James H. Sanford House

31 West 9th Street | Greenwich Village | built 1854

Open on the map4 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. 1854

    Dennis McDermott builds three matching rowhouses, possibly designed by James Renwick Jr.

    Dennis McDermott broke ground in 1854 on three four-story, 17-foot-wide rowhouses on West 9th Street, finished the next year. Their architect was quite possibly James Renwick Jr., who lived half a block away on Fifth Avenue. The Anglo-Italianate houses had raised entrances, a cast-iron balcony across the second floor, and bracketed cornices. The center house became 31 West 9th Street when the street was renumbered in 1868.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1870

    August 6

    House owner Rodney Looke, a railroad yardmaster, joins a chase that leaves a thief dead

    Rodney W. Looke, who bought 31 West 9th Street in April 1870, was yardmaster at the Long Island Rail Road repair yard at Hunter's Point, which reportedly lost $15,000 in iron to river thieves in a year. On the night of August 6, 1870, he and railroad workers chased men carrying iron toward a boat, and shots were fired. One of the thieves, John Smith, was hit and died, and a coroner's jury returned a verdict of justifiable homicide while unsure whose bullet struck him.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1880

    Architect Bruce Price designs country estates from his 9th Street house

    Coal dealer Washington Lee bought 31 West 9th Street in November 1880, apparently as a gift for his daughter Josephine and her husband, architect Bruce Price. While living here, Price designed the James Alfred Roosevelt estate on Long Island, the Cleftstone cottage in Bar Harbor, Maine, and the Seacroft estate in Rumson, New Jersey. The Prices sold the house in March 1894.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1956

    March 24

    Bridge expert Josephine Culbertson dies at her home here

    Josephine Culbertson learned contract bridge while working as secretary to expert Wilbur Whitehead, then built a career teaching and writing about the game with her husband, Ely Culbertson. By 1936 each of them was earning $100,000 a year. The couple divorced in 1938 but stayed close, and she edited one of his bridge books in 1954. She was living here when she suffered a stroke and died on March 24, 1956, aged 57.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Further reading

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