60-20 Catalpa Avenue

Ridgewood | built 1909

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.

1891
Paul Stier, the builder of this house, arrives in America alone as a teenager
Paul Stier, who put up this house, was born in Mecklenburg, Germany, in 1874 and crossed to America by himself in 1891, first learning masonry in Buffalo. He moved to the Ridgewood area in 1902 and became its largest single developer, erecting about half the row houses in what is now the Central Ridgewood Historic District. Between 1907 and 1909 alone he built 392 of his 481 buildings there.
Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission
1909
Paul Stier builds a buff-brick bay-front house at 60-20 Catalpa Avenue
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Paul Stier was the original owner of this two-family house, built about 1909 under New Building permit 1379 to plans by Louis Berger & Company. It belongs to a run of 23 two-family houses from 60-04 to 60-48 Catalpa Avenue, with a store-and-flats building at either end. Its buff iron-spot brick front rises two stories over a basement in a full-height rounded bay. The city's survey found its historic iron areaway fence, gate posts and gate still in place, missing only one finial.
Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

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