Emma D. Barr House

245 Waverly Place | West Village | built 1888

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. 1888

    William B. Tuthill designs a Romanesque Revival row for John C. Barr at 243-247 Waverly Place

    John C. Barr built three town houses in 1888, with 245 in the middle, to designs by William B. Tuthill. The Landmarks Preservation Commission calls the row an outstanding example of Romanesque Revival work in finish brick. Its high stoops keep their twisted ironwork, the nine-paneled doors have iron grilles, and the round-arched second-story windows are emphasized by radial brickwork. The doorways of 245 and 247 are paired.

    “This handsome row of three town houses, built in 1888 for John C. Barr, was designed by the noted architect William B. Tuthill.”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  2. 1890

    James Irving Barr dies of pneumonia at 245 Waverly Place just before his wedding

    James Irving Barr, an assistant cashier at Chemical Bank, lived at 245 with his widowed mother, Emma D. Barr. At 37 he became engaged and rented a furnished house for a wedding set for April 24, 1890. Two days before the ceremony he left the bank early feeling ill, went home to 245 Waverly Place, and died of pneumonia.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1899

    September 21

    A good Samaritan is jailed along with the drunk boarder of 245 Waverly Place he helped

    On September 21, 1899, William Van Tassel, a 70-year-old iron dealer boarding at 245 Waverly Place, came home from a Hoboken Turtle Club picnic at Kingsbridge. Around midnight he stepped off an Eighth Avenue streetcar drunk and nearly helpless, carrying $1,000 in cash and diamond jewelry. A friend, John Ransom, put him in a cab, but Policeman Van Huskirk suspected a robbery and arrested both men.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1951

    Printmaker Stanley William Hayter, founder of Atelier 17, lives at 245 Waverly Place

    By the early 1950s the English-born painter and printmaker Stanley William Hayter lived at 245 Waverly Place. He had founded the Atelier 17 studio and school in Paris in 1927. Among those linked to the workshop were Chagall, Pollock, Rothko, Calder and Picasso.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  5. 1981

    April

    Yazoo Records, based at 245 Waverly Place, issues blues trading cards drawn by R. Crumb

    The Yazoo Record Co., a label founded in the mid-1960s by Nick Perls to specialize in blues, country and jazz, worked from 245 Waverly Place from about 1975 until about 1985. The building was divided into ten apartments in 1977. In April 1981 the label issued a set of 36 blues trading cards, slightly larger than baseball cards, drawn by the cartoonist R. Crumb of Zap Comics, each with a short biography on the back.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Further reading

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