4643 Waldo Avenue

Riverdale | built 1920

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. 1913

    Columbia professor Ashley H. Thorndike builds a Craftsman house on Waldo Avenue

    Ashley H. and Annette L. Thorndike were the first owners of this stucco Craftsman house, completed in 1913 to designs by Davis, McGrath & Kiesling. Ashley Thorndike was a professor at Columbia University, and the Thorndikes held on to the house until 1922. Its broad overhanging eaves, hipped roof and shed dormers survive, and the commission found it substantially intact.

    “The original owners (Mr. Thorndike was a professor at Columbia University) owned the house until 1922…”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  2. 1933

    Julius Gregory directs an $8,000 remodeling for Nelande Realty Corp.

    In 1933-34 the house underwent a major alteration costing $8,000, filed as ALT 4989-1933. The owner at the time was the Nelande Realty Corp., and the architect was Julius Gregory. The Landmarks Preservation Commission suggests the work may have added the dormers now on the slate roof.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  3. 1935

    Automaker and former ambassador John North Willys dies at the house

    John North Willys, the industrialist who built the Willys-Overland Company out of a firm in debt into one of the biggest American carmakers, lived here and died in the house in 1935. Born in Canandaigua, New York, he had sold his $21 million stake in the company and then served as ambassador to Poland in the early 1930s.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  4. 1954

    Dr. and Mrs. Lazarus Orkin buy the former Willys house from Paul Landau

    In 1954 the house changed hands again when Dr. and Mrs. Lazarus Orkin bought it from Paul Landau. The Landmarks Preservation Commission found the record in a New York Times real estate column of June 28, 1954, headlined about house trading in the Bronx. The house remained substantially intact when Fieldston was designated a historic district.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

Nearby

All 301 buildings with stories in Riverdale