archie
Sign in Get the app

131 Charles Street House

Year
1834
Style
Federal
City
Manhattan, NY
131 Charles Street House
Photo: This photo was taken by participant/team Corn Fed Chicks as part of the Commons:Wikis Take Manhattan project on October 4, 2008. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. You are free: to share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work to remix – to adapt the work Under the following conditions: attribution – You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use. share alike – If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same or compatible license as the original.https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0CC BY-SA 3.0 Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 truetrue, CC BY-SA 3.0
See it on the map

131 Charles Street is a Federal style townhouse built in 1834 by David Christie, a stone cutter, for about $2,600, in the West Village. Red brick laid in Flemish bond and set over a raised basement, it belongs to a class of buildings the critic Montgomery Schuyler in 1899 called "the most respectable and artistic pattern of habitation New York has ever known." The house was designated a New York City Landmark on April 19, 1966.

the building

Original details intact. The house retains all of its original window frames and lintels except in the dormers, and as late as 1971 still had white trim and many original interior features, with only minor exterior changes made during the Victorian period.

the style

Built by a stonemason rather than a trained architect, the house typifies the builder-made Federal homes of 1820s New York, a type praised for its restrained, respectable design.

More on Federal

significance

Designated a New York City Landmark on April 19, 1966, and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972 for its architecture. The photographer Diane Arbus lived in the house from 1959 to 1968.

nearby

All 413 buildings in Manhattan