BIRTHDAY GREETINGS to the 43rd Street Rowhouses

The 43rd Street rowhouses in 1930.

Birthday greetings to the venerable 43rd Street rowhouses (abutting The Hermitage), constructed in 1870 and now 150 years old! 

In 1870, Ulysses S. Grant was president, and post‒Civil War prosperity was in the air: that year the Metropolitan Museum of Art was founded, Standard Oil incorporated, and the Brooklyn Bridge began construction. New York City real estate was enjoying boom times, with a surge of new construction that included Prospect Hill, theretofore a neglected shantytown. 

The rowhouses were built as three single-family brownstones, and sold for $12,000 apiece. In the 1920s, their owners were hold-outs when the French Company bought up the neighborhood, and thus Tudor City was built around them. In 1988, they were landmarked as part of the Tudor City Historic District.

Entrances of 336-338-340 East 43rd St.

Although little is known about the buildings' histories over the last 150 years, we've discovered that No. 336 was headquarters for an infamous underground film in the 1960s, No. 338 a speakeasy during the Prohibition era, and No. 340 the longtime home of Miss Traver's nursery school.

More particulars about these rowhouses here.