96 Barrow Street

West Village | built 1827

Open on the map3 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. 1827

    No. 96 Barrow Street still shows how James N. Wells's four 1827 houses first looked

    Of the four houses James N. Wells built in 1827 on Trinity Church land, No. 96 best shows the original design. It keeps its two-and-a-half-story height and pedimented dormers, while its neighbors were later raised to three stories. Its recessed doorway has a paneled lintel, and heavy sheet-metal cornices were added over the window lintels in a later period.

    “The original appearance of the row may be surmised from No. 96, which retains its two and one-half story height, with pedimented dormers.”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  2. 1897

    Police raid a Barrow Street boardinghouse run as a fence for young burglars

    In March 1897 detectives arrested three burglars, all under 25, after a break-in on West Houston Street. They traced one man's companion, Maud Wilson, to a room at 96 Barrow Street, and she described how the landlady, Mrs. Donnelly, bought their loot. Police arrested Mrs. Donnelly and found trunks of fur cloaks, overcoats and silverware worth over $2,000. The New York Herald headlined the story as girls living in a den of thieves.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1952

    Sculptor Helena Simkhovitch lives at No. 96 in 1952

    Helena Simkhovitch, a New York-born sculptor who studied architecture at Columbia and lived in Paris from 1926 to 1940, was living at 96 Barrow Street in 1952. She belonged to the Sculptors Guild and Artists Equity and exhibited regularly at the Whitney Museum. In 1955 the Museum of Modern Art sent out a traveling show of modern portraits, and she was its only American artist.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Further reading

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