The TWIN HOUSES
COMMERCE STREET
GREENWICH VILLAGE
Artist - EllenBradshaw.com
The TWIN HOUSES
Commerce Street
The twin houses at 39 and 41 Commerce Street in the West Village (Greenwich Village) were built in 1831–1832 as Federal-style investment rental properties by Peter Huyler, a milkman from Hackensack, New Jersey.
Unlike the popular urban legend that a wealthy sea captain built the homes for two feuding daughters who refused to live together, county records show Huyler constructed them as income-generating rentals.
The prominent open space/garden between the two houses—which fueled the sea-captain myth—was actually quite common for early-19th-century residential lots before the neighborhood became densely built-up.
Originally two-story Federal-style structures with peaked roofs and dormers, the properties were updated in 1873 by architect Daniel Topping Atwood, who added third stories and fashionable French Second Empire mansard roofs.
Throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the buildings served as rooming houses for artists and working-class residents. Over time, their layouts shifted; No. 41 was eventually converted back into a single-family private residence (in 1948), while No. 39 remained divided into apartments.
Both buildings are recognized as individual New York City Landmarks and contributing structures within the Greenwich Village Historic District.
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