408 East 136th Street

Mott Haven | built 1901

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.

1877
Real estate broker Isaac W. Dunsmore commissions No. 408 and moves in with his family
Isaac W. Dunsmore, a real estate broker whose office stood at Third Avenue and East 136th Street, ordered this house from the firm of Rogers & Browne in 1877. It was one of three matching neo-Grec houses built for three separate owners instead of a speculative builder. Census and directory records show Dunsmore living here with his Scottish-born wife, Mary, and their two daughters.
“No. 408 was commissioned by Isaac W. Dunsmore, a real estate broker with an office on Third A venue and East 136th Street…”
Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission
1877
Plans for No. 408 put the kitchen in the basement and two parlors on the first floor
The original plans for No. 408, filed as permit NB 649-1877 and kept at the Bronx office of the Department of Buildings, show the layout the trio shared: a basement kitchen and dining room, two parlors (one at the front, one behind) on the parlor floor, and three rooms upstairs. Partners John Rogers and Edward H. Browne kept their office on Nassau Street in Manhattan but both lived in Morrisania. These were the first buildings put up in what is now the Bertine Block Historic District.
“Original plans show that each of these houses had the kitchen and dining room in the basement, front and rear parlors on the first story…”
Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

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