landmarks Preservation Conunission May 1, 1990; Designation List 225 I.P-1581 5 WEST 16th STREEI' BUIIDING, Borough of Manhattan, Built c. 1846. Architect unknown. landmark Site: Borough of Manhattan Tax Map Block 818, IDt 37. On June 10, 1986, the landmarks Preservation Conunission held a public hearing on the proposed designation as a landmark of the 5 West 16th Street Building (Item No. 2); the building was one of twenty-three buildings located from 3 to 59 West 16th Street, each being -:nearo. that day as · an individual item. A total of six witnesses spoke in favor of designation, including four witnesses who spoke specifically in regard to 5 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. '!he owner of the property did not appear at the public hearing but subsequently sent a letter opposing the designation. DFSCRIPrION AND ANALYSIS Summary 'Ihe bow-fronted house at No. 5 West 16th Street, constructed c. 1846, serves as a distinctive reminder of the period when this section of Manhattan, near Union Square, was a fashionable neighborhood filled with handsome residences. '!his brick house with its generous width and elegant cmved front is a finely-designed example 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 centtrry. '!he eared and battered entrance surround, executed in stone, is a distinguishing architectural feature initially derived from :Egyptian sources that was popular in Greek Revival rovmouse designs durJ.ng the 1840s. '!his house is one of a group of nine residences (four extant1) constructed under the tenr1S 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. CUring the late-nineteenth centtrry and early-twentieth century the character of the area changed from purely residential to one of mixed conunercial and residential use. '!his house has maintained its simple elegance and residential character, though adapted to meet the conunercial requirements of the neighborhood. 1

Development of the Union Square Neighbo:rhood2 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 roan in seventeenth-century New York. This property was later incorporated into the holdings of the esteemed landowner Hemy Brevoort of the Bowery, 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 neighbo:rhood 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 Conunissioners Map of 1807-11, which fonnalized the street grid of Manhattan above Houston Street. It was fonned by the unplanned convergence or "union" of the Bowery 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 artery of 14th Street as its southern boundary. The site was at times used as a potters' field, and as late as 1833 was covered wi

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