Norwood Club

241 West 14th Street | Chelsea | built 1847

Open on the map4 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. 1847

    Merchant Andrew Norwood builds a marble-trimmed family mansion

    Merchant and stockbroker Andrew S. Norwood completes three matching townhouses on the block in 1847, mixing Greek Revival and Italianate details, and moves his family into No. 241. The four-story house features finely carved marble mantels and ornate plaster ceiling work, hallmarks of the Norwoods' wealth. Norwood also helped found the Cedar Street church that later becomes Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1890

    The mansion becomes the New York Deaconess' Home and Training School

    After passing out of the Norwood family, the West 14th Street mansion is taken over around 1890 by the Methodist Episcopal Church's New York Deaconess' Home and Training School. The institution trains women as deaconesses, a Protestant equivalent to a religious order, inside the former merchant's residence. It is one of several charitable uses the house takes on in the late nineteenth century.

    Source: Ephemeral New York

  3. 1897

    The house becomes a shelter for homeless young women

    In 1897 the mansion becomes the Shelter for Respectable Girls, a charity housing homeless and friendless young women who have come to the city for work. By 1900, more than 500 women pass through the shelter inside the former merchant's home in a single year. It is one of several social-service tenants to occupy the building around the turn of the twentieth century.

    Source: Ephemeral New York

  4. 2007

    The restored mansion reopens as the Norwood Club

    Real estate broker Raf Borello buys the derelict Norwood house in 1976, restoring it as his home until his death in 2005; while he owns it, the building's exterior receives landmark status. His heirs sell it in 2006 to a group led by Alan Linn, who convert it, with design by Simon Costin, into the Norwood Club, a modern take on the traditional gentlemen's club. It opens in 2007 and operates until closing in February 2022.

    Source: Wikipedia

Further reading

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