Broadway, north across Grand Street, showing mainly the westerly side of this thoroughfare, ca. 1870. The grand building on the corner (at left) was the Lord & Taylor building, constructed in 1859. The cast iron building was described by the New York Times as “more like an Italian palace than a place for the sale of broadcloth.” Less than 10 years later, the store vacated their new building and moved uptown to the new fashion district, the Ladies Mile. According to most sources, the 1860 building remained standing until a fire destroyed it in 1967. For a few decades after the fire, the space was a parking lot with a popular flea market. Today the large lot, which goes all the way through to Mercer Street (hence its more well known address: 40 Mercer) is occupied by a dark, grid-like new building (2007) designed by the French architect Jean Nouvel.

Lamport Export Company ca. 1935 This impressive example of lower Broadway’s many cast-iron commercial buildings was designed in 1872 by the prestigious architect Jonathan B. Snook. The building is still leased to textile wholesalers, as it was in Abbott’s day. Although cast-iron architecture was less appreciated in the 1930s than it is today, Abbott was sensitive to the graceful rhythm of its modular structure. Using a wide-angle lens from a fire escape across Broadway, she managed to capture within a single exposure the entire three-lot-wide expanse of its delicately proportioned colonnade. The superimposition of the fire escape grid upon the columns demonstrates Abbott’s ability to transform city architecture into abstract composition.

5th Precinct, 1900. This 1881-station house is the oldest original police precinct in the city. (Though the Central Park Precinct is in an older building, that structure was built as a stable and wasn't taken over by the police until the 20th century.) This four-story Italianate building was designed by the Police Department’s architect Nathaniel D. Bush, who was also a sergeant on the force! Originally called the 6th Precinct, it was known as the "Bloody Sixth" for the violence in nearby Chinatown, largely enacted by the local Tong gang. The local police dealt with rampant gambling, opium dens, and gang murders. By 1911, the station had been renamed the 5th, and a new fancy police patrol telephone booth had been added to the entranceway. On two separate occasions in the 1960s and 1970s, the NYPD expressed a wish to demolish the building for a new station house and the community fought to preserve the old building. Instead of being razed, the building was renovated and modernized.

361 Broadway Building ARCHITECT: W. Wheeler Smith DATE: 1881-82 STYLE: Cast-iron This building is an important survivor of the mid-19th century commercial development of New York. It is a rare extant work of W. Wheeler Smith, a prominent late-19th century New York architect. It is among the last commercial 11 palazzi 11 built in New York and one of the last and largest cast-iron buildings constructed in the city. Its unusual abstract floral ornament is almost entirely intact. It is one of the handsomest representatives in New York of cast-iron architecture, an extraordinary and uniquely American architectural development.

Kitchen, Montross & Wilcox Store ARCHITECT: Unknown DATE: 1861 STYLE: Cast-iron The 85 Leonard Street Building is the last remaining building in New York City by James Bogardus, self-described “inventor of cast-iron buildings.” It is one of the few extant buildings of cast iron designed in the so-called “sperm candle” style, a style which uses classical elements in combination with a non-classical emphasis on verticality, lightness, and openness, and that the fine quality and wealth of detail enhance the basic forms of the building and illustrate the desirability of cast-iron as a building material in the 19th century.

Citizen Savings Bank ARCHITECT: Clarence W. Brazer DATE: 1922-24 STYLE: Beaux-Arts Citizens Bank is an important example of the 20th-century Beaux-Arts bank building combining Renaissance and classical precedents, with the building’s unusual height and nearly square massing, conveying its financial strength and stability to depositors. The street facades have rusticated bases above which rise monumental, arched windows enframed by engaged pilasters supporting an entablature in the Roman Doric order. To identify the building and its purpose noted sculptor Charles Keck designed a sculptural group, with a clock, that incorporates elements from the seal of the Citizens Savings Bank, including a Native American, a sailor, an eagle, and beehives, traditional symbols of thrift.

Former Germania Bank building, ca. 1975. In 1966, the Germania Bank Building was sold to Jay Maisel, a commercial photographer. Maisel maintained his residence and studio there until February, 2015, when the building sold for $55 million. During Maisel’s residence, the grand, mysterious building’s exterior became a magnet for graffiti artists and a well known Bowery landmark. After the 2015 sale, decades of graffiti, grime, and character were stripped from the facade as the building was prepared for commercial renovation.

Unknown architect ca. 1799 This Federal-style building may be another 18th century survivor. Records show that from 1799– 1802 a butcher occupied this address. It retains original features such as its steeply pitched roof, and, if one looks closely, paneled stone lintels on the second story. Unfortunately, its twin pedimented dormers were removed in 2011.

"First milestone ('1 mile to City Hall'), Bowery and Prince Street, 1897." In 1769 the city’s Common Council installed 14 milestones radiating away from City Hall (then at Wall and Nassau Streets). Additional markers were erected in 1812 and 1822. It is unknown from which batch this milestone dates. (The photographic notes refer to it as the 'first.') This location at Prince Street was likely not its first home, as the milestones had to be moved after the new City Hall opened in 1811. Though a number of milestones can still be found on the streets (and a couple more can be seen in NYC museums), this milestone has been lost to history.

