Ladies' Christian Union

49 West 9th Street | Greenwich Village | built 1855

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. 1855

    Merchant Henry Dexter builds a house on West 9th Street

    Well-to-do merchant Henry Dexter builds a wide brick house at 49 West 9th Street in 1855. By 1897, when Sarah F. Kraemer owns it, the four-story, 28-foot-wide house has a tall brownstone stoop.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1898

    April 29

    The Ladies' Christian Union rebuilds the house as a residence for working women

    The Ladies' Christian Union, organized in 1857 to give self-supporting women respectable housing, spends $20,000 in donations to have architects Howard & Cauldwell remake the front and rear facades in the style now called Louis XIII French Classic. The new Young Woman's Home opens on April 29, 1898, with 48 residents paying $4 to $6 a week, meals included.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1932

    December 14

    A Metropolitan Opera benefit raises $4,000 for the Ladies' Christian Union

    On the afternoon of December 14, 1932, the Metropolitan Opera presents La Traviata under Tullio Serafin to help the union through a surge of unemployment. The benefit raises $4,000. By then the building is known as Sage House, most likely thanks to backing from the Russell Sage Foundation.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1975

    The Ladies' Christian Union closes its West 9th Street home after 77 years

    In the summer of 1975 the union plans to take in abused children, and neighbors on the block protest. The plan is dropped, and the union decides to close the home it has run for women here for 77 years. Within two years the building is converted into seven cooperative apartments.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  5. 2005

    Actress Keri Russell buys the penthouse in the former Sage House

    After the Ladies' Christian Union's former home becomes cooperative apartments, actress Keri Russell buys its two-story penthouse in 2005. She sells the duplex for $1.5 million in 2007, when she marries.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Further reading

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