2 White Street House

History and architecture

Number Two White Street is one of those very rare brick wood houses in New York which still retains its gambrel roof and original dormer windows. Three rectangular second story windows have excellent splayed lintels with central keystone blocks. As a corner house 2 White Street probably always had a shop on the ground floor, and though nothing remains of the original Federal style doorway or shop windows, the ground floor is still used as a shop, and there is very good potential for its restoration. Although built in 1809, this house is definitively Eighteenth Century in style and character.

The original cornice with its handsome detail and fine moldings has considerable documentary value.

These attractive little dwellings are rapidly disappearing from the city. A good number of those few which are left have been altered beyond recognition. A building like 2 White Street, which is in a good state of preservation and which is still a useful and viable part of its neighborhood, is a. rare building indeed. At the time it was built such houses were common. They were often built on speculation, in small rows, and sometimes had shops on the ground floor. They were usually two stories high, with a basement below and a steep roof with dormers above.

Gideon Tucker was the builder and original owner of this house. Tucker was a prominent New Yorker in his day: an Assistant Alderman of the Fifth Ward, a School Commissioner, and Commissioner of Estimates and Assessments. The Tucker & Ludlum plaster factory was located on his property, which was more extensive than this corner lot. When the street was developed for residential use, he built this house as the typical termination for a small row.