5268 Sycamore Avenue

also 5260REAR Sycamore Avenue | Riverdale | built 1876

Open on the map3 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. 1876

    F.J. Ogden builds a stable and cottage at the foot of his Riverdale estate

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    F.J. Ogden acquired the Babcock estate on Independence Avenue in 1873, after its previous owner, George W. Knowlton, went bankrupt. An 1876 map shows a pair of joined buildings, a stable and a cottage, that Ogden had put up at the northwest corner of the property along Sycamore Avenue, then the carriage alley for the Riverdale villas. The Landmarks Preservation Commission dates the stone complex to about 1872-76.

    “…an 1876 map shows a stable and cottage complex (III.2 and III.3) which Q;Jden had built on Sycamore Avenue at the northwest corner of the property…”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  2. 1914

    John G. Kleinberg turns the fire-damaged stable into a garage roofed to carry soil

    The upper part of the stable had been lost to fire, and in 1914 architect John G. Kleinberg converted what remained for owner William M. Harris. The top one and a half stories came off, and the stone and brick lower story became a two-bay garage facing Sycamore Avenue, under a steel-beam roof built to hold six inches of soil. The stuccoed stone cottage on its south side is two stories toward the street and one story on the uphill side, where it is entered.

    “…corwerted to a garage with a roof of steel beams that could support six inches of soil. '!he architect of this alteration was John G. Kleinberg for William M. Harris…”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  3. 1963

    Sanford and Lucille Gale Knapp split the cottage and garage off the old Babcock estate

    Sanford and Lucille Gale Knapp bought the Babcock estate in 1956 from the Harris family, who had owned it since 1910. Around 1963 they divided it in two, keeping the villa on Independence Avenue on one lot and placing the old cottage and garage on Sycamore Avenue on the other. That second lot was merged with the lot to its south, which had been split off the neighboring Woodworth estate, and the Knapps built a new house for themselves on it the same year.

    “About 1963 the Knapps subdivided the estate into two lots, one lot with the house on Independence Avenue and the other lot with the cottage and garage on Sycamore Avenue.”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

Nearby

All 301 buildings with stories in Riverdale