Canavan Mansion

333 Riverside Drive | Upper West Side | built 1902

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. 1903

    Dealer Moritz Falkenau buys three new Riverside Drive mansions, including No. 333

    About seven months after Joseph Farley finished the row of four houses in 1902, real estate dealer Moritz Falkenau bought Nos. 332, 333 and 335 Riverside Drive for $240,500 in total. Banker Alfred W. Hoyt, head of A. M. Hoyt & Co., made No. 333 his home. The five-story Beaux Arts house has fifteen rooms and five baths behind a rusticated limestone base.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1910

    April

    David P. Canavan buys the mansion for his family of nine

    David P. Canavan, president of the excavating firm Canavan Bros., bought the house from Hoyt in April 1910 and moved in with his wife Catherine and their seven children. He died there on September 21, 1914, and the family stayed on. His son David sold the house on January 5, 1945, ending about 35 years of Canavan ownership.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1974

    May 24

    Duke Ellington dies while living in the Riverside Drive house

    Duke Ellington lived at 333 Riverside Drive with his sister Ruth from 1961 until his death on May 24, 1974. The house was the base of Tempo Music, the publishing company that Ruth had led as president since 1941. After a 1976 concert held in the house, Ruth closed it and moved to an apartment on Park Avenue.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1977

    December 27

    West 106th Street is renamed Duke Ellington Boulevard

    Duke Ellington lived at 333 Riverside Drive, on the corner of 106th Street, and owned two other buildings on the same block, where his sister and his son lived. On December 27, 1977, three years after his death, West 106th Street was officially renamed Duke Ellington Boulevard in his honor.

    Source: ilovetheupperwestside.com

Further reading

Nearby

All 64 buildings with stories in Upper West Side