20 Leroy Street

West Village | built 1835

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. 1835

    Jonathan H. Ransom's Greek Revival row house goes up around 1835 on Leroy Street

    No. 20 Leroy Street was built about 1835 for Jonathan H. Ransom, with a stoop, a recessed entry, a flat roof and attic windows beneath a molded wood fascia. It got a rear addition in 1875 but stayed a single-family home. City directories show it was no longer one by 1929, though the Landmarks Preservation Commission found the exterior largely unchanged.

    “No. 20 Leroy Street was built c. 1835, and with its decorative ironwork, stoop, recessed entryway, attic windows and flat roof…”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  2. 1858

    August 18

    A Leroy Street butcher-fireman helps a California woman search for her missing sea captain brother

    In August 1858 the New-York Daily Tribune ran a notice from Emma C. Hetty of Santa Clara, California, seeking her brother, Captain Robert S. Parker, last heard from in 1849 as he prepared to sail the ship Phocion from New Bedford to China. Replies were to go to John D. Lent at 20 Leroy Street. Lent was a butcher and a volunteer fireman, and his sister Susannah had married and moved to Santa Clara.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1915

    April 30

    A Lusitania steward boards at a Leroy Street house where Gustav Stahl also lives

    In spring 1915 the boarding house at 20 Leroy Street, run by a Mrs. Kane, held German residents including reservist Gustav Stahl, plus John Neil Leach, a British first cabin steward on the Lusitania. On April 30, the night before the liner sailed, Leach asked Stahl to help carry his luggage aboard. After the ship was torpedoed on May 7, Stahl swore that he had seen guns on deck, and the German Embassy passed his statement to the State Department.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1915

    June 10

    Gustav Stahl, who gave 20 Leroy Street as his address, is arrested for perjury over Lusitania guns

    Stahl's affidavit gave his address as 20 Leroy Street. On June 10, 1915 Secret Service men brought him before the federal grand jury, which was looking into Hamburg-American Line detective Paul Koenig. After he repeated through an interpreter that he had seen four guns, an assistant U.S. attorney had him arrested for perjury. He was held on $10,000 bail in the Tombs, and the complaint said he had never boarded the ship.

    Source: gutenberg.org

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