Drake Crane House

85 Sullivan Street | SoHo | built 1825

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. 1825

    Carpenter Drake Crane builds 85 Sullivan Street on half of David Mulford's burned lot

    Drake Crane, a carpenter born in 1781, built this house around 1825 after fire destroyed the wooden building that had stood here since 1819. He and David Mulford, who sold him half the lot, put up near mirror-image brick houses, each with a smaller building in the rear yard. Crane's house is the narrower one, and its entrance lacks the columns of the doorway next door. The Cranes took in boarders; in 1827 these included two smiths, a carpenter and a blind-maker.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1836

    Boarder William McDougall, a glassmender, wins a diploma for repairing china

    After Drake Crane died in 1833, his widow Elizabeth kept taking in boarders. In 1836 two painters lived in the main house with her and her daughter Jane, while William McDougall, who listed his trade as glassmender, lived in the rear house. That year McDougall won a diploma at the American Institute's fair for a specimen of repairing china or earthenware.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1874

    February

    Edward Elliott hires A. C. Crouter to raise the attic into a full third floor

    Edward Elliott bought the house around 1873, and in February 1874 he hired architect A. C. Crouter to raise the attic to a full third story. The job cost the equivalent of about $69,000 in 2025 dollars, and the builders added a modest bracketed cornice. The change still shows as a slight shift in brick color and a switch from Flemish bond to running bond.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1963

    The Crane house is converted to apartments, one to a floor

    In 1963 the old Crane house was converted to apartments, one on each floor, and that arrangement survives. None of the original interior details appear to have outlasted two centuries of use. The exterior has changed little since Edward Elliott raised the house's height in 1874.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Further reading

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