A Washington Square North Townhouse Lists for $23.5 Million

The stately brick mansions that line the northern edge of Washington Square Park are some of the city’s most envied homes — immense 1830s Greek Revivals with high ceilings and working fireplaces. But for the buyer capable of spending eight figures on a townhouse below 14th Street, there’s a problem: the park. “Being on Washington Square North at times has either had tremendous value or not a lot of value,” says broker Jed Garfield, who’s seen the New York Post and is aware of the headlines: drug use, TikTok content-creation chaos, an allegedly violent snowball fight. (The assault charge was dropped.) Still, the houses remain beautiful and very rare. And Garfield is now listing one for $23.5 million.

The townhouse, which is currently configured as seven apartments, is stunning: On the parlor-level apartment, there are 14.5-foot-high coffered ceilings and paneled walls. The top-floor loft has double-height ceilings in the home’s former ballroom, which now leads to a roof deck with views of the Empire State Building. Floors three and four each have a pair of one bedroom apartments, and there are fireplaces in all four living rooms. The garden-level two-bedroom, which last listed for $10,995 per month, has a private entrance, hardwood floors, and a back patio. Perhaps unsurprisingly, “we’re marketing it as a single family conversion,” Garfield tells me.

Number 23, at the center, was built in the 1830s as part of a unified row.
Photo: Ed Cullum

Price: $23.5 million

Specs: Three floor-through two bedroom apartments, and four one-bedroom apartments.

Extras: Roof terrace, rear patio, frontage on the park

10-minute walking radius: Washington Square Park, the Minetta Tavern, the Comedy Cellar

Listed by: Jed Garfield, Leslie Garfield

Like its neighbors, number 23 went up in the 1830s, designed on spec to lure wealthy renters. The first tenant in the building, according to Garfield’s research, was a director at the Bank of New York, whose family stayed for around 40 years. The Beekman Livingstons arrived later; an old money family who was named on the list of the Four Hundred — the number of guests who could squeeze into the Astor family ballroom. But as the city’s wealthiest residents migrated uptown, by way of Fifth Avenue, old homes on the Row were chopped into apartments. During World War I, a lawyer divided No. 23 in half, per a story from 1916 in the New York Times, with a renovation “done on a more elaborate and expensive scale” than other divided homes on the Row. The asking rent: $5,000.

Those prices were harder to come by in the Great Depression. The landlord Harris Block took advantage of the downturn to buy No. 23 along with some other buildings. Block died in 1958, and his heirs organized as the Harran Holding Corp., which continues to own the property today. They declined a request for comment, but describe themselves online as carrying on Block’s legacy, with a “hands-on” style and a goal to “develop long-term relationships with our tenants.” Over the years, Garfield says, residents of No. 23 have included the painter Chen Chi and Jack Dorsey.

The Block heirs last tested the idea of a sale 15 years ago, in 2011, when they listed No. 23 for $25 million, before lowering the price to $17.995 million and pulling it a year later. And there’s been trouble selling elsewhere on the Row: No. 26, recently dropped its price after languishing on the market for the better part of three years. (Asking in 2023, when Sotheby’s had the listing, was $29,950,000. By April of this year, Serhant had it, and asking dropped to $19,995,000.) But Garfield is optimistic, pointing to strong single-family sales downtown — including his recent sale on Bank Street, for $70 million. He just needs the right buyer. “We’re looking for someone who wants a house on Washington Square North,” he says.

Parquet floors, built-ins, and coffered ceilings on the parlor floor were designed to impress 1830s visitors when this was a single-family home.
Photo: Ed Cullum

The building is about 100 feet deep and 27 feet wide, allowing for vast open-floor plans.
Photo: Ed Cullum

A bedroom in the rear of the parlor unit.
Photo: Ed Cullum

Photo: Gabriel Sebastian

The top-floor unit was built into a room that a former tenant believed had been the ballroom, with a lofted area where musicians might have played.
Photo: Gabriel Sebastian

The top floor has been configured as a two or three bedroom with 2.5 bathrooms and a private roof deck, and was listed for $13,500 per month in 2024.
Photo: Gabriel Sebastian