William T. Burlingham House

23 Downing Street | West Village | built 2012

Open on the map5 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. 1826

    William T. Burlingham builds a brick-faced wooden house on Downing Street

    Around 1826 William T. Burlingham built an 18-foot-wide home at No. 23 Downing Street. It was a Federal style wooden house with a brick face, two stories under a peaked roof with one or two dormers, like most of its neighbors. A later alteration removed every trace of that early appearance.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1849

    March

    Foundry foreman Antony Tasheira, whose father lived here, sails for the California Gold Rush

    Cabinetmaker James L. Tasheira, a Freemason, lived here from about 1840 and died of tuberculosis in April 1847, with his funeral at the house. His son Antony Lewis Tasheira, a foundry foreman and fellow Mason, was lured by tales of easy wealth after the gold discovery and sailed with his own family in March 1849. They rounded Cape Horn and reached San Francisco that fall.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1886

    J. Boekell & Son rebuild the house as a Renaissance Revival, two-family building

    Edwin Holz bought the old house in July 1886 and spent $2,000 having J. Boekell & Son remodel it. The attic was raised to a full story and the front wall rebuilt in a Renaissance Revival design with brownstone sills and lintels and a bracketed cornice with a pediment. It left no hint of the Federal original, and the house now held two families.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1925

    October 7

    A customer is beaten and robbed in the basement restaurant

    In 1910 an architect filed plans to turn the house into a three-story tenement, adding a first-floor shop and a basement restaurant. On the night of October 7, 1925, a 26-year-old man was arrested after allegedly hitting a diner on the head with a mineral-water bottle and taking $30 while staff and patrons looked on. The restaurant was gone by 1934, when the building became a three-family house.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  5. 2013

    Architects begin a renovation that returns the house to a single private home

    In 2013 The Turett Collaborative began a major renovation of No. 23, aiming to make it a private residence again. Its painted brick was stripped back and the facade restored, while the interiors were made open and modern. A fourth-floor addition was set back so it cannot be seen from the street.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Further reading

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