486 Greenwich Street House

History and architecture

The modest rowhouse at No. 486 Greenwich Street was constructed c. 1823 in the Federal style, characterized by its 2-1/2-story height, second-story Flemish bond brickwork and fenestration, peaked roof, and pedimented dormer. By the 1820s, the vicinity of Greenwich and Canal Streets, once a Manhattan marshland known as Lispenard’s Meadows, had become a thriving mixed-use district. Greenwich Street was the main thoroughfare along the west side from the Battery to Greenwich Village, while the broad Canal Street had been laid out with a sewer to assist in draining the marshy area.

Trinity Church had developed the area around fashionable Hudson Square (St. John’s Park) to the southeast, and a steamboat ferry to Hoboken (1823), the public Clinton Market (1829), and a “country market” (1833) were established to the west. Beginning around 1820, members of the German-immigrant Rohr family began to develop rowhouses on the west side of Greenwich Street, both south and north of Canal Street, on land then owned by Alexander L. and Sarah Lispenard Stewart.

John Rohr, a mason/builder, probably constructed these, including No. 486 Greenwich Street. He and his wife, Martha, never resided here, but leased the house until 1836; the earliest known tenant was merchant Isaac Moses (1824-26). Baker Charles Hummel was a resident and owner, and apparently also had his business here, from 1831 to 1850. By 1851, the building had become a rooming house. For a century, it had two long-term owners: Abraham Witherup and Milton W.

Armstrong, partners in a building firm, and their heirs (1854-84), and real estate operator Robert I. Brown and his family (1884-1953). In the 20th century, the property was used industrially, including A[ndrew]. Allan & Son, a bearing metals manufacturing firm (1906-17), and A. Johnston & Son Iron Works (1953-75). Despite the loss of some architectural details, this house, notable singly and as a pair with its neighbor (No. 488), is among the very rare surviving and significantly intact modest Manhattan buildings of the Federal style, period, and 2-1/2-story, 3-bay, single-dormered peaked-roof type, with a commercial ground story.

Their survival is particularly noticeable in a neighborhood that was redeveloped with industrial and loft buildings in the late-19th and 20th centuries.