23 East 11th Street

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.

1844
The Isaacs family builds No. 23 as part of a row of Greek Revival houses
No. 23 is built in 1844 for the Isaacs family, the same family that built the oldest surviving house in Greenwich Village. It is one of four similar Greek Revival houses put up between 1842 and 1845 for different owners. With its dentiled cornice, pilastered doorway and ironwork enframing the parlor level, the landmark report says No. 23 shows how the row first looked.
Source: media.villagepreservation.org
1870
The Free Home for Destitute Young Girls buys the house
A newly founded charity, the Free Home for Destitute Young Girls, buys 23 East Eleventh Street in 1870 to shelter poor girls without family protection, train them for work and place them with Christian families. The home can care for 35 girls at a time. It holds the house for about half a century and sells it in June 1919.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
1945
Engineer O. C. Brewster writes a wartime warning to Truman from No. 23
During the Second World War the engineer O. C. Brewster lives at 23 East Eleventh Street and works on uranium isotope research linked to building a nuclear weapon. He writes to President Harry Truman from the house, warning that the destruction of civilization is a real and almost inevitable danger if the material is produced competitively without restraint. He accepts that bombing Japan is necessary but fears further use of nuclear weapons.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

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