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Have you ever passed by an interesting residential building in New York City and wanted to know more about its history? In this series, Brick Underground teams up with Tom Miller, creator of\u00a0Daytonian in Manhattan,<\/a>\u00a0a blog about Manhattan buildings and other historic architecture. Each week, we run an excerpt from the Daytonian\u2019s archives with a link to the full article.<\/em><\/p>\n In 1881, developer John W. Stevens acquired a 50-foot-wide parcel on West 87th Street between Ninth and Tenth avenues.\u00a0(The avenues would be renamed Columbus and Amsterdam in 1890.)\u00a0Rather than erect two commodious townhouses, Stevens directed his architect, William Howe, to squeeze three onto the plot.\u00a0Each would be just over 16-feet-wide and would cost $8,000.<\/p>\n Like its identical siblings, 127 West 87th St. was faced in brownstone and designed in the neo-Grec style.\u00a0Howe compensated for the home’s lack of width with exuberant decoration.\u00a0The windows were flanked by paneled piers upon bracketed sills.\u00a0Mimicking the doorway, the lintels were decorated with foliate designs.\u00a0A complex pressed metal cornice of corbels, brackets and a paneled fascia completed the design.<\/p>\n The house was initially owned by Albert M. Crouter and his family.\u00a0They sold it at auction on September 29, 1891.\u00a0Norman and\u00a0Sarah E. Macdonald placed the winning bid of $16,900.<\/p>\n Norman Macdonald was one of hundreds of New Yorkers who were frustrated with the city’s lack of street signs. Some residents or businessmen erected their own signs, and stone blocks on the second floor of some corner buildings were carved with the avenue and street names.\u00a0In January 1901, Macdonald signed a petition that urging the city to address the issue.<\/p>\n Later that year, the Guggenheim Ordinance was enacted, instituting a system of standardized street signs.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Macdonalds sold 127 West 87th St. in April 1905 and the property changed hands several times in quick succession purchased in March 1909 by Dr. Herman B. Sheffield, a pediatrician and prolific author.\u00a0His expertise was often sought by attorneys as an expert witness,\u00a0such as the lunacy hearing of 22-year-old Walter Lathrop Hanson.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Hanson’s mother, Mrs. Aimes Hanson, had multiple homes and was the niece of Leland Stanford, the founder of Leland Stanford University.\u00a0Hanson’s father died in January 1912, and Walter was receiving payments from a $50,000 trust, administered by his mother.\u00a0The New York Times\u00a0reported that on November 5th, 1912, Walter married Henriette Keutti “without his mother’s consent.”\u00a0 She cut him off from his “allowance” and sought to have him committed as a lunatic.<\/p>\n In the courtroom on March 5th, 1913, Dr. Herman B. Sheffield “pronounced him mentally competent,” reported\u00a0The New York Times.\u00a0The article added, “On the side of young Hanson sat his young bride, who returned stare for stare of her mother-in-law.”<\/p>\n No. 127 West 87th Street is remarkably intact after more than 140 years.\u00a0Even the interior shutters survive on the upper floors.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n For more on the property and the people that lived here,\u00a0check out the full article.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n