494 Hudson Street

West Village | built 1827

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. 1827

    Whipmaker and former congressman Peter Sharpe builds a row of six houses that includes 494 Hudson

    Peter Sharpe acquired the land, part of Trinity Church's holdings, in 1825-26 and put up six late Federal houses the next year. A partner in the whipmaking firm Sharpe & Sutphen, he had served in the State Assembly and in Congress, ran for mayor in 1826, and headed the Mechanics Society for a time. By 1969 only four of the six houses were left, 494 among them.

    “…built in 1827 for Peter Sharpe, who had acquired the property, part of Trinity Church holdings, in 1825-26…”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  2. 1827

    No. 494 keeps an arched Federal doorway with Ionic columns despite later stucco and a fourth story

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    The Landmarks Preservation Commission singled out the entrance of No. 494 in 1969. The door is flanked by half-round Ionic columns and sidelights above panels, and the inner frame has quarter columns at its corners, with an egg-and-dart molding around the fanlight, itself a later replacement. The house had been raised to four stories and smoothed over with stucco, and its roof cornice had been swapped for a tall parapet.

    “No. 494 retains an exceptionally fine arched Federal doorway. The door is flanked by semi-engaged Ionic columns and sidelights above panels…”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  3. 1868

    May

    The Bennett family buys 494 Hudson and runs Bennett's Oyster House on the ground floor for nearly 30 years

    An advertisement in May 1868 offered the house, lot and fixtures of the restaurant that already occupied the ground floor. The Bennett family bought it, and John Bennett, who also ran an oyster house at Eighth Avenue and Horatio Street, moved his business into the space while relatives lived upstairs. In 1885 he won the mayor's permission to build a storm door that projected over the sidewalk. The oyster house closed in 1896.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1900

    Former oyster-house owner John Bennett, 77, twice goes missing from 494 Hudson in one year

    In March 1900 the former restaurateur was found exhausted near West 65th Street and Amsterdam Avenue after a day and a night away, and his son brought him home from Roosevelt Hospital. That August, after a week's absence, a detective from New Jersey saw him walking the rail line just north of Hoboken. At the station he told officers he was 102 and in the oyster business, and the detective returned him to the Hudson Street house on August 27.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  5. 1912

    Police force a barred door at the second-floor social club in 494 Hudson after reports of screams

    After the Bennetts sold up in 1903 and the property was resold in 1908, the second floor became a social hall for dinners and political meetings; Mayoral candidate Otto T. Bannard was scheduled to speak at a noon meeting there in October 1909. By 1912 neighbors were complaining, and police went in after reports of a girl screaming. The door was barred and had to be forced, many young dancers fled out the back, and five young men and three girls were arrested.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Further reading

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