Frederick C. Havemeyer House

 apartment building, 1860s construction, Italianate style (architecture)

5-story (including raised basement) Italianate residential building completed in 1843 as a townhouse. Sugar refiner Frederick Christian Havemeyer Jr. moved his family into the mansion shortly after its completion. It was sold in 1859 to Washington Smith, who died only four years later. Smith's estate sold the mansion at auction that same year to tobacco merchant Albert S. Rosenbaum and his wife Elizabeth. The family moved north in 1889, and leased the house to renters, with their estate selling in 1924. The new owner, Dr. James A. Clark, removed the stoop and installed his doctor's office in the basement level, and lived in the upper portion, practicing from the address through the 1950s. Then in 1960 the building was renovated as apartments, two per floor. All of the early Victorian architectural elements were shaved off in a effort to make the building appear more modern.

The facade is three bays wide and clad in brownstone with a street-level entrance on the right replacing the former stoop, down a couple steps from the sidewalk with a modern black metal-and-glass door and sidelights. The two windows to the left are segmental-arched, with iron grilles. The taller windows on the upper floors are also segmental-arched and diminish in heights as the floors go up. The building is crowned by a boldly-projecting black roof cornice supported by paired console bracketsm, with modillions and curved panels with rosettes.

daytoninmanhattan.blogspot.com/2023/04/the-much-abused-...