Garrett W. Cropsey House

45 King Street | Hudson Square | built 1828

Open on the map5 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. 1857

    October 7

    Resident Garrett Cropsey is grazed by a bullet in a firemen's parade brawl

    Garrett W. Cropsey, who lived here with his family, marched with Lady Washington Engine Company No. 40 in the volunteer firemen's parade of 1857. At Grand and Elizabeth Streets a rock thrown at a rival company's lantern started a melee with pistols, and Cropsey was one of the injured. The New York Times reported that a ball passed through his hat brim and left a slight cut across his forehead.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1869

    The Federal house gains a full third floor and an Italianate cornice around 1869

    Originally a two-and-a-half story house faced in Flemish bond brick, No. 45 was raised to a full three stories about the time W. P. Robertson lived here in 1869. A modern Italianate cornice and updated ironwork were added. The change shows in the brickwork, which switches from Flemish bond to running bond at the old roofline. A 1996 renovation turned the three-family house back into a single residence.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1881

    A sting at this address exposes a stolen-script ring run by actress Adelina Gasparini and her husband

    Theater manager Charles Frohman learned that touring companies in the South were staging his play Hazel Kirke without permission. His employee Marc Klaw posed as a theatrical agent and tracked the scripts to 45 King Street, home of actress Adelina Gasparini and her husband, T. L. Ligon. Klaw bought a manuscript for $10 and noted it was in her handwriting, copied from memory after she watched six performances. The New York Mirror ran its own exposure in January 1882.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1884

    December 20

    A resident is arrested in a police raid on a hidden opium den on Sixth Avenue

    George W. Mortan, a self-described speculator living at 45 King Street, was among 32 people seized when Police Superintendent Walling raided an opium den hidden behind an oyster restaurant at 93 Sixth Avenue. Held on $500 bail, he appeared in Special Sessions, where the defense lawyer got the superintendent to admit he had seen no opium bought or sold. The judge discharged every prisoner for lack of evidence, and that evening Mortan applied for a pistol permit.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  5. 1924

    January 15

    The Post Office bars the January issue of Broom, edited from this house by Matthew Josephson

    Matthew Josephson lived at 45 King Street by 1924 and edited the avant-garde magazine Broom, which he had begun publishing in New York in August 1923. The Post Office Department declared the January issue unmailable, and the letter was addressed to him here. The apparent offense was a story by Kenneth Burke that used the plural word breasts. The ban effectively ended the magazine, whose pages had carried E. E. Cummings, Juan Gris and William Carlos Williams.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Further reading

Nearby

All 79 buildings with stories in Hudson Square