655 Washington Street

West Village | built 1829

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.

1829
The 1829 rowhouse is built as a multi-tenant house with shoemakers and a cooper among its tenants
No. 655 Washington Street went up in 1829 for merchant Samuel Norsworthy as one of three houses. The 1829 tax assessments name John Stephens and John Rice as the first tenants, and the house was apparently not built as a single-family home. Later tenants were shoemakers William Soder and Matthais Behm, Abraham P. Johnson, who ran a porterhouse, a carman and a cooper.
“The first tenants of No. 655, which apparently was not originally a single-family house, were John Stephens and John Rice, according to the 1829 tax assessments.”
Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission
1922
The Hautau family loses the house to foreclosure after 44 years
Heinrich Hautau and his wife Margaretha, who died in 1915, owned the house from 1878 until their heirs lost it to foreclosure in 1922. Two years later it was turned into a single-family dwelling with a ground-floor store, and its early 20th-century storefront survives.
“The owners of this property between 1878 and 1922 were Heinrich Hautau and his wife Margaretha (died 1915), and their heirs, who lost it to foreclosure.”
Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

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