53 Downing Street

West Village | built 1857

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.

1857
John Hagemeyer puts up a brick factory on Downing Street in front of his sawmill
Read more
John Hagemeyer bought three adjoining Downing Street lots in 1850 and built a sawmill across the back of all three. By the late 1850s a brick manufacturing building had gone up at the front of what is now number 53, with a frame structure linking it to the mill. Tax records from 1858 describe two buildings on the lot, one five stories tall and one three. In 1876 the firm of Thom & Wilson altered the premises, which were then occupied as workshops.
Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission
1888
The stained-glass makers J & R Lamb acquire 53 Downing Street and keep it for 37 years
Read more
Brothers Richard and Joseph Lamb, whose firm specialized in church stained glass, took title to the building in 1888 and held it until 1925 as one of three Greenwich Village properties they owned. Lumber and sheet metal firms moved in after the Lamb company left. In 1964 the building was converted to art gallery spaces, and it is now apartments.
Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

Nearby