Jacob A. Conover House

735 Washington Street | West Village | built 1845

Open on the map4 entries

The lot about 1940
About 1940. Via 1940s.nyc
The lot about 1985
About 1985. Via 80s.nyc

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.

  1. 1845

    Grocer Charles Crane and carman David Ramsey build a row of Greek Revival houses at 733-739 Washington Street

    Crane and Ramsey bought plots after the 1844 auction of Richard Halliday's estate and built four matching houses, finished in 1845. Crane's own store and home stood across the street at Nos. 734 and 736, and Ramsey lived at No. 737. Three of the houses survive at Nos. 735-739 as three-story brick Greek Revival houses with their original wrought-iron stoop railings, while the fourth was replaced by an apartment building.

    “Originally the row consisted of four houses, including one on the site of the present apartment house, No. 733. The houses were developed by Charles Crane, a grocer…”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  2. 1855

    Woodworker Jacob A. Conover, who lives here, is granted a patent for a wood-splitting machine

    Conover moved his family into the house around 1852 and ran a shop at 130 Horatio Street making stairways and other architectural woodwork. In 1855 he was granted a patent for a wood-splitting machine, and he returned to court many times, as late as 1870, to defend it against infringement. He also sold a 100-acre New Jersey farm in 1854.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1881

    November 16

    A tenant's mother has a local shopkeeper arrested for selling gum with prize cards that tempted children to steal

    Mrs. Phillips, who lived here with her family, discovered that her 10-year-old son had taken $1.50 from her bag. She blamed a storekeeper named Weeks, who displayed cheap revolvers, jewelry and toys in his window as prizes: buyers of chewing gum found cards inside the wrappers naming what they had won. She went to the Charles Street police station, and Weeks was arrested and held for trial.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1909

    February

    Boarder John Hurley jumps into the Hudson to save the son of the family he boards with after a fall from a pier

    Edwin Cronk, son of the family leasing the house, had been ill, and boarder John Hurley suggested a walk to a Hudson River pier. Cronk grew dizzy and fell over the edge. Hurley threw off his coat and jumped in, but the tide carried them away from the dock. Two policemen hauled both men out with boat hooks, and both went to St. Vincent's Hospital, where Hurley was suffering from exposure. Newspapers called him a hero on February 28.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Further reading

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