There’s a row of colorful houses in beautiful pastels and with ornate doors in Greenwich Village that I always have to stop and admire when I walk by. A collection of 22 homes, built between 1844 and 1850, make up the MacDougal-Sullivan Gardens Historic District. In the early 20th century, these houses began to show serious wear and tear, and a wealthy businessman named William Sloane Coffin Sr. bought them and formed the Hearth and Home Corporation. He did so to preserve older single-family homes in the city to allow middle-class residents the chance to live in houses and not have to move to apartments.