Below is a small representation of the hundreds of investigations we’ve performed into our clients’ New York City properties. For each, we’ve produced a House History Book or House History Report. Contact us today to discover the history of YOUR house.
********************************************************************************************************************************* 464 74th Street – a 1908 limestone, located in Bay Ridge, this structure was built on land once a part of the Town of New Utrecht. Granted by the Dutch West India Company, it was a parcel utilized by Dutch farmers for its great stands of trees that provided them firewood and building materials. After its existence as farmland for many years, its location became a suburb of sorts, attracting wealthy investors and those looking to escape the dirt, dust, and crime of the city. By 1906, the land was purchased by Boyd Hudson Wood, who would build a row of limestone houses upon it. Wood’s son, Matthew, achieved a small amount of unwelcome fame soon afterwards when a Socialist author wrote a book about his old hometown, satirizing the characters as small-town country bumpkins with small minds and using the real names of the residents. After renting No. 464 for almost a decade, Wood eventually sold the house. Its new owner was a pulp fiction artist, Frederic W. Small, known for his fantastic science fiction art which graced the covers of numerous magazines and periodicals of the era. One work that he created depicted the artist in No. 464 in 1922. Afterwards owned by a school teacher for almost 30 years, it was subsequently occupied by two sisters for another 30 years, being purchased by three other owners before falling into the hands of the current caretakers.