412 East 85th Street

Yorkville | built 1899

Open on the map4 entries

Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.

  1. 1861

    A wood-frame house goes up in Yorkville before the city extends its wood ban

    The Italianate wood-frame house at 412 East 85th Street was standing by 1861, five years before the city's ban on wood construction reached 86th Street. The Landmarks Preservation Commission could not say who built it, but likely a carpenter-builder on former farmland of Yelles Hopper. It is one of only six pre-Civil War wood houses left on Yorkville's side streets.

    Source: Ephemeral New York

  2. 1880

    Architect Julius Boekell adds a porch and a rear third floor

    Martin Clear, a poultry dealer who bought the house at a foreclosure auction in 1875, hired architect Julius Boekell in 1880. Boekell extended the basement forward to form a front porch and added a third floor over a rear extension. The work cost Clear $6,000.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1915

    Monument maker John Herbst uses the front yard as a gravestone showroom

    By 1915 the family of John Herbst, a maker of granite and marble monuments, was living at 412 East 85th Street. Herbst kept an office in the house and displayed gravestones in the front yard as a showroom, while his stone yard was on East 92nd Street. The firm was renamed Herbst & Sons by 1932, and the family remained in the house until 1966.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 2016

    December

    The city designates the wood house a landmark

    The Landmarks Preservation Commission put 412 East 85th Street on its list of structures to consider in 1966. It was designated a landmark in December 2016, exactly fifty years later. Architect Alfredo De Vido, a later owner, had restored the house using early documentation.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Further reading

Nearby

All 22 buildings with stories in Yorkville