74 Charles Street (Woody Guthrie's apartment house)

74 Charles Street | also 76 Charles Street | West Village | built 1871

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.

1871
Peter Cook has Julius Boekell build the six-story French flats at 74 and 76 Charles Street
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In 1871 the architect Julius Boekell designed a matching pair of six-story brick apartment houses at 74 and 76 Charles Street for the owner Peter Cook. Their segmental-arched windows carry shouldered lintels and cornices with a French Second Empire flavor. The Landmarks Preservation Commission's 1969 Greenwich Village report calls them very early examples of the "French Flat", an apartment type that was new in New York at the time.
Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission
1942
December
Woody Guthrie moves into an apartment at 74 Charles Street and hosts Lead Belly and other musicians
Folksinger Woody Guthrie lived in an apartment at 74 Charles Street from December 1942 to May 1943. During those months he received visitors such as the musicians Huddie "Lead Belly" Ledbetter, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee. A historic sign on the building records his stay.
Source: Forgotten New York

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