Charlton-King-Vandam Historic District

Charlton, King and Vandam Streets in Manhattan form a small residential enclave of Federal and Greek Revival town houses. The land was once the Richmond Hill estate, site of a mansion used by George Washington as headquarters and later owned by Aaron Burr. Burr laid out city lots in 1797, and after his departure from the city John Jacob Astor took over the property. The mansion was rolled down the hill to Charlton and Varick Streets and used as a theatre, the hill was leveled, and local builders put up speculative houses, mostly in the early and mid-1820s. After an 1840 fire, Greek Revival houses replaced four Federal ones on Charlton Street's north side. Early residents included builders, lawyers and merchants, and many houses stayed in the same families for generations. Commercial buildings and trucking arrived at the Varick Street corners in the 1920s, yet the streets kept their domestic character. Original steps, ironwork, dormers and doorways survive, and the district is valued as a homogeneous neighborhood of rare architectural merit.