465 Greenwich Street

also 463 Greenwich Street, 18 Desbrosses Street, 22 Desbrosses Street | Tribeca | built 1885

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. 1820

    A row of elegant brick houses on Trinity Church land is completed along Greenwich Street

    An earlier row of houses stood on this block front, which sat on land owned by Trinity Church. Completed in 1820, they were praised three years later by the Evening Post as finished in a neat modern style. After the Civil War the Hudson River Railroad replaced nearby St. John's Park with a freight terminal, wealthy families left, and by 1880 No. 469 was a junk store.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1885

    Henry Welsh has George W. DaCunha build six fire-resistant lofts that read as one warehouse

    In 1884 developer Henry Welsh tore down the old houses and hired architect George W. DaCunha to design six six-story store buildings from Desbrosses to Watts Street, at an estimated cost of $180,000. The Real Estate Record reported they would have double floors with asbestos paper between. Finished in 1885 in Philadelphia brick, they were designed to look like a single building, and Welsh made No. 465 his own office.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1896

    August 11

    A first-floor explosion starts a four-alarm fire in the warehouse that kills four workers

    On the afternoon of August 11, 1896 an explosion on the first floor of No. 465 started a fire that spread upward despite the builder's precautions. Two workers of the A. U. Warren electrical repair firm, William Gray and James Muller, were trapped on a fire escape and burned to death. It took 21 engine companies and 6 hook and ladder companies nine hours and ten minutes to control the blaze, which killed four and badly burned at least nine more.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1914

    May 18

    Another fire gutting No. 463 kills a firefighter and traps elevated train riders in smoke

    The building burned repeatedly, with fires in 1899 and January 1907 before the blaze of May 18, 1914. It began in No. 463 just after 11 p.m. and gutted that building, heavily damaging Nos. 465 and 467, and a firefighter died after falling from the roof. Chemical smoke from the Columbia Refinishing Company's solvents filled an elevated train stopped on Greenwich Street, and ten women passengers had to be carried off.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  5. 1915

    June 19

    Henry Bradshaw Welsh, who ran the family real estate office here, is sued by his wife and a tenant

    The younger Welsh, who now ran his father's office in the building, had married Malvinia Beck in 1897 with a reception at the Waldorf. On June 19, 1915 she sued for separation, saying he had abandoned her and their two children. He also faced a $50,000 suit by efficiency expert Archibald Whan, who accused him of alienating the affections of Whan's wife.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Further reading

Nearby

All 564 buildings with stories in Tribeca