John H. and Elizabeth J. Elsworth House

90 Bayview Avenue | Prince's Bay | built 1899

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. 1879

    April 7

    Oyster planter John H. Elsworth buys the half-acre lot at 90 Bayview Avenue

    John H. Elsworth, a Bayonne-born oysterman who worked in the oyster-planting trade with his uncles, settled on Staten Island in 1877, the year he married Elizabeth Waters Jones of Snow Hill, Maryland. On April 7, 1879, he bought the half-acre lot that became 90 Bayview Avenue. His uncles' firm, J. & J. W. Elsworth, kept boats and an oyster-packing house on nearby Lemon Creek, which in the fall of 1880 packed 400 barrels a week for London.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  2. 1889

    January 1

    Elsworth becomes county sheriff and bills a landowner $1,600 for guarding his beach

    John H. Elsworth took office as Sheriff of Richmond County on January 1, 1889, as a Republican, and served through 1891. In one episode he led a posse of deputies to clear squatters off a beach owned by a Republican leader named McRoberts, then kept the beach under guard for many days. Afterward he sent McRoberts a $1,600 bill covering 100 days of deputies' pay plus $250 for himself. He was elected county clerk in 1892.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  3. 1961

    Jazz guitarist Chuck Wayne buys the house and lives here for 30 years

    Chuck Wayne (1923-1997), a Brooklyn-born jazz guitarist known for a swinging bebop style, owned and lived at 90 Bayview Avenue from 1961 to 1991. He had recorded albums, played with Woody Herman and the George Shearing Quintet, and served as Tony Bennett's music director in the 1950s. A sought-after teacher, he also wrote instruction books. In 1991 restoration carpenter Russell Powell and his wife Gayle bought the house and restored it fully.

    “Chuck Wayne (1923-1997), an innovative jazz guitarist, was the owner and resident of 90 Bayview Avenue from 1961 to 1991.”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  4. 2009

    January 13

    The city landmarks the Elsworth House, a tall Italianate town house set in the countryside

    The Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the house, built around 1880, on January 13, 2009. It is a clapboard three-bay Italianate town house with a low hipped roof hidden from the street, a once-common Staten Island type that has grown rare. The commission noted its stark, upright front on a rural lot, a pedimented second-floor window, and a big curved pediment above the cornice of a kind more often seen on commercial buildings.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

Nearby

All 4 buildings with stories in Prince's Bay