643 Hudson Street

West Village | built 1840

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.

1851
A city directory lists seven or eight working people in each rowhouse at 643-649 Hudson Street
James and Elizabeth Dean built the four rowhouses around 1840 on land they had bought in 1837. According to an 1851 directory, No. 643 and each of its three neighbors were each already home to seven or eight working-class men and women, which makes them early tenements. The Greek Revival buildings were later altered, with cornices removed and new storefronts installed in 1959.
Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission
1956
The Dean estate sells the Hudson Street rowhouses to investor Robinson Callen after 119 years
The Deans bought the land in 1837, and after Elizabeth Dean died in 1891 the Dean Estate kept the four buildings without a break until 1956, when Robinson Callen, a financier who invested in and operated real estate, bought them. In 1924 the West Washington Market Realty Corporation had leased them to upgrade the shops, which over the years housed grocers, bakers and cigar and stationery sellers.
“After Elizabeth Dean's death in 1891, they were retained continuously by the Dean Estate until 1956…”
Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

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