William E. Parsons House

86 Christopher Street | West Village | built 1836

Open on the map5 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. 1836

    Textile-machinery maker Samuel Whittemore builds a pair of houses on Christopher Street

    Samuel Whittemore ran a Village factory making machinery for the textile industry and served as state assemblyman in 1816. In 1836 he put up two matching houses of Flemish-bond brick on this block, not far from his mansion at 45 Grove Street. The first known tenants at No. 86 included a teacher, Jane Hyslop, and a Dr. T. Marselis.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1849

    Dentist William E. Parsons owns the house and opens an office in the basement

    By 1849 Dr. William Ezra Parsons, born in Massachusetts in 1813, owned the house, where he and his wife Catharine raised their children. He opened a dental office in the basement and treated Village patients for years. After his wife's death in 1890 he moved to Pound Ridge, New York, remarried, and died in 1897 at 84.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1926

    September 24

    A new owner raises the attic and adds a studio window

    After James Nicolini bought the house in September 1926, his architect raised the peaked attic to a full story and added a studio window that let northern light into the top floor. The renovation kept the stoop, the 1836 ironwork with anthemion finials and other lower-floor details. Studio windows were a common Greenwich Village upgrade in those years.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1930

    Painter Vincent Canade works in the top-floor studio

    Vincent Canade, born in Italy in 1879, lived in the house during the 1930s, according to the 1969 Landmarks Preservation Commission report. He and his wife Josephine Picciulo had six children. His paintings are now in several museums, among them the Phillips Collection, the Hirshhorn Museum and the Whitney Museum of American Art, alongside more than twenty other institutions.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  5. 1940

    October

    Poet Charles Olson moves in with Constance Wilcox, according to a published account

    A history of the house says poet Charles Olson moved in with Constance 'Connie' Wilcox in October 1940, a union then described as a common-law marriage. A month later he began work as publicity director for the American Civil Liberties Union. The poet Bradford Morrow later called him a key figure in American poetry's move from modernism to postmodernism.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Further reading

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