21 Leroy Street

West Village | built 1899

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.

1899
Broker Elias Kempner builds a six-story tenement for 24 families at 21 Leroy Street
Read more
Real estate broker Elias Kempner put up this building in 1899 to George F. Pelham's design, with stores in the basement and four apartments on each floor above. The 1900 census found 23 families living there, six of them native-born and four first-generation Irish immigrants.
“…the building was intended to house 24 families, with stores in the basement and four apartments and two water closets on each floor above…”
Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission
1930
By 1930 the tenement's 11 families include Italian, English, French and Scottish households
Eleven families lived at 21 Leroy Street in the 1930 census, down from 23 thirty years earlier. Five were first-generation Italian immigrant households, and six were first- or second-generation families from England (by way of Canada), Ireland, France and Scotland. Residents worked as a dock receiving clerk, taxi chauffeur, radio salesman, laundry ironer and the proprietor of a livery stable.
Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

Nearby