240 Lafayette Street

SoHo | built 1873

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.

1873
An old two-and-a-half-story house at 240 Lafayette Street is raised to five stories as an apartment house
The building began around 1809 to 1816 as a two-and-a-half-story house for George Hopson, when the Fourteenth Ward was filling with new homes. In 1873 owner Joseph Craig hired architect John McIntyre to raise the ground floor, add a storefront, turn the peaked roof into a full story, add a fifth floor, and give it a new brick front and cornice. The upper floors still hold apartments.
Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission
1897
The facade of 240 Lafayette Street is slid several feet west when the street is widened
When Lafayette Street was widened in 1897, the front of 240 Lafayette Street had to move several feet to the west. The Landmarks Preservation Commission thinks the 1873 Italianate facade by John McIntyre was taken apart and put back up rather than replaced, which would explain why it survives largely intact.
Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

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