John Tappin House

37 Charlton Street | Hudson Square | built 1827

Open on the map7 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. 1817

    Astor levels Burr's Richmond Hill estate and lays out Charlton Street

    After Aaron Burr left Richmond Hill following his 1804 duel with Alexander Hamilton, John Jacob Astor took over the estate's long-term lease from Trinity Church. By 1817 he had leveled the grounds and laid out new streets, among them Charlton Street, named for Dr. John Charlton, president of the New York Medical Society. Astor began building rows of Federal-style houses here in the mid-1820s, and No. 37 rose on one of these lots.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1828

    October 13

    Arson fires on Charlton Street leave 37 and 39 damaged, and two builders rebuild them

    On the morning of October 13, 1828, an arsonist set two unfinished houses on Charlton Street ablaze, the latest in a string of incendiary fires there. An earlier fire had nearly destroyed Nos. 37 and 39, and the carpenter-builders John Gridley and his partner Martin bought the damaged houses and rebuilt them as brick-faced homes, 25 feet wide, with marble stoops and fluted marble columns at the doors.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1829

    May 11

    Builders advertise the new house at 37 Charlton as high, healthy ground during a fever scare

    An Evening Post advertisement on May 11, 1829, offered Nos. 37 and 39 Charlton Street to let as suitable for genteel families. It stressed a pleasant, high and healthy location with good water, and billed the houses as nearly finished, with marble mantels and an under cellar. The builders, Martin and Gridley, were pitching to New Yorkers fleeing a yellow fever epidemic downtown.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1841

    September 3

    The grocer John Tappin takes in a girl from the Alms-House as an indentured servant

    John Tappin, a wholesale grocer who owned the house by 1840, took in Charlotte Black from the city's Alms-House Department on September 3, 1841. Children of destitute families were bound out this way as servants in private homes. An 1847 Almshouse report listed Charlotte Black as bound to Tappin at 37 Charlton Street and noted that she was given up again four or five years earlier.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  5. 1897

    November 3

    A freed murder defendant marries in the Tammany clubhouse at 37 Charlton Street on election night

    On election night, Maria Barberi, who had been acquitted at a second trial of killing her lover Domenico Cataldo, married in the lower level of 37 Charlton Street, then the clubhouse of the Third Assembly District Tammany Club. The wedding took place during the supper hour, while club members had gone home to eat. The Sun reported that the members were indignant when they returned and learned of it.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  6. 1966

    August 16

    City landmarks panel calls 37 and 39 Charlton Street perhaps the district's two most important houses

    When the Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the Charlton-King-Vandam Historic District in 1966, its report singled out the twin Federal houses at 37 and 39 Charlton Street as perhaps the most important in the district. It praised their large, handsome entrances with fluted columns and original leaded glass sidelights, and noted that the ironwork was original and the interiors intact, with rich wood carving and plasterwork.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  7. 1978

    Wall Street broker Richard Jenrette buys 37 Charlton Street and restores its interiors

    Richard Hampton Jenrette, a Wall Street broker, bought the house in 1978 for $250,000. It had never been subdivided into apartments, and its original black marble mantels, doors and windows survived. With architect Edward Vason Jones, who had worked on White House renovations, he restored the rooms and furnished them with Duncan Phyfe pieces. He sold the house nine years later for $2 million, and it returned to Trinity Church ownership.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Further reading

Nearby

All 79 buildings with stories in Hudson Square