Goodwin Houses

9 West 54th Street | also 11 West 54th Street | Midtown | built 1898

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.

1896
McKim, Mead & White design twin houses for James Goodwin as one
James Junius Goodwin, a cousin and former business partner of J. Pierpont Morgan who had recently retired, hired McKim, Mead & White to build a pair of Colonial-style residences at Nos. 9 and 11 West 54th Street designed to read as a single mansion. The design drew on Charles Bulfinch's 1806 Harrison Gray Otis House in Boston, with small iron balconies and splayed lintels.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
1943
The Museum of Modern Art opens a photography center at No. 9
In 1943 the Museum of Modern Art converted No. 9 West 54th Street into a center devoted to photography, using the former Goodwin residence to expand from its main building across the street.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
1946
Rhodes Preparatory School moves into the Goodwin houses
From 1946 to 1979 Rhodes Preparatory School occupied both former Goodwin mansions, using the townhouses as classroom space for more than three decades before the property changed hands again.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
1979
United States Trust Company restores the houses as its headquarters
United States Trust Company bought the former Goodwin mansions in 1979 and spent $5 million restoring them for use as its corporate headquarters, ending a long run as a school and returning the twin houses to a single, grand use.
Source: Wikipedia

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