43 Charlton Street

Hudson Square | built 1827

Open on the map4 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. 1845

    James Webb, a building contractor to the Astors, buys 43 Charlton Street around 1845

    James Webb bought 43 Charlton Street around 1845. City directories listed him as a mason, but The American Architect and Building News later counted him among New York's best-known building contractors, working for the Astor and Van Cortlandt families. He sat on the coroner's jury after the Ninth Ward School stair collapse of November 1851, which killed 43 children, and his firm began John Jacob Astor III's mansion at 33rd Street in 1852 and was hired in 1855 to build William B. Astor's next door, at 34th Street.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1886

    March 17

    James W. Merritt, who took a room here, is swindled of $35 by a stranger he meets in Central Park

    James W. Merritt, a butter maker from Flackville in St. Lawrence County, took a room in the boarding house at 43 Charlton Street in March 1886. The Sun reported that on St. Patrick's Day he had gone to Central Park to see the animals and fell in with a red-bearded stranger, George L. Morgan, who claimed to live near his hometown. Morgan introduced his wife, led Merritt off toward his hotel, then borrowed $35 against a $250 check when a man demanded unpaid freight. Merritt went back to find the woman gone.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1892

    May

    Merchant tailor Michael Cohen has architect L. F. Heinecke raise the attic and add pressed-metal lintels

    Michael Cohen, a merchant tailor with a shop at 338 Hudson Street, bought 43 Charlton Street in 1890 with a $9,000 mortgage from William W. Astor. In May 1892 he and his wife, Tillie, hired the architect L. F. Heinecke to modernize it. The attic became a full third floor, interior walls were changed, and new pressed-metal lintels over the openings ended the match with the neighboring house's originals. Cohen also headed the Darech Amuno Free Burial Fund Society, which provided burial ground for Jews who died in poverty.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1919

    December

    Joseph Veshi buys the house and for several years leases it to Tammany Hall secretary William J. Duffy

    Joseph Veshi bought 43 Charlton Street in December 1919 and for several years leased it to William J. Duffy and his wife, Frances. Born on the Lower West Side in 1880, Duffy had joined the County Clerk's office in 1906, where he became close to John F. Curry of Tammany Hall; in 1913 Curry made him Tammany's secretary. Duffy died on October 5, 1930. The house had Tammany ties earlier too: courthouse records clerk Edward M. Plum, who bought it in 1872, sat on the party's General Committee for the Fifth Assembly District in 1875.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Further reading

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All 79 buildings with stories in Hudson Square