453 Avenue of the Americas

West Village | built 1852

Open on the map3 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. 1852

    Aaron D. Patchin builds a row of five three-story houses with stores below

    In 1852 Aaron D. Patchin, after whom Patchin Place was named, built a row of five brick buildings on this stretch of Sixth Avenue. Each was three stories tall, with a store at street level and living quarters above. No. 453 adjoins Milligan Place, and several of the buildings still have late Greek Revival window sash and plain lintels topped by small cornices.

    “This row of five brick buildings, with uniform cornice, was built in 1852 by Aaron D. Patchin, after whom Patchin Place was named.”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  2. 1901

    Murray Hall, a Tammany Hall politician who lived as a man, dies here of untreated cancer

    Murray Hall, a well-known Tammany Hall politician who also worked as a city bail bondsman, lived and died at 453 Sixth Avenue. Known as a man about town, he gambled, played cards, smoked cigars and drank whisky like his Tammany colleagues, and he was married twice. Hall died in 1901 of untreated breast cancer, and only then was it discovered that he had been born female, as Mary Anderson, and had lived as a man for twenty-five years.

    Source: Village Preservation

  3. 1901

    January 19

    The Times reports that a Tammany district captain who lived here fooled many shrewd men

    On January 19, 1901, shortly after Hall's death, the New York Times ran the headline "Murray Hall Fooled Many Shrewd Men." Over a 25-year Tammany career, Hall, who lived at 453 Sixth Avenue, had been captain of an election district and worked as a bail bondsman for the Jefferson Market Police Court. A state senator who was a friend said he had never suspected, and Hall's 22-year-old adopted daughter, Minnie, said she had known nothing.

    Source: Ephemeral New York

Further reading

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