William Ross House

58 Lispenard Street | Tribeca | built 1822

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. 1822

    Coachmaker William Ross builds a house at 58 Lispenard Street

    Ross started building in 1821, the same year Lispenard Street was straightened to meet Broadway, and finished the 25-foot-wide house in 1822. He had made his money building carriages. His 1797 two-passenger chariot for Daniel Campbell's wife, Engeltie, still survives in the Henry Ford Museum. By 1836 his heirs were renting the house out.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1846

    August 1

    Italian patriot and composer Piero Maroncelli dies at 58 Lispenard Street

    Maroncelli had been jailed in Italy for a revolutionary newspaper and lost a leg to a prison tumor before fleeing to New York. He was living at No. 58 by 1841, teaching music and writing criticism, and died there on August 1, 1846. In July 1886 his body was dug up from Greenwood Cemetery and honored at a packed Tammany Hall ceremony before being shipped back to Italy for burial.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1850

    October

    Nuremberg-born painter Christian Mayr lives and dies at 58 Lispenard Street

    Mayr, born in Nuremberg, was already an architectural painter when he enrolled at the Munich academy in 1823. He was sharing the house by 1845, the year he showed paintings at the National Academy of Design. His funeral was held in the house on October 21, 1850, and his executors afterward ran a newspaper notice asking anyone holding his paintings to return them.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1867

    Jacob and Christina Pabst convert the Ross house to business use and open a restaurant

    Ross's descendants owned the house into the 1860s. In 1867 Jacob and Christina Pabst engaged architect Julius Seekell to swap the ground floor for a cast-iron storefront suited to their restaurant. Later owners included William and Philip Hoffmann, who were in the brewing business, and the building was at one time a liquor store.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  5. 1924

    February 2

    Five men rob a card game at 58 Lispenard Street without ever showing a weapon

    On the afternoon of February 2, 1924, five men entered the odd-lots auction room of Frank Jacobovitz, kept their right hands in their pockets as if armed, and told the card players not to move. Nobody was shown a gun, and the Times said the victims took the matter of arms on faith. Police called it a mental robbery, the first of its kind reported in New York, and the thieves left in a waiting car with cash and jewelry.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Further reading

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