29 Downing Street

also 29A Downing Street | West Village | built 1829

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.

1829
Sarah and Louisa Smith build a two-story frame house at 29 Downing Street
Read more
Around 1829 Sarah and Louisa Smith had a two-story frame house built on this lot, according to the Landmarks Preservation Commission's research. About 1870 the house was raised to its present three stories and probably given the brick front it still has. The commission classes it as a Vernacular-style row house, now a studio and multiple dwelling.
Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission
1880
By 1880 the house at 29 Downing Street holds five families, most of them immigrants
The 1851 listing for this address shows four people living here. By the 1880 census the little house had become a tenement with five families: two born in the United States and three immigrant families from England and Germany. Its history reflects how Greenwich Village's early houses filled with working-class and immigrant renters.
Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission
1920
Owner Matteo Nicomini turns 29 Downing Street into a five-car garage
With the building vacant in 1920, owner Matteo Nicomini hired Anthony Vendrasco to convert the ground floor into a garage for five cars. The stoop was taken off, the basement was filled up to sidewalk level, and new openings were cut in the front wall. In 1924 architect William E. Bloodgood converted the upper two stories into a pair of floor-through apartments.
Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

Nearby