326 East 18th Street House

History and architecture

A charming row of three brick Italianate residences (Nos. 326-330). This low-lying two-story row is set far back from the street behind exceptionally deep front yards, a great rarity in Manhattan.

Built in 1852-53 on land which had originally been part of Governor Stuyvesant's "Bouwerie", or farm, the houses recall a period when rows of one-family dwellings were beginning to line the city's "uptown" side streets from the Hudson River to Avenue A. With the exception of No. 313, the sole survivor of a mid-eighteen-forties row on the north side of East 18th Street near Second Avenue, Nos. 326.330 are the earliest buildings which still stand on this street. This row recalls a time when the area east of Third Avenue was just beginning to be developed.