21-33 45th Avenue
Long Island City | built 1875
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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.
- 1870
Spencer Root and John Rust buy the land for their row of houses from Union College
Spencer B. Root, from Greenfield, Massachusetts, and Brooklyn's John P. Rust bought the land for their development on what was then East Twelfth Street from Union College. Their stone houses on the block stood out in a mostly wooden Hunters Point, and the street became the neighborhood's showplace, known as "White Collar Row." The Landmarks Preservation Commission's 1968 report adds that the pair are said to have gone bankrupt before meeting their obligations.
“The development was begun by Spencer B. Root of Greenfield, Massachusetts and John P. Rust of Brooklyn, New York who bought the land from Union College on December 22, 1870.”
- 1968
Landmarks report finds No. 21-33 keeping its door pediment and much of its original door woodwork
When the Hunters Point Historic District was designated, the Commission grouped No. 21-33 with four other three-story brick Italianate houses built by Root & Rust in the early 1870s, part of a continuous row of 15. A classical pediment like those at Nos. 21-09 to 21-17 sits over its front door. The door kept its original woodwork, somewhat altered by glass set into the middle panels.
“The front doors of Numbers 21-33 and 21-35 have their original woodwork somewhat modified by the introduction of glass in the middle panels.”
Nearby
- 21-31 45th Avenue1 entry
- 21-35 45th Avenue1 entry
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- 21-39 45th Avenue1 entry
- 21-27 45th Avenue1 entry