29 West 8th Street

Greenwich Village | built 1846

Open on the map3 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. 1846

    William Wagstaff completes 29 West 8th Street, one of seven Greek Revival houses

    William Wagstaff began building seven Greek Revival houses on the north side of Clinton Place, now West 8th Street, in 1845, and No. 29, then 101 Clinton Place, was completed in 1846. The 25-foot-wide house is four stories tall above a brownstone-clad English basement, with an eared doorway and probably a cast-iron balcony at the parlor windows. Banker and former merchant Benjamin F. Wheelwright, president of the Greenwich Bank, made it his home until 1853.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1889

    The basement and parlor floor at 29 West 8th Street turn to business use

    In 1889 William Kaul converted the basement and first floor of the house for business, opening a barber shop on the parlor level and leasing the basement to a billiard saloon. In 1892 a cloak and suit manufacturing shop replaced the barber shop. Mario Menardi took over the lease in 1897 and ran a saloon in the basement while his wife ran a boarding house.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1942

    Avant-garde jeweler Sam Kramer moves his shop to 29 West 8th Street

    Sam Kramer, born in Pittsburgh in 1913, opened a jewelry shop in Greenwich Village in 1939 and moved it to 29 West 8th Street three years later. His modernist silver pieces often incorporated taxidermy eyes, porcupine quills, vintage buttons, and moose teeth. The New Yorker said in December 1942 that he made jewelry for people who were slightly mad. Kramer died on June 9, 1964, at age 50.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Further reading

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All 518 buildings with stories in Greenwich Village