Architectural Investigator--142 East 30th Street--a Neighborhood Lady and I think a wild goose chase

The story on how I chose this house is funny..

I had stopped on East 30th Street and was going to take a picture of another place, and suddenly this voice rang out behind me, 'Oh, are you going to take a picture of the yellow house? It dates from 1845.."

It was some very old lady out on her front steps with a couple of neighborhood kids hanging around.

She then began to regale me with names of people who had lived in house, most of whom I did  not know...one was a man she said was the chief photographer for the NY Times back in the day...

She had lots of stories to tell me about the house but I thanked her as politely as I could and thought I would check it out later as best I could for myself.

It IS kind of sad, isn't it, I mean after a while who cares who lived in this house unless they were somebody REALLY famous or notable..and I am sure all kinds of fascinating lives have been lived in the old houses on this block going way back into the 19th Century...

Let's go to City Records of course 

OK, something does not seem right here...look at this

Borough:ManhattanBlock:885Lot:57
Police Precinct:13
Owner:YUNG BROTHERS REAL ES

Address:142EAST 30 STREET,NEW YORK10016
Lot Area:2469 sf
Lot Frontage:25'Lot Depth:98.75Year Built:1920
Number of Buildings:2
Number of Floors:3
Gross Floor Area:4,957 sf (estimated)
Residential Units:1Total # of Units:3
Land Use:Mixed Residential and Commercial Buildings
Zoning:R8B
Commercial Overlay:
Zoning Map #:8d

Let me try looking some more on the internet 

HA. REAL WILD GOOSE CHASE HERE....JUST THiS ON THE hOUSES NEXT TO IT

138-140 East 30th Street

This shows how confusing the rolls can be, sometimes. 138 E. 30th St., on the right, is listed as being 12.5 ft. wide, which seems right. 140 does not exist. But, 142, listed as 25 feet wide, sold for $4.3 million in January '07. Meanwhile, the 12.5 foot wide building at 138 sold for $2.375 million in 2005. But it seems now to be no more, having been subsumed into the nex tax lot at 142 East 30th Street, which the city says has a land value (25 x 98) of $2.15 million. It's a class 1 parcel; the '07 tax bill was $23,153. Because the land value is much higher than the building value, LVT wouldn't help this homeowner, alas.

You know, unless there was some kind of crazy mix up here, I think this old lady has some serious memory problems...or she could have meant another house...who knows!! Such is life in the Big Apple..