Isaac F. Fisher House

249 East Houston Street | Lower East Side | built 1900

Open on the map6 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. 1866

    June 7

    Real estate agent Isaac F. Fisher runs his business from the house

    Isaac F. Fisher, his wife Jettie and son Henry lived in this 18-foot-wide Federal-style house, one of a row on what was then a former Stuyvesant farm street. Henry entered Columbia College in 1865. Fisher advertised properties for sale from the address, including a corner lot on Avenue A with four houses and seven stores.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1883

    November 23

    Harris Baruch auctions 1,000 lots of unredeemed goods at his basement pawnshop

    Around 1882 the basement was converted to a shop, and Harris Baruch leased it for a pawn business while his family lived upstairs. On November 23, 1883 he held an auction of items left past their due date, including watches, diamonds, chains and bracelets. His son Benjamin later joined the business.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1899

    August 17

    Pawnbroker Harris Baruch identifies a murder defendant in court

    After Mrs. Nathan Kronman was murdered in her West 35th Street apartment in August 1899, police searching pawnshops found a stolen diamond brooch at Baruch's shop. He testified at William Neufeldt's trial on August 17 that two men came in and one asked $200 on the pin, while he offered $185. Baruch singled out Neufeldt in court as the man who handed it over.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1901

    June

    Architect M. Bernstein gives the old house a Renaissance Revival makeover

    Owner Max Schwartz hired architect M. Bernstein to remodel the building in June 1901. It received a veneer of running bond brick, a carved entrance enframement below a bracketed cornice, stone lintels with carved keystones on the lower windows, and arched third-floor windows with brick eyebrows.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  5. 1918

    September

    Resident Jack Herschkowitz draws German fire to save an officer

    Jack Herschkowitz, son of a 249 East Houston Street family, served with Company C of the 308th Infantry. In September 1918 near Binarville, France, he and two others crawled into a German camp in the dark and lay unnoticed for three hours. When discovered, he drew enemy fire so the officer could escape, then delivered his message the next morning.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  6. 1935

    October 17

    Gangster Albert "The Plug" Schuman is shot on the stoop during the policy war

    Schuman, climbing the stoop for an appointment with dentist Abraham Pflantzer, whose office was on the parlor floor, was attacked and shot on October 17, 1935. The New York Post called it the fifth gangster shot down in a bloody policy war. He scampered into the hallway and recovered at Bellevue Hospital.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Further reading

Nearby

All 78 buildings with stories in Lower East Side