New York in the 1820s was an energetic, optimistic city. The opening of the Erie Canal made Gotham richer, elite families were relocating as far north as Bond Street, and the population surged past 100,000 residents.
All of these changes brought on a wave of speculative real estate development. James Lent and his nephew, Henry Barclay—descendants of two old-money families—decided they wanted to profit from the city’s boom times, too.
So Lent and Barclay purchased an oddly sized lot on lively, active Grand Street and completed the construction of two row houses in 1828.
On the eastern side closer to Columbia Street was Number 513 (second photo), a standard, Federal-style 2½ story dwelling with one dormer window jutting out from the peaked roof.
Next door, they built 511 Grand Street, also in the fashionable Federal style. But this house had a wider front and an asymmetrical, trapezoid-like shape.
What accounts for the unconventional footprint? “Faced with the irregularity of the western lot line, the builder added an extra triangular bay that tapers toward the rear of the structure, giving the Grand Street frontage its 29½-foot width,” states a 2007 report from the Landmarks Preservation Commission.
“Due to the angle of the lot line, the extra bay is narrower, with the result that the placement of the single window and dormer do not conform to the symmetry of the rest of the house and its companion at 513 Grand Street.”
Considering the housing needs in 1828 New York, this nonconforming charmer likely didn’t lack for tenants. Though the names of the first residents of 511 Grand Street are unknown, renters through the early 20th century were tradesmen and laborers.
“The house was occupied from 1840 to 1853 by James Bulkley, a grocer and oil merchant, and from 1844-1873 by David Rengle, a German provisioner and butcher, who had emigrated with his wife from Bavaria,” notes the LPC report.
“Charles VanNostrand, a cartman, took up residence there with his family and a boarder in 1879-1880 and remained until 1899-1900 when he relocated to Harlem to be near his job,” continued the LPC.
“Thomas Rooney, an Irish immigrant who worked at a nearby laundry and later took a job as a watchman in a department store, moved in with his wife and children around 1905 and remained as tenants until around 1916.”
The Lent and Barclay families held on to the property until 1921, when they sold both 511 and 513 Grand Street to a fire department dispatcher. That man’s son, a New York City policeman, owned the house until 1947.
It was under this family’s ownership when Berenice Abbott, working for the Depression-era Federal Art Project, captured her iconic photo of the two houses (third photo).
She published that photo in her 1937 book, Changing New York.
“Roofing and skylights” are written across the ground floor facade. In the fourth photo, taken two years earlier by Beecher Ogden, the facade looks largely the same.
Since then, the LPC report notes that 511 Grand Street has been home to a variety of business, from a linen shop to restaurants. Over the years, it’s been renovated and redone, repainted and resurfaced. Windows and entrances have been replaced and skylights added. (Fifth photo, from 2013)
Remarkably, though, the irregular house built almost 200 years ago—a holdout for two centuries—is still intact and part of the streetscape. These days, the ground floor is home to Ost Cafe.
What about the upper floors? I’d love to get a first-hand look. Luckily there are photos from Streeteasy, which show the original fireplace and oddly angled, rregular-shaped rooms in all their nonconformist glory.
[Third photo: Berenice Abbott/NYPL Digital Collections; fourth photo: MCNY, X2010.11.2094; fifth photo: Wikipedia]