First tenement, 65 Mott Street

65 Mott Street | Chinatown | built 1910

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.

1824
65 Mott Street goes up as what historian Tyler Anbinder calls New York's first purpose-built tenement
Historian Tyler Anbinder concluded in his 2001 book on Five Points that 65 Mott was apparently the first New York building designed as a tenement, predating James Allaire's 1833 building on the Lower East Side. He dated it from an 1879 trade journal saying the address had been occupied for 55 years, which points to 1824. At seven stories it towered over the two-story wooden houses nearby, and he estimated at least 34 two-room apartments. The date is an inference from that article, not a recorded construction date.
Source: Ephemeral New York
2009
December 22
The National Register nomination records 65 Mott as a seven-story front tenement with a five-story rear tenement
The National Register nomination for the Chinatown and Little Italy Historic District, prepared in December 2009, lists the front building at 65 Mott as a seven-story, four-bay brick tenement with some original two-over-two wood windows and a missing cornice. It notes a five-story tenement behind it and ties the property to the Weeks family real estate holdings. It also records the building as considered the first tenement in the neighborhood, occupied for 55 years by 1879.
Source: National Register nomination

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