Arnet Seaman House

51 Charles Street | West Village | built 1880

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. 1867

    George Starr completes a brick mansion at the corner of West 4th Street and Van Nest Place

    After Abraham Van Nest died in 1864, his Greenwich Village estate block was leveled and lotted. George Starr began this three-bay, three-story Italianate house in 1866 and finished it in 1867. Arnet Seaman, a brick dealer, and his wife Mary soon moved in, and on February 22, 1867 they advertised a room and bedroom to let with board.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1888

    December 18

    A drunken stranger who claims to be a U.S. consul kicks in the basement door

    While Alderman John Cavanagh was away, a man rang the bell repeatedly, shouted at his wife and kicked the basement door until a panel caved in. The Cavanaghs' daughter ran for help and was chased to Perry and Greenwich Streets, where Policeman Nash arrested Oscar Hatfield, who said he was the U.S. Consul at Batavia, Java. He blamed three bottles of porter and was jailed for a month.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1897

    April 7

    A real estate broker is found dead of gas in his bedroom

    Frank Rosevelt Starr, a real estate broker being treated for rheumatism, was the first tenant of a new lessee of the house, then known as 1 Van Nest Place. Dr. Ormsby visited on April 7 and found the bedroom full of gas and Starr dead. The New York Journal and Advertiser headlined the story "Gas Ends a Broker's Life," and his funeral was held in the parlor two days later.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1933

    The stoop is removed and the house becomes four floor-through apartments

    By 1923 the house had been quietly divided into apartments, one advertised as a studio with a private street entrance. A 1933 alteration removed the stoop and lowered the front door below grade, behind a Greek Revival style frame. In 1936 the city dropped the name Van Nest Place and the corner building became 51 Charles Street.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  5. 1957

    October 17

    Communist Party publicist Marion Bachrach, acquitted the year before, dies while living here

    Bachrach became the party's public relations director in 1947. She was indicted with 20 other second-string leaders in 1951, but her trial was canceled when it emerged that she had cancer. After a physician judged her fit in 1955, she was tried in federal court in New York on charges of conspiring to advocate overthrowing the government, and she was acquitted in 1956. She died in a Manhattan hospital at 57.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

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