213 West 13th Street

West Village | built 1851

Open on the map6 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. 1851

    Two rental houses are built for George P. Rogers and William C. Rhinelander

    In 1851 Rogers and Rhinelander built two three-story houses here, faced in brownstone at the lower levels and red brick above, originally numbered 141 and 143. They were rented, so early residents stayed only briefly. They included an agent named William H. Terry in 1853, a dry goods merchant named Max Weil in 1855 and Charles Fox, a cap and fur manufacturer, who stayed through 1869.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1868

    February 11

    A rejected suitor shoots at a maid next door, then kills himself

    The family of Henry Strouse leased the neighboring house of the pair in 1867, and their German-born servant Sophia Woelt was pursued by Albert Garagnon, who was already married. Early on February 11, 1868 he came to the house, quarreled with her and fired two shots, both missing. He then cut his own throat and died at once. The New York Herald put it down to disappointed love.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1925

    Charles Rubinger joins the two houses into one neo-Georgian building

    Rubinger had bought both houses in 1909 for about $200,000. In 1925 his architect combined them, removing the stoops and building a grade-level entrance in a columned portico, with sidelights and a fanlight like an 18th-century country mansion. A fifth floor was added above a corbeled, dentiled cornice. The exterior looks nearly unchanged today.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1940

    September 12

    Anais Nin rents a skylight studio on the top floor

    After a long search, the diarist Anais Nin found an affordable top-floor studio at 215 West 13th Street, five flights up. She wrote on September 12, 1940 that it cost $60 a month and had a long, high-ceilinged room with a sloped skylight and twelve windows. She and her husband Hugh Parker Guiler were perhaps the first literary figures to move in after the 1938 renovation.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  5. 1940

    Shirley Jackson and Stanley Edgar Hyman move in after their marriage

    The writers Shirley Jackson and Stanley Edgar Hyman met in 1938 and moved to the building soon after they married in 1940. Jackson became known for mystery and horror novels and stories, and Hyman became a literary critic. By then the 1938 renovation had turned the building into four apartments per floor, which drew a number of writers.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  6. 1954

    May 22

    A radio writer who lived here suffers a heart attack on a boat in a gale

    Arthur McCaffery, who lived here at midcentury, worked in radio writing, acting and directing, and in 1947 wrote Cape Cod on the Subway. On May 22, 1954 he and his wife took guests out on their 30-foot cruiser on Sheepshead Bay, and a gale blew in. He had a heart attack, his wife had other fishermen call the Coast Guard, and he was brought ashore for treatment despite waves of up to ten feet.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

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