John Hoban House | apartment building

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4-story Anglo-Italianate residential building originally completed in 1847 by John Hoban. Instead of a stoop, the red-brick house had a 2-step porch on the right, in front of the main entrance with wood-and-glass double-doors and a transom, both set in spiral moldings. The west end of the ground floor had a "horsewalk" - an extended passage through the building that led to a separate workshop in the rear yard. This passage today has been filled in, with a deeply-recessed secondary entrance having wood-and-glass double-doors behind half-height gates. Between these two entrances the ground floor has a double-window above a basement areaway with a smaller window.

The upper floors are set off by a band of white-painted stone and have three bays of single-windows. All the windows have black wooden exterior shutters, and air-conditioning vents have been cut below the outer bays. Metal screens are located below the 2nd-floor windows (over the vents) and also below the ground-floor window. The facade is crowned by a black metal roof cornice with brackets and panels.

The Hoban family left the house in 1851, purchased by Henry V. Mead, a stairbuilder who operated his business from the rear building, later leasing it to other craftsmen, including an organ builder from 1868-1873. Henry Mead started leasing residential space in the main building to other tenants in 1879. He died here in 1898, and the house went to his estate. The post World War I years saw the once elegant house being operated as a rooming house. In 1925 the ground floor of the house was altered to accommodate a commercial space, home to a laundry in the Depression years. In 1953 the house received a second renovation. The commercial space was returned to residential, the horsewalk filled in, and a second entrance installed. It was most likely at this time that the brownstone lintels were, inexplicably, removed. Today the building houses apartment units.

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