The story of a nonconforming brick row house that’s stood on Grand Street for almost 200 years

New York in the 1820s was an energetic, optimistic city. The opening of the Erie Canal made Gotham richer, elite families were relocating as far north as Bond Street, and the population surged past 100,000 residents. All of these changes brought on a wave of speculative real estate development. James Lent and his nephew, Henry Barclay—descendants of two old-money families—decided they wanted to profit from the city’s boom times, too. So Lent and Barclay purchased an oddly sized lot on lively, active Grand Street and completed the construction of two row houses in 1828. On the eastern side closer to Columbia Street was Number 513 (second photo), a standard, Federal-style 2½ story dwelling with one dormer window jutting out from the peaked roof. Next door, they built 511 Grand Street, also in the fashionable Federal style. But this house had a wider front and an asymmetrical, trapezoid-like shape. What accounts for the unconventional footprint? “Faced with the irregularity of the…