298 Bleecker Street

West Village | built 1829

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. 1829

    Charles Oakley completes a row of brick shop-houses on Bleecker Street, newly renamed from Herring Street

    The year the Common Council received Charles Oakley's petition to rename Herring Street as Bleecker Street, Oakley finished a row on its west side between Barrow and Grove Streets. This house, later renumbered 298, rose three and a half stories in red Flemish-bond brick with a single dormer and very likely a shop below. Its first known tenant was John Passenbronder's dry goods store, where he and his wife Elizabeth also kept a boarder.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1855

    October 4

    William Eginton advertises two milk goats for sale at his Bleecker Street house

    William Eginton, who owned the house and ran a livery stable downtown on Fulton Street, placed an ad in the New York Herald offering two healthy milk goats for sale, singly if wanted. Buyers were told to come and see the animals at the house, then numbered 284 Bleecker Street. He and his wife Olivia apparently kept small animals in the rear yard.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1863

    August 12

    Milliner William Church testifies against a man accused of leading the Draft Riot crowd

    William Church ran a ladies' hat store on the ground floor of this house. On July 13, 1863, when the Draft Riots began, he was downtown outside the Tribune Building. A month later he testified at the trial of James H. Whitten, accused of leading the crowd and burglarizing the Tribune office, telling the court he had noticed the man and recognized him on sight.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1947

    January 16

    Police break through a ten-inch wall to reach a kitten trapped behind a refrigerator

    A kitten became wedged between a wall and a commercial refrigerator that was too large to move. According to The New York Sun, police first tried luring it out with its mother. When that failed, the emergency squad broke through the thick wall, and an officer was able to reach in and lift the kitten out, but it died.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  5. 1976

    A Greek-owned French pastry shop sells strudel and pies amid Bleecker Street's Italian food stores

    By 1976 the ground floor held Lafayette French Pastry, advertising strudel and custom-made pies from morning to night. Around it, Bleecker Street's food shops sold Italian cheeses, sausages and breads, which made the bakery an exception: its pastries were French, though its owners were Greek. A Fodor's guide of the early 1990s still recommended it, with a nod to the Italian neighborhood around it.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Further reading

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