Alexander Thompson House

452 Greenwich Street | Tribeca | built 1910

Open on the map5 entries

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

1. 1819

   Alexander Thompson builds a Federal-style brick house at Greenwich and Desbrosses Streets

   Around 1819 Alexander Thompson completed a two-and-a-half-story Federal house faced in Flemish bond brick at the corner. It seems to have been an investment, since Archibald Sommerville lived in it soon after. By 1852 the owner, William Howenstine, had raised it to four floors and put in a ground-floor shop, turning the arched doorway into the entrance to rented rooms above.

   Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

2. 1847

   January 28

   Boarder Martha Walker writes a bitter letter to her husband, who is tried for her murder two years later

   By the mid-1840s the house took boarders, among them Martha E. Walker, who had left her abusive, unfaithful husband Thomas. On January 28, 1847 she wrote from the house demanding the return of her miniature portrait and saying she was happy without him. Thomas was tried for her murder on June 4, 1849.

   Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

3. 1873

   January

   Saloonkeeper Richard Dawson, who lived here, holds out for acquittal on the Boss Tweed jury

   Richard Dawson ran a corner saloon on the ground floor and lived above it. In January 1873 he sat on the jury in the first trial of Tammany boss William M. Tweed, which ended without a verdict. Dawson told a reporter he was among those for acquittal because he would convict no man on an informer's testimony. Tweed was retried later that year and convicted on 204 counts.

   Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

4. 1889

   June 7

   Twin girls are born above the McMahon saloon, weighing under four pounds each

   Saloonkeeper John McMahon and his wife lived over the bar. On June 7, 1889 she gave birth to premature twin girls ten minutes apart, weighing two and a half and three and a half pounds. McMahon had a priest baptize them at once and told a reporter for The Evening World that he fed them from a spoon.

   Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

5. 1998

   Architect Daniel Kohs buys the old tavern house and converts it into a single-family home

   After generations as a saloon and then a luncheonette with rented rooms above, the building changed with Tribeca. In 1998 architect Daniel Kohs paid $499,000 for it and designed a one-family home, with a garage where the rear shop had been. A later owner, Sean McCarthy, paid $5.65 million and listed it in 2014 for $24.5 million.

   Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Further reading

• The Alexander Thompson House - 452 Greenwich Street Daytonian in Manhattan

Nearby

• 450 Greenwich Street2 entries
• 448 Greenwich Street2 entries
• 444 Greenwich Street1 entry
• Henry J. Holbrook House437 Washington Street | 5 entries
• 442 Greenwich Street2 entries
• 456 Greenwich Street2 entries

All 564 buildings with stories in Tribeca