Matthew Kane House

345 West 4th Street | West Village | built 1868

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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. 1868

    Sash maker Matthew Kane finishes a row of four houses and moves his family into No. 345

    Matthew Kane's window-sash business prospered after the Civil War, and in 1868 he put some of the profit into a row of four Second Empire houses on West 4th Street. He leased out most of them but moved his wife Catherine and four children into the southernmost house, No. 345, from nearby West 13th Street. By 1871 his son Matthew Jr. had joined the firm, renamed Matthew Kane & Son.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1868

    The Jardine brothers design a mansard-roofed row of four houses for Matthew Kane at 345-351 West 4th Street

    The Landmarks Commission credits D. & J. Jardine with designing the 1868 row, whose houses are four stories over a basement under French Second Empire mansard roofs. Nos. 345 to 349 kept their stoops, and although Nos. 345 and 347 were altered, the row still has the look of its period. The report says it was built for Matthew Kane, a neighborhood sash maker whose workshop stood at 6 Gansevoort Street.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  3. 1873

    Matthew Kane is questioned as a juror for the Boss Tweed trial and dismissed

    In 1873 Kane was summoned for jury duty in the corruption trial of William M. Tweed of Tammany Hall, who faced 220 counts. Kane held large city contracts, including window sashes for the proposed armory at Ninth Avenue and 23rd Street, and was one of the potential jurors questioned. After the lawyers questioned him, the Evening Post said he was dismissed because he was firm as a rock in his opinion.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1881

    October 27

    Isabella Kane marries George W. Horton in the parlors of the family home

    On October 27, 1881, Matthew Kane's daughter Isabella married George W. Horton at No. 345. The New York Times described the parlors as lavishly decorated with plants and flowers, with the couple standing beneath a floral bell. Guests included society names such as Havemeyer and Gedney, and the house's own architect, John Jardine, and his wife. Her sister Kate married William R. Ward in the house two years later.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  5. 1886

    December 15

    A Broadway men's furnishings store owing Matthew Kane $20,000 goes into assignment

    Kane's daughter Kate had married William R. Ward in 1883, and the groom's family owned a Broadway men's furnishings store, E. M. & W. Ward. When business slowed, Kane lent the couple a large sum. On December 15, 1886, the New York Times reported that the store had been gradually rusting out and could not support three families, and Emily and William Ward assigned it, owing Kane $20,000.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  6. 1934

    Artists Raymond and Anne Dowden are among the first tenants after the house is split into apartments

    After the Kane heirs sold the row in 1899, No. 345 became a boarding house, and in 1934 it was converted to two apartments per floor. Painter Raymond Baxter Dowden and his new wife, the botanical illustrator Anne Ophelia Todd Dowden, were early residents. That year Raymond joined the Cooper Union art faculty and painted One Glass Eye here; Anne later taught at Pratt and illustrated for Life and Natural History.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  7. 2006

    Comedian Louis C.K. and his wife buy an apartment in the building and later add two more

    In 2006 the comedian Louis C.K. and his wife, the artist Alix Baily, bought an apartment in the co-op at 345 West 4th Street for $250,000. They divorced in 2008, but he bought a second unit in 2013 for $475,000 and a third in January 2016 for $564,900.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

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