453 Second Avenue

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4-story Italianate residential building completed in 1860. Its second owner, who moved in in 1862, was Thomas Brogan, who ran a butcher shop across the street. Brogan began accumulating wealth, and had erected a couple new tenement buildings of his own nearby in 1876. He was also highly involved in Tammany Hall politics, known to many as "Boss Brogan". The Brogan family left 453 Second Avenue around 1892, when it was purchased by William G. Brady who operated it as rented rooms, and then sold the house to Mary Plunkett in May 1898. Plunkett retained ownership of the house until 1922 when she sold it to Margaret A. Berry. It was converted to apartments and furnished rooms in 1937. It was at this time that the stoop was removed and the entrance lowered to ground level. Major change came in 2006, when a renovation returned the house to a single-family home. The owners carved a garage into the former English basement level, their architects disguising it as a carriage entrance with a faux arch.

The house is clad in orange brick, with stone around the ground-floor arch. The garage door is paneled green wood, with the matching pedestrian door on the left. The upper floors have three bays of windows, with small panes in white wooden sash framing. Those on the 2nd floor are much shorter, and have arched upper panes. All the windows have projecting stone sills and prominent lintels with small scrolled keystones. The facade is crowned by a red wooden roof cornice with brackets, modillions, dentils, and panels.