Samuel Martin House

52 King Street | Hudson Square | built 1841

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. 1840

    Builder Samuel Martin lives in his own Greek Revival house, one of a matching row

    Samuel Martin, a well-to-do builder, occupied 52 King Street, one of a row of identical Greek Revival houses. Built about 1840, it had three stories of brick over a brownstone basement, iron stoop railings and a paneled door with sidelights. Martin died at 78 on February 13, 1863, and his funeral was held here two days later.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1868

    March 12

    A boarder reports a panel-house robbery that led to a woman's arrest

    John Meyer, a boarder with the Redmond family at 52 King, went to court in 1868 saying a Bleecker Street woman, Jennie Hess, had lured him to her room, where three men took $150 from his trousers. Police knew the trick as the panel house game, and victims rarely complained from embarrassment. Meyer instead found a policeman, and Hess was held for trial.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1959

    June 1

    Pope Pius XII's niece, Princess Gabrielle Pacelli, visits a widow living here

    In 1959 the house was home to widow Glacinta Rubino and her daughter Annette. According to The Villager, on June 1 the 84-year-old Mrs. Rubino received a visit from Princess Gabrielle Pacelli, a niece of the late Pope Pius XII. The princess and her husband had been close friends of Rubino's late daughter Rosalie, who died in an airplane crash in 1958.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1977

    The house, informally cut into apartments in the Depression, is legally converted

    During the Depression the house was informally turned into apartments, its stoop removed and the entrance dropped to the basement level. It was officially converted in 1977 to one apartment per floor. A 1988 renovation made two duplexes and rebuilt the stoop, modeled on surviving ones elsewhere in the row.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Further reading

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All 79 buildings with stories in Hudson Square