160 East 92nd Street ARCHITECT: Unknown DATE: 1852-53 STYLE: Greek Revival, Italianate A rare surviving remnant of the early years of the village of Yorkville, the 160 East 92nd street House (1852-53) is a two-and-a-half story vernacular clapboard dwelling which displays elements of the Greek Revival and Italianate styles. One of the oldest of the few intact nineteenth-century wooden houses which remain in Manhattan north of Greenwich Village, it dates from a period in which many of the houses on the outskirts of the city were of frame construction (prior to the implementation of an overall ban in Manhattan, due to fire hazards). It was probably built by Albro Howell, a carpenter and builder who lived next door and was active in developing the block.

1850s wood-frame house on East 92nd Street. 1932. This pre-Civil War wood frame house was built between 1852-3, probably by Albro Howell, a carpenter who owned property owner who was likely the builder of a number of similar frame houses nearby. It is one of seven surviving frame houses on the Upper East Side, as noted by the Landmarks Preservation Commission in its 1988 designation report for No. 160. In 1914, the house was purchased by Fifth Avenue residents Willard D. Straight and his wife Dorothy Payne Whitney, as living quarters for their household’s staff (they also built the adjacent garage). Straight, a diplomat, and Whitney, a philanthropist and member of the prominent Whitney family, founded The New Republic in 1914. After Straight’s death in 1918, Whitney remarried and relocated to England. The house remained a staff residence for the Straight estate until 1942.