Between 1888 and 1890, brothers Joseph W. and A. Alonzo Teets erected 21 brownstone-fronted houses on both sides of West 122nd Street betwee...

photograph by Carole Teller The newly formed Lexington-32nd Street Corporation acquired all the buildings along the western blockfront of Le...

Clarence Fagan True designed the four upscale rowhouses at 155 through 161 West 76th Street for Duncan C. McKinlay in 1890.  He designed t...

When this photograph was taken in 1912, buildings had crowded around the property.  from the collection of the New-York Historical Societ...

In 1881, architect William E. Waring designed two identical tenement-and-store buildings on the northeast corner of West Houston and Thomp...

By the last quarter of the 19th century, the Hell's Kitchen district was "one of the most miserable and crime-polluted neighborhoods in th...

Among the early developers who began transforming the mostly rural land east of Central Park at the end of the Civil War was Nicholas McCo...

photograph by Carole Teller Starting in 1867, reformers worked tirelessly during the 19th century to enhance living conditions among tenemen...

Born in Hartford, Connecticut in 1858, Jacob Wertheim came to New York City with his parents as a boy.  He started working at the age of 1...

Lithographer George Hayward produced this lithograph in 1853.   from the collection of the New York Public Library On Independence Day 1809,...

In 1873, Mary Barter, a widow, lived with her adult daughter, Ellen, in the newly-completed "double flat" at 174 West 80th Street just wes...

photograph by Epicgenius In 1895, Irving T. Bush conceived a solution to shipping, storage and distribution costs.  His Bush Company organ...

James A. Frame was a prolific real estate developer in the later decades of the 19th century.  On December 1, 1883, the Real Estate Recor...

photograph by Anthony Bellov In the 1830s, the eastern blockfront of First Avenue between Eighth and Ninth Avenues was lined with low Fede...

Real estate was one of the few businesses in which women would thrive in the 19th century.  In 1888, Mary J. Coar hired architect Edward L...

22 Eldridge Street is the three-story building, second from left .  Close inspection of the single unshuttered window reveals iron bars.  ...

image via streeteasy.com Alma Gluck was born Reba Feinsohn in Romanian in 1884.  Her marriage to insurance agent Bernard Glick produced a ...

In 1843, John Hoey and his family lived above his grocery store at 172 Eighth Avenue.  The three-story, brick-faced building was a near ma...

On February 9, 1895, the Real Estate Record & Guide described Cornelius W. Luyster as one of the few developers who built residences "fo...

photograph by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York Jacob and Joseph F. Cullman learned the tobacco tradin...

image via apartments.com On June 17, 1873, the "brick house in front and small brick building in rear" at 5 Spring Street were auctioned. ...

In 1867 real estate agent Charles E. Pierce moved his family into the recently built house at 214 East 31st Street.  Three stories of red ...

photograph by Carole Teller Born in Germany, August Ruff was responsible for erecting  dozens of apartment buildings before his death in 19...

image via streeteasy.com Alonzo B. Kight began his career in 1891, acting  as both real estate developer and architect.  The 1898 A Histor...

photograph by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York Born in Italy in 1876, Raffaele Prisco arrived in New ...

photograph by Carole Teller In 1883, developer Pierson S. Halstead demolished the two vintage buildings at 67 and 69 Eighth Avenue, just s...

German-born architect Jobst Hoffmann filed plans for a "five-story brick apartment house" at 29 East 7th Street in February 1880 for devel...

The extension of the New York and Harlem Railway along Fourth Avenue (later Park Avenue) in the early 1830s sparked interest in the distri...

William E. Waring was perhaps best known for his tenement building designs.  In 1881, real estate investors Louis P. Dexheimer and Henry T...

Like the green patina'ed bands at the cornice and window pediment on 103rd, the black bays on Amsterdam Avenue were once clad in copper.  ...

The house was in pristine condition in 1932.  The door between it and the flat building to the right was once called a horsewalk--an acces...

The expansive Wallach Brothers clothing store occupied 265-267 Broadway in the post-World War I years.  The building was owned by the Orph...

photograph by Anthony Bellov In 1851 George P. Rogers and William C. Rhinelander erected two three-story-and-basement homes on West 13th S...

Developer Cornelius W. Luyster broke ground for five high-end townhouses on West 76th Street just west of Central Park West in 1892.  Comp...

photograph by Ted Leather Born in Ohio on November 19, 1826, Augustus Kountze worked in his father's grocery store as a young man.  With g...

Born in the Chelsea area of New York City on March 6, 1833, Rev. Stephen Merritt Jr. joined his father's undertaking business in the conve...

photograph by Ajay Suresh The renovation of Grand Central Depot to Grand Central Terminal sparked a burst of development in the neighborh...

photo by Anthony Bellov The Harlem Reformed Low Dutch Church was founded in 1660.  Its third house of worship was erected on the northwest...

Real estate developer James Carlew erected five sumptuous, 25-foot-wide townhouses on West 76th Street between Central Park West and Colum...

photo by Jacob A. Riis from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York On November 22, 1898, the Board of Education's Minutes of...

Around 1844, a brick-faced house and store was erected at 166 Eighth Avenue between 18th and 19th Streets.  Three stories tall, its Greek ...

In two phases, real estate operator Francis Joseph Schnugg nearly filled the north blockfront of East 95th Street between Lexington and Pa...