88 Bedford Street

West Village | built 1851

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. 1851

    Greek Revival house at 88 Bedford goes up with a side passage to Pamela Court

    The three-story brick house on a rusticated basement was built in 1850-51 for the estate of James Phalen as a private residence. An alley beside it led to Pamela Court, and a basement passageway was marked by a doorway with an oval window above. The passageway was bridged over in the twentieth century, perhaps when a street-level entrance replaced the stoop. Decoration is limited to contrasting stone sills, small cornices over the lintels and a modillioned roof cornice.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  2. 1851

    Real estate dealer James Phalen replaces the old Cunningham house at 88 Bedford

    James Phalen was described at his death as the first man to make a business of buying lots and selling them to builders, and he was president of the Academy of Music. He demolished the old house of S. A. Cunningham at 88 Bedford and built a new Greek Revival residence, finished in 1851. After he died in 1889 his will cut out his son Charles for profligate and reckless habits, and a lawsuit over it dragged on for months.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1899

    Developers plan a six-story apartment house for 88 Bedford, then drop the project

    After building the large apartment house next door, Leister & Dohrenwend bought No. 88 and hired the same firm, Schneider & Herter, which drew up a $23,000 six-story apartment house, probably as an extension. The plans were filed but never carried out. Otto A. Leister sold his half-interest to Gustav J. Dohrenwend in March 1901, and Dohrenwend kept leasing the old house as a residence.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1917

    August 15

    Typewriter inventor George Blickensderfer, a tenant at 88 Bedford, dies after wartime work on machine gun devices

    George C. Blickensderfer, president of the Blickensderfer Typewriter Company, leased the house with his wife Nellie Irene. She died in 1915 at their Connecticut estate, and her funeral was held from Bedford Street. During World War I he devoted himself to devices that automatically load machine gun cartridges and to better gun mounts. He died on August 15, 1917, aged 67, and the New York Times blamed a breakdown from the work.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  5. 1954

    May 18

    Yale student Eugene Suter, living at 88 Bedford, gives away his first $35,000 inheritance payment

    In 1953 Eugene F. Suter Jr. was studying at Yale and, on visits to New York, stayed at 88 Bedford with his half-brother George Bingham. His inventor father had left an estate of about $1 million, held in trust. On May 18, 1954, Eugene received a first payment of $35,000 and gave it away to the Socialist Party, the American Friends Service Committee, a school and his mother. He then told the trustees he wanted no further payments, and in 1957 Bingham petitioned to have him declared incompetent.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

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