{"nrhp_refnum":"72000882","name":"Smith, Alfred E., House","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"25 Oliver St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"New York","county":"Manhattan","state":"NY","lat":40.71231662650007,"lon":-73.99812406579153,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1972-11-28","is_nhl":true,"nhl_designated_date":"1972-11-28","areas_of_significance":["Politics/Government"],"significance_levels":["national"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A three-story Victorian brick rowhouse at 25 Oliver Street on Manhattan's Lower East Side, built between about 1870 and 1890 and leased by Alfred E. Smith from neighboring St. James' Catholic Church.","why_significant":"It was the home of Alfred E. Smith from 1907 to 1923, the formative years of his political career. Smith, Governor of New York and 1928 Democratic presidential nominee, is presented as a symbol of the rise of urban America against rural dominance in national politics. The house sits in the neighborhood that shaped him from boyhood.","narrative":"Number 25 Oliver Street is a three-bay, three-story Victorian rowhouse of pressed brick on a rusticated ashlar basement, with a bracketed tin cornice and a narrow stoop. Built sometime between 1870 and 1890, it was leased in 1907 by Alfred E. Smith from adjoining St. James' Catholic Church. Smith lived here until 1923, during the formative years of a career that carried him from the New York State legislature to the governorship and the 1928 Democratic presidential nomination. Historians cast him as an early urban challenger to rural domination of national politics, and his defeat by Herbert Hoover exposed deep religious and cultural divisions. The house stands a few blocks from his birthplace and near the church where he served as an altar boy. Inside, the marble mantelpieces, woodwork, original stairway and tiled floors survive, although the upper floors were converted to living quarters and the ground floor now holds medical offices.","period_of_significance":"1907-1924","architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":"Victorian rowhouse","criteria":[],"status_note":"Condition listed as fair and altered; the main floor serves as medical offices, the upper floors as living quarters and the basement as a separate apartment.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:50:39.837976-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_NY/72000882_NHL.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/72000882/68a2b1da79-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/72000882/68a2b1da79-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Dmadeo","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alfred-e-smith-house.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Dmadeo</a>, <a href=\"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alfred-e-smith-house.jpg"},"district":{"nrhp_refnum":"03000845","name":"Two Bridges Historic District","url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/districts/new-york/two-bridges-historic-district-03000845/"},"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/75315958","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_E._Smith_House","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4722597"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/new-york/manhattan/smith-alfred-e-house-72000882/"}