owned 20 King Street, and in 1963 the basement was converted to an apartment. Dunn, a member of the Association of Village Homeowners, objected to the 1967 plan for Engine Company No. 24's firehouse at 227 Avenue of the Americas, citing truck traffic. The firehouse was built anyway. The house still retains much of its 1841 character.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Further reading

Nearby

All 79 buildings with stories in Hudson Square