Pumpkin House (Hudson Heights, Manhattan)
The “Pumpkin House” is the 1920s 3,144-square-foot home at 16 Chittenden Avenue, above the Henry Hudson Parkway at 186th Street, in Manhattan’s Washington Heights (or Hudson Heights). The Circle Line boat tour guides often point out the cliffside building.
At night, when the windows have all the lights on, the “Pumpkin House” is said to look like a jack o’ lantern. The “Pumpkin House” name was used in an April 1967 story in the New York (NY) Times.
A “Gingerbread House” exists in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.
7 April 1967, New York (NY) Times, “210 Feet Above the Hudson, a Jack-o’-Lantern Glows All Year” by Rita Reif, pg. 33, col. 2:
MR. and Mrs. Richard Dattner live in the mouth of the pumpkin house, which smiles over the Hudson River from a perch high above the Henry Hudson Parkway at 186th Street.
“These windows are the mouth and the windows on the floors above are the nose and eyes,” explained Mr. Dattner, a 29-year-old, Polish-born architect. “The house is pointed out as the pumpkin house by the Circle Line barkers.”
“By night with lights in all the windows,” interjected his dark-eyed wife, 26, “it looks like a jack o’ lantern with a misplaced nose.”
Google Groups: nyc.transit
Great Washington Heights web site
Peter T. Daniels
10/18/01
(...)
That odd house is, for an ungiven reason, called “Pumpkin House” in Tauranac’s atlas.
Curbed—NY
On the Market: Cliffside Jack-O-Lantern in the Heights
BY JEREMY OCT 27, 2005, 11:28A
What’s the Hudson Heights equivalent of a massive pillowcase full of tooth-rotting candy arriving unannounced at your doorstep days before Halloween? The Pumpkin House hitting the market! For a sweet $3.45 million, your westerly windows can “glow with reflected sunlight ... in a Jack-o-lantern-like configuration.” We’re getting a sugar rush just looking at this 3-floor, 7-bedroom, 3100 sq. ft. townhome from the 1920s. It’s cantelievered over the Henry Hudson Parkway, leaving one tipster to muse: “Favorite part of the description - ‘It is not landmarked so you may want to look into the possibility for expansion.’ Uh, where - down?”
New York (NY) Times
A Face in the Crowd
By STEVEN KURUTZ AUG. 13, 2008
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In the case of a three-story brick house just north of the George Washington Bridge, it has been given its own nickname: the Pumpkin House.
The name refers to the image created by the house’s lighted windows. “I would see the house and think, good god, it does look like a big pumpkin,” said John Keatts, a tour guide for Circle Line Sightseeing Cruises, whose boat trips on the Hudson River offer the best view of the house, at the corner of 186th Street and Chittenden Avenue. At certain hours, especially at sunset, the sun casts an orange glow on the windows: two on top, a center pane and a wide window on the bottom.
(...)
He (William Spink, the home’s owner and an interior designer—ed.) remains skeptical. “I guess if you’ve had enough Quaaludes,” he said, “it might look like a pumpkin.”
Gothamist
NYC’s Incredible Cliffside ‘Pumpkin House’ Is For Sale
BY JEN CARLSON IN ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT ON AUG 15, 2016 11:40 AM
Located at 16 Chittenden Avenue in Manhattan’s Hudson Heights neighborhood is a home that’s been dubbed “The Pumpkin House.” The property extends out over a cliff just north of the George Washington Bridge, and some observers on the other side of the Hudson River see a jack-o-lantern face at night when the lights are on. At certain hours the sun also casts an orange glow on the facade.
New York (NY) Post
‘The Pumpkin House’ can be yours for $5.2M
By Jennifer Gould August 16, 2016 | 9:20am
A Manhattan cliffside home known as the Pumpkin House for its resemblance to a jack o’lantern is on the market for $5.2 million.
The three-story townhouse juts out over a ridge more than 250 feet above the Henry Hudson Parkway at West 186th Street, just north of the George Washington Bridge.
Its oddly placed windows appear to form eyes, a nose and teeth, such as those of a carved pumpkin. And at sunset, it’s often cast in an orange glow.