7 Morton Street

West Village | built 1872

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.

1872
Silver plater John Muegge builds 7 Morton Street as a pre-1879 walk-up tenement
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John H. Muegge, a German-born silver plater, put up 7 Morton Street in 1872 alongside its twin at number 5, to a design by Julius Boekell. It predates the city's first tenement law, so the plans offered ten apartments, two per floor, with no air shafts and no indoor plumbing. By the 1880 census eighteen families lived inside, among them four printers, a longshoreman, an engraver, a laundress and a fireman.
“…constructed in 1872 as a pair with no. 5 Morton Street for German-born silver plater John H. Muegge…”
Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission
1930
The tenement at 7 Morton Street houses dancers, professors and a librarian
A bathroom was installed on each floor of 7 Morton Street in 1927, replacing the yard privy. The 1930 census then found thirteen families, with roots in Germany, Russia, England, India and Portugal. Heads of household included a theatrical dancer, two college professors, a social worker, a stenographer and a public-library librarian. The ground story had also been restyled in Colonial Revival fashion, with casement windows and a wrought-iron bracket for hanging plants, to suit the neighborhood's bohemian image.
Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

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