Roger and Evelyn Baldwin House

282 West 11th Street | West Village | built 1818

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. 1818

    No. 282 is one of nine houses assessed to clothier Aaron Henry on this block in 1818

    No. 282 was among the earliest houses in Greenwich Village, standing by 1818 as one of nine assessed that year to Aaron Henry, a retired clothier who apparently lived elsewhere on the street. It is three stories of Flemish bond brickwork with double-keystone lintels and an arched doorway whose transom has radial muntins. Its basement is unusually tall for the Federal era, which may reflect a change in the street level.

    “…these two houses were built by 1818, and No. 282 is today the handsome Federal prototype.”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  2. 1894

    June 20

    Auctioneer John W. Campbell lands a seven-pound bass on a Hudson River outing

    John W. Campbell, an auctioneer who lived here and loved fishing, took an afternoon off in June 1894 and went up the Hudson above Fort Washington. He fished from a railroad wall and, after a 25-minute fight, landed a bass 26 inches long using a 14-ounce rod and a small hook. The Evening World dubbed him the day's hero of the Hudson.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1935

    Evelyn Preston is arrested at a Brooklyn department store strike picket and fined $5

    Evelyn Preston, a Barnard graduate and Junior League member, lived here when the League of Women Shoppers helped striking workers at May's department store in Brooklyn in November 1935. She was arrested for disorderly picketing for ignoring a rule that allowed no more than two pickets at a time, and was fined $5. Daytonian in Manhattan suggests episodes like this led her to Roger Baldwin, founder of the American Civil Liberties Union.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1936

    ACLU founder Roger Baldwin marries Evelyn Preston and the couple stays on in the house

    A year after her arrest, Evelyn Preston married Roger Nash Baldwin, who founded the American Civil Liberties Union, and they kept living in the West 11th Street house. They had one daughter, Helen. Under Baldwin the ACLU handled the Scopes evolution case, the Sacco and Vanzetti murder trial and the fight over James Joyce's Ulysses.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  5. 1962

    June 12

    Evelyn Preston Baldwin dies; Eleanor Roosevelt's tribute calls the couple a force in many movements

    Evelyn Preston Baldwin died of cancer on June 12, 1962, at 64. Eleanor Roosevelt wrote that Evelyn and Roger Baldwin had together been an inspiration and a force in movements of value at home and abroad. Their daughter Helen continued to live in the house with her father, and the house stayed a single-family home.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Further reading

Nearby

All 1,156 buildings with stories in West Village