John Gerdes House
59 Charles Street | West Village | built 1866
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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.
- 1865
The Van Nest mansion, the Village's last rural block, is razed and its block built over
The block bounded by Charles, Bleecker, Perry and West 4th Streets was once the country estate of Sir Peter Warren, the naval commander at Louisbourg in 1745. In 1821 saddlery merchant Abraham Van Nest bought it with its two-story clapboard mansion, Greenwich, set among shade trees with gardens and a stable. Van Nest died there in 1864, and the mansion, an earlier building on this block, was razed in 1865 as row houses replaced it.
- 1866
Brewer Walter Price builds a Second Empire house here, then sells it to his partner
Walter W. Price, a brewer, built this house in 1866 to a design by Gage Inslee, the middle of three similar houses he owned. It stood on Van Nest Place, as No. 5, and has a three-story brick front over a rusticated stone basement, paneled double doors and a graceful stoop. In 1869 Price sold it at a profit to his brewing partner, Ernest G. W. Woerz, who lived here for eleven years.
“Built in 1866 by Walter W. Price, a brewer, it was sold by him in 1869 at a handsome profit to his partner, Ernest G. W. Woerz…”
- 1887
John H. Gerdes, a tavern concessionaire, buys the house, and his family stays 80 years
John Henry Gerdes, a German immigrant who supplied refreshments to taverns and also dealt in real estate, bought the house in February 1887 for $16,000, with the title in his wife Anna's name. Their sons Henry and Theodore both graduated from the Stevens Institute of Technology in 1902; Theodore went on to patent ventilation devices, including a window ventilator and a roof ventilator. The family stayed until the house sold in 1967.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1912
Theodore Gerdes complains about yowling cats, and Mayor Gaynor answers with sarcasm
Spring cat noise disturbed Theodore Gerdes in 1912, so he wrote to the SPCA, the State Board of Charities and finally Mayor William Jay Gaynor. The mayor's reply, dated March 8, said he was too busy for tomcats, that some lived near his own home, and that he slept through their howling. He added a question about whether the noise came from the females.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1967
The Times finds the house nearly unchanged since 1866 after Emma Gerdes dies
Emma Gerdes, the last of the family to live here, died in October 1966, and the house sold the next spring to Gordon McClure and his wife. The New York Times reported on April 23, 1967 that it was virtually unaltered, with a zinc-lined tub in the only bathroom and bedroom washstands with running water. The McClures planned new plumbing and heating but promised few changes, keeping even the cast iron kitchen stove.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
Further reading
- The John Gerdes House - 59 Charles StreetDaytonian in Manhattan
- Then & Now photos: 59 Charles StreetVillage Preservation: Greenwich Village Then & Now
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