Landmarks Preservation Conunission May 1, 1990; Designation List 225 IP-1582 7 WEST 16th S'I'REEI' BUIIDING, Borough of Manhattan, Built c. 1846. Architect unknown. Landmark Site: Borough of Manhattan Tax Map Block 818, I.Dt 35. On June 10, 1986, the Landmarks Preservation conunission held a public hearing on the proposed designation as a Landmark of the 7 West 16th Street Building (Item No. 3); the building was one of twenty-three buildings located from 3 to 59 West 16th Street, each being heard that day as an ind.ividual item. A total of six witnesses spoke in favor of designation, including four witnesses who spoke specifically in regard to 7 West 16th Street, as well as to the related items. '!here were no speakers in opposition to designation. '!he Landmarks Preservation conunission has received seventy-seven letters in support of the designation of the houses on the north side of West 16th Street on the block between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, including one letter referring specifically to No. 7 West 16th Street. DFSCRIPrION AND ANALYSIS Summary '!he bow-fronted house at No. 7 West 16th Street, constructed c. 1846, se:rves as a distinctive remind.er of the period when this section of Manhattan, near Union Square, was a fashionable neighbo:rhood filled with handsome residences. '!his brick house with its generous width and elegant cu:rved front is a finely-designed exarrple of the Greek Revival style; the unusual bow front is a feature more commonly found on houses in Boston dating from earlier in the nineteenth century. 'Ihe eared and battered entrance surround, executed in stone, is a distinguishing architectural feature initially derived from :Egyptian sources that was popular in Greek Revival rowhouse designs durjng the 1840s. '!his house is one of a group of nine residences (four extant1) constructed under the tenns of a restrictive agreement which governed the use and overall design of the buildings to ensure that this block of West 16th Street would develop as a fine residential street. During the late-nineteenth century and early-twentieth century the area changed from purely residential to one of mixed conunercial and residential use. Remarkably intact, this house has maintained its residential character and simple elegance and recalls the earliest period of development in the neighbo:rhood west of Union Square. 1

Development of the Union Square Neighborhood2 The block of West 16th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues lay within the original boundaries of a fann belonging to Simon Congo, a free black man in seventeenth-century New York. 'Ihis property was later incorporated into the holdings of the esteemed landowner Herny Brevoort of the Bowe:ry, a New York civic leader. The northernmost tract of the Brevoort fann was sold to Thomas and Samuel Burling in 1799, and in 1825 John Cowman purchased the section of land now roughly bounded by Fifth and Sixth Avenues and West 16th and 17th Streets. The land remained rural into the 1830s, despite the fact that Fifth and Sixth Avenues were opened to traffic in this area a decade earlier. The development of this and the surrounding blocks was tied to New York's inexorable march northward. The fact that this area became a prime residential neighborhood was due to its proximity to Union Square. Union Place (as Union Square was originally known) located just over one block to the east, appears on the New York City Commissioners Map of 1807-11, whic:h fonnalized the street grid of Manhattan above Houston Street. It was fanned by the unplanned convergence or "union" of the Bowe:ry Road (Fourth Avenue), and Bloomingdale Road (Broadway) , and initially extended from 10th to 17th Streets, on land owned by the Manhattan Bank. In 1815, however, the state legislature reduced the size of Union Place by marking the cross-town arte:ry of 14th Street as its southern bounda:ry. The site was at times used as a potters' field, and as late as 1833 was covered with crude shanties. I.aid out

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