42 King Street

Hudson Square | built 1840

Open on the map6 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. 1840

    Hatter and War of 1812 artillery sergeant Ichabod Price rents the newly built house

    Ichabod Price, born in 1781, was a sergeant in the New York State Artillery when the War of 1812 began; a newspaper later recalled that he suggested rifled cannon and conical shot to the War Department, which ignored him. By 1840 he was a successful hatter, and that year he rented the new house at 42 King Street and moved his shop from 190 to 290 Broadway. The Prices sublet part of the house to the Brown family, and about 1847 Ichabod moved two doors along to No. 46, where he died at 81 in 1862.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1840

    The new house is one of a row of identical Greek Revival homes, brick above a brownstone base

    Number 42 was one of a row of matching Greek Revival houses built on King Street in 1840: three stories of brick above a basement faced in brownstone. Its iron stoop railings curve down to short newels set on brownstone drums, the doorway is flanked by narrow sidelights, and a dentiled cornice runs along the roofline. The house was officially converted to apartments, one per floor, in 1967, and apart from its iron fire escape the exterior looks much as it did in 1840.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1879

    Police Captain Charles 'Lightning Charley' McDonnell buys the house

    Charles McDonnell, born in 1841 on Anthony Street (now Worth Street), sold newspapers as a boy and joined the police force in January 1863. By the time he bought 42 King Street in 1879 he was a captain, assigned to the Prince Street station since 1874, and fellow officers called him 'Lightning Charley' for the speed of his arrests. The World recalled that within two hours of a man killing a German at Thirty-seventh Street and Second Avenue, the captain had the murderer in custody.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1888

    August 14

    Captain McDonnell dies, and a police battalion with a band escorts his hearse from 42 King Street

    In August 1888 Captain McDonnell, who had slept at the station house while his wife was at their country house in Connecticut, was found dead at about 9 a.m., apparently of a heart attack. His funeral drew a large police escort: a battalion with a band accompanied the hearse from 42 King Street, and eight full companies marched by way of St. Anthony's Church, Washington Square and Fifth Avenue to Grand Central. A special train car then carried the coffin to Birmingham, Connecticut, for burial.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  5. 1921

    Druggist Vincenzo Lanza buys the house and lives here until his death at 98

    Vincenzo Lanza, born in San Fele, Italy, in 1861, opened a drugstore in Greenwich Village in 1881 and had it at Bleecker and MacDougal Streets from 1901. He bought 42 King Street in 1921, as Italian immigrants were moving into the neighborhood, and the family converted it to unofficial apartments, one per floor. Lanza retired in 1951 and died on October 11, 1959, aged 98; The Villager said his family credited his long life to regular habits, an afternoon rest and 'particular attention to the stomach.'

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  6. 1934

    February 12

    Tenants Joseph and Frank Alonzo are arrested with four others over a $27,000 toothpaste theft

    In 1934 the Alonzo family lived in one of the house's apartments. On February 12, Joseph Alonzo and his son Frank, who both worked at a toothpaste factory in Jersey City, were arrested with four other men and charged over the theft of about $27,000 worth of toothpaste in six months, according to the New York Sun. The ring took stock by shipping it out through the factory's mail room.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Further reading

Nearby

All 79 buildings with stories in Hudson Square