46 Commerce Street

West Village | built 1844

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. 1844

    Alexander T. Stewart builds Nos. 46 and 48 Commerce Street at right angles in the street's bend

    In 1844 the dry-goods merchant Alexander Turney Stewart built two brick Greek Revival houses on land leased from Trinity Church, set at right angles to each other where Commerce Street turns. No. 46 stood three stories on a brownstone-faced basement. In 1876, weeks before Stewart died, he hired builders to add a fourth story for $300.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1922

    July 2

    Detective John Moriarty, shot by his own partner, dies; his father, who lives here, fights an autopsy

    Detective John Moriarty of the Safe and Loft Squad was shot in the neck on June 24, 1922, while chasing burglars across rooftops near Fifth Avenue, by a bullet fired by his partner, Charles Schauss. He died on July 2. His father, who lived at No. 46, tried to stop an autopsy. On July 6 about 100 detectives and 150 patrolmen escorted his body from the house to St. Alphonsus church.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1926

    December

    Actress Elsie Rizer and her husband reveal a marriage kept as a one-year trial

    Among the tenants was actress Elsie Rizer, who married marine insurance broker Aage Woldlike at Grace Church on November 21, 1925. They privately agreed to treat the marriage as temporary for one year and told only one friend. They had wedding announcements printed and kept them in a drawer until the year proved a success, then mailed them in December 1926, as the New York Times reported.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1928

    Financial editor Carlton Shively buys the house and lives here until his death in 1952

    Carlton A. Shively, a Kansas-born financial writer, bought No. 46 in 1928, calling it an investment, and soon moved in. He had joined The Evening Post in 1920 and became financial editor of The Sun in 1930. After the paper merged into the World-Telegram in 1950 he stayed as an analyst, and died here of an apparent heart attack on July 8, 1952, at 61.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  5. 2004

    Carly Simon has the top floors converted into a duplex pied-a-terre

    A gut renovation in 2004 turned the third and fourth floors into a 1,200-square-foot, two-bedroom duplex for singer-songwriter Carly Simon, who lived mostly on Martha's Vineyard and used it when in town. She listed it in 2008 for $3.8 million, but it failed to sell, and she finally sold it in November 2013 for $2.32 million.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Further reading

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