54 West 11th Street
Greenwich Village | built 1841
Open on the map4 entries
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.
- 1844
Rev. Henry John Whitehouse moves in as rector of St. Thomas and keeps this address as Assistant Bishop of Illinois
Henry John Whitehouse came to New York in 1844 to be rector of St. Thomas' Church and made his home at 54 West 11th Street with his wife and sons. Made Assistant Bishop of Illinois in 1851, he seems to have worked largely from New York, and a January 1852 notice told readers to keep writing to him at this address. The family left in 1860 when he became Bishop of Illinois; his son Frederick Cope Whitehouse became an Egyptologist.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1878
A boarder posing as a poor English journalist turns out to be Lord Ogilvy
Around 1875 Cecil W. Carr and his Spanish wife took rooms in the house, then a boarding house with a French restaurant run by Charles Jacques in the basement. Carr said he was an English journalist, but by 1878 it was an open secret that he was a nobleman. He was in fact Lord Ogilvy, son of the Earl of Airlie, who had married against his father's wishes and lost his allowance. Jacques trusted him and was repaid.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1881
The House of the Holy Comforter, a free home for incurable women and children, holds a fair to fund its move here
After the boarding house owner went bankrupt in 1880, the house was leased to the House of the Holy Comforter, a free home for incurables led by Sister Louise. It cared for about 40 poor patients, women of any Protestant denomination and girls. A fair on December 7 and 8, 1881 was held to offset the costs of moving in and setting up. Sister Louise died in March 1883, aged 34, and the home stayed until 1891.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1915
Charles W. Bowring, a former resident, jumps from the torpedoed Lusitania and is rescued by lifeboat
Charles W. Bowring, New York agent for his family's shipping firm, lived in the house from about 1901; in 1904 the family began building a home on Staten Island. In 1915 he sailed for Liverpool on the Lusitania, having read the German warning in the papers. He was at lunch when torpedoes struck on May 7, jumped from the starboard side and was picked up by a lifeboat.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
Further reading
- The Varied History of 54 West 11th StreetDaytonian in Manhattan
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