Mittelstaedt House

86 University Place | Greenwich Village | built 1900

Open on the map4 entries

Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.

1. 1867

   A German immigrant builds a human-hair importing business in his University Place house

   Bernhard Mittelstaedt, an immigrant from Germany, buys the red brick house at No. 86 and builds an import and wholesale trade in human hair, which Victorian women used for pre-styled hairpieces. He names the firm E. Mittelstaedt for his wife, Emma Amelie, and around 1880 adds a cornice proclaiming it established in 1867. The business later outgrows the house and moves into a loft building next door at No. 84.

   Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

2. 1945

   Restaurateur Barney Gallant is fined for overcharging at his Royalist Restaurant in the basement

   By 1945 the English basement houses the Royalist Restaurant, owned by Barney Gallant. On September 13 he is held for trial on a simple-assault charge after patron Agnes Broadland, whom he had told his waiters not to serve more drinks, says he struck her; he says she slipped on a rubber mat. Two weeks later a magistrate fines him $160 for sixteen violations of ceiling prices.

   Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

3. 1958

   Harriet Mittelstaedt gives the family house to NYU and stays on until her death in 1964

   Harriet Mittelstaedt, a soprano who trained in Europe and gave recitals at Steinway Hall in the 1920s, is the last of her family in the house. In 1958 she donates it to New York University on condition that she can live there for life; she had also given about $15,000 to its School of Medicine, where her brother Charles graduated in 1896. She dies at St. Vincent's Hospital on March 13, 1964, aged 82.

   Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

4. 1991

   NYU renovates the house, adding apartments and stretching the restaurant into the parlor floor

   In 1991 New York University renovates the house, extending the restaurant onto the old parlor floor and creating four apartments above, two on the second floor plus one apiece on the third and fourth. The basement had held the Dardanelles Armenian Restaurant in the 1970s. El Cantinero Mexican Restaurant moves in, and New York Magazine gives it a harsh review in 1995.

   Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Further reading

• The Mittelstaedt House -- No. 86 University PlaceDaytonian in Manhattan

Nearby

• 88 University Place3 entries
• 29 East 11th Street1 entry
• 94 University Place5 entries
• Cinema Village22 East 12th Street | 3 entries
• Samuel Holmes House27 East 11th Street | 4 entries
• 25 East 11th Street1 entry

All 518 buildings with stories in Greenwich Village