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Early Republic

Nos. 34–44 Italianate Row Houses

New York, New York, New York

Marker Inscription

No. 44 is one of six row houses, Nos. 34-44, designed in the late Italianate style and built in 1860 by Frederick P. James. They replaced an earlier row which had been built in 1844. When erected, these four-story houses ere identical and were the last word in elegance. Dedicated in memory of Irving N. Scholnik 1903-1978.

The Story

In 1860, Frederick P. James replaced an earlier 1844 row with six four-story houses designed in the late Italianate style then at the height of fashion. When new, the identical homes were considered the last word in elegance on their Greenwich Village block. They reflect the confident domestic taste of New York on the eve of the Civil War.

Why it matters

The row captures a moment when speculative builders and merchant money were setting the architectural tone of antebellum New York's most stylish neighborhoods.

The story behind this marker

AI context

The era

In 1860, New York was a city gathering speed. The population had exploded, immigrant labor was pouring into its wards, and the merchant money that flowed through its wharves and counting houses was reshaping whole neighborhoods almost yearly. What had been a comfortable district one decade could be rebuilt grander the next, as owners raced to keep pace with fashion and with one another.

This was the New York of the late antebellum years, a boomtown that did not yet know a war was coming. The blocks around Greenwich Village were filling with the substantial homes of families who had done well, and speculative builders were happy to supply them. To tear down a perfectly good row from 1844 and put up something newer only sixteen years later was not waste in that climate — it was ambition made visible in brick and brownstone.

The Italianate style these houses wear was the height of that ambition. Borrowed loosely from the palaces and villas of Italy and filtered through pattern books, it gave ordinary city dwellings tall windows, bold cornices, and an air of European dignity. For a prosperous New Yorker on the eve of the 1860s, a four-story Italianate front said you had arrived.

People & events

The man behind these houses was Frederick P. James, who in 1860 cleared away an older 1844 row and replaced it with six new dwellings built as a matched set. That single decision is the story here: a builder betting that identical, up-to-the-minute homes would find buyers eager for the newest thing.

When they went up, the six were twins — the same height, the same elegant Italianate detailing, the same promise of comfort behind each door. To be "the last word in elegance" was exactly the effect James was selling. In a city where taste moved quickly, sameness at this level of finish was not dull; it was a guarantee of quality, a whole row speaking with one confident voice.

The plaque also carries a quieter, more recent note: a dedication in memory of Irving N. Scholnik, who lived from 1903 to 1978. It is a reminder that old houses gather new meanings over time, and that the people who cherish a building long after its builder is gone become part of its history too.

Its place in the American story

Row houses like these tell a distinctly American urban story. As cities grew dense in the nineteenth century, the answer was not the grand freestanding mansion but the party-wall row — dignified, repeatable, and efficient with expensive land. What looks today like a charming streetscape was in its day a smart real-estate product.

The Italianate style that swept through these blocks was a national phenomenon, not a local quirk. From Brooklyn to San Francisco, builders reached for the same tall windows and heavy cornices, and pattern books carried the look across the country. A row like this one is a local example of a taste that briefly unified American middle- and upper-class housing from coast to coast.

There is also the matter of timing. Built in 1860, these houses rose in the last ordinary season before the Civil War remade the nation. They stand as a small, solid record of the confidence of that moment — the domestic face of a country that was prosperous, expanding, and not yet aware of how much was about to change.

If you visit

Come on foot, because this is a block to be read slowly. Stand across the street first and take in the whole row at once — the point of these houses is the rhythm of them, six fronts that were built to rhyme with one another.

Then look up. Italianate buildings save their best gestures for the top: the deep, bracketed cornice crowning the facade, and the tall parlor-floor windows that once signaled the most important rooms in the house. Notice how the years have let the individual houses drift apart in color, trim, and detail, each owner leaving a mark on what began as a matched set.

This is a rewarding stop on a walking tour of old New York, best paired with an unhurried wander through the surrounding streets. Slip it between a coffee and a longer amble, and let it stand in for a whole vanished moment — the elegant, optimistic city of 1860, still legible in a single stretch of facades.

Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.

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