37 East 4th Street House

History and architecture

The dignified Greek Revival residence at No. 37 East 4th Street and the Seabury-TredwelI (Old Merchant's) House at No. 29 are the only houses of note that have survived on this block.

No. 37, built in 1844-45, is unusually impressive. Although this brick house is only three and one-half stories high, it aligns perfectly with the five-story 20th century apartment house that abuts It at the east. It is also a deep house, occupying a larger than usual portion of the lot.

A high stoop, over a stone basement which still retains traces of rustication, leads to a handsome doorway with full entablature supported by a pair of Ionic columns, a typically Greek Revival feature. The inner doorway, behind paneled reveals, is flanked by blocked-up sidelights, set between square pilasters. A panel transom crowns the doorway.

Traces of a delicate carved molding, which once surrounded the transom, are still visible. Vestiges of the cap moldings, which originally surmounted the window lintels, remain above the windows of the third story.

Six-over-six window sash Is still in place at the third story, and the low attic windows and simple wood roof cornice, with fascia below, are likewise features of the Greek Revival style. Although none of the ironwork of the 1840s survives, it was almost certainly identical with the Ironwork of the nearby Tredwelllhouse, judging by fragments found by the present owners.

Samuel Tredwell Skidmore (1801-1881), for whom the house was built, was one of the City's best known businessmen, and a cousin, once removed, of Seabury Tredwell. At the time he built the house, Skidmore was engaged in the wholesale drug business, under the firm name of Skidmore & Co. Later he served as president of the Howard Insurance Company, at 66 Wall Street, and as a trustee of the U. S. Trust Company, He served as vestryman of Trinity Church from 1845 to 1874 and as Senior Warden from 1874 to 1880.

Together with his wife, Angelina, and their eight children, Skidmore lived in this house (known successively as No. 369, then as No. 385 Fourth Street, and finally as No. 37 East 4th Street) for almost four decades, in 1833, after Mr. Skldmore's death here on November 8, 1881, his widow sold the house.

In the 1840s, this was one of the most fashionable residential neighborhoods in the City. Around the corner, on Lafayette Place, was William B. Astor's residence. On the west side, across that street, stood LaGrange Terrace. A large part of Vauxhall Garden, a favorite summer evening resort since 1805, offering band music, theatrical performances, fireworks, cakes and ale, was located in the middle of the block bounded by Fourth Street, the Bowery, the present Astor Place and Lafayette Place.