William B. Cronyn House
271 9th Street | Park Slope | built 1857
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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.
- 1856
Wall Street merchant William B. Cronyn builds a Second Empire house on his Ninth Street farm lots
Cronyn bought four lots of the old Rem Adriance farm in 1854 and built his house two years later. The Landmarks Preservation Commission dates the building to 1856-57. His wife Elizabeth sold the property in 1862, ending the family's ownership.
“William B. Cronyn, a prosperous Wall Street merchant, purchased four farm lots in 1854 ... and built his imposing house two years later.”
- 1857
The house is a stuccoed Second Empire design with a mansard roof and a stair-lighting cupola
Built of frame and brick covered in stucco, the three-story house has a slate mansard roof with iron cresting and a half-story cupola whose clerestory lights the interior staircase. Three-sided bays flank the entrance, which sits under a tall bracketed portico.
- 1879
Sulphur refiner Daniel H. Gray makes the house his home, and his daughter stays until 1896
Gray, in the sulphur refining business, took the house in 1879. In 1885 he transferred it to his daughter Mary C. Gray Cone, who lived there until 1896. Brooklyn directories list her as being in the sulphur business herself, which the landmarks report thinks probably meant her father's firm.
- 1898
Charles M. Higgins buys the house as headquarters for his India ink company
Higgins acquired the property in 1898 to headquarter his India ink company, which stayed in the building until the middle of the twentieth century. The ink factory stood behind the house, facing Eighth Street. The change in use reflected a neighborhood that was taking on commercial uses alongside residential ones.
- 1978
The Landmarks Preservation Commission designates the Cronyn House, a rare Second Empire survivor
The commission found that the house keeps much of its original residential and architectural character and is a rare surviving example of mid-19th-century Second Empire architecture in New York City. It named the cupola, mansard roof and projecting bays as notable details. The designation covers the whole tax lot.
Further reading
- William B. Cronyn HouseWikipedia
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