The China Daily News was the newspaper of the Chinese Hand Laundry Alliance. Never shy of voicing their leftist beliefs, both the paper and its subscribers were monitored by the FBI at the height of the Red Scare. It became so controversial that its editor would be imprisoned and multiple staffers deported. Like many of New York's radical societies, the paper had an unlikely beginning: the passing of a local ordinance that concerned laundromats.

Spanning from the turn of the 20th Century to the 1920s, the Progressive Era left a lasting impact on the United States and New York City. During these years the nation experienced an increase in reforms meant to alleviate the suffering of the working classes. In order to accomplish this goal, Progressives believed the government needed to accept greater responsibility for its citizens' well-being. The Progressive ideals of greater government involvement and regulation was a reaction against the policies of the Gilded Age. During this period in American history, wealthy business owners and corporations accrued vast fortunes, often at the expense of working class people. Many believed something had to be done. Following the Civil War, The Gilded Age contributed to the rapid urbanization and industrialization of the United States. While both of these processes created enormous wealth for some, it also worsened the plight of many people. Urbanization and industrialization transformed both the physical landscape and the experiences and expectations of Americans. During the Progressive Era, many municipal services, like the police and fire departments, were established or expanded. School reform and increased access to sanitary living conditions improve the lives of poorer Americans. To many, the Progressive Era provided a much needed antidote to the societal ills of Gilded Age urbanization and industrialization. New York Social Studies Scope and Sequence Standards: 8.2e & 11.5. For Teachers: The Progressive Era in New York Lesson Plan

Police Department Headquarters, ca. 1905. Following the consolidation of the five boroughs, the city decided that it required a larger police headquarters. The small building on Mulberry Street, where Teddy Roosevelt had served as Police Commissioner, was now insufficient for a police force that quadrupled in size since the building opened in the 1860s. In 1905 the cornerstone was laid for a new, massive building on the wedge-shaped lot that had once housed the old Centre Market. The Beaux-Arts behemoth was designed by the firm of Hoppin & Koen and completed in 1909. The new five-story building was topped with a large copper dome. The facilities of the new headquarters included a basement shooting range and a rooftop observation deck. The design both inside and out aimed “to impress both the officer and the prisoner with the majesty of the law.” The police remained in this building until 1973 when they decamped to a brand new modern (Brutalist) building on Park Row. The building on Centre Street remained empty for some years with plans and proposals bandied about for a conversion to a hotel, cultural center, or museum. Finally in 1983 the City agreed to allow the building to be converted into luxury condos. The new complex, called the Police Building, opened to residents in 1988. Interestingly, while planning the condo conversion, it was discovered that the building exceeded the property lot lines on all sides—in some cases by several feet. Obviously the new owners were unable and unwilling to move the building's facades back to line up with the property lines on the official city planning map (both financially and because the Landmarks Commission would never allow it). The city eventually grandfathered the building's current shape into the municipal maps.

Preparations for subway construction on Broadway, north of Howard Street, August 18, 1912. No. 433 Broadway is nearest at left. The BMT Broadway line was completed in stages between 1917-1919, having endured a number of changes to its route since the line’s first proposal in 1907.

Looking north on the Bowery, under the Third Avenue Line, April 24, 1936.

By Robert Pigott As a bit of greenery opposite the Criminal Court on Centre Street has replaced an unsightly municipal parking lot, the name given this new park -– Collect Pond Park -- evokes 400 years of New York City history. The soggy origins of the block containing the new park pre-date the 17th-century encounter of the Dutch settlers of New Amsterdam and the Native Americans who inhabited the woods, fields, streams, and ponds that were pre-colonial Manhattan. Read this in its original format here.

Think!Chinatown presents a walk of the heart of Manhattan's Chinatown, based on the stories of its residents, as collected by archivist and oral historian Rochelle Kwan. Follow along online or use the stories to connect with the neighborhood through the memories of its residents. As you take a walk around the neighborhood, check out the Landmarks Oral History Project stories: www.thinkchinatown.org/landmarks

Bo-Bo Restaurant, ca, 1975. The Chinese restaurant called Bo-Bo's (at 20 1/2 Pell Street, right) was a well-loved local institution between the 1950s and 1980s. The menu was up on a board on the wall and with less than a dozen tables, the wait could be an hour. Those who remember the spot even today say the wait was always worth it. The signage notes the restaurant's name and states "the home of Chinese actors." Ester Eng, who was a partner in Bo-Bo's and owned another nearby eatery was an early director in Chinese cinema, and many Chinese actors frequented the spot.

Woods Mercantile Buildings ARCHITECT: Unknown DATE: 1865 STYLE: Italian Renaissance The Woods Mercantile Buildings are fine examples of the palazzo node of architecture which was based on Italian Renaissance prototypes. The elegant simplicity and restraint of the facades indicate their original utilitarian function. They are representatives of a period of the city’s history when White Street was part of the country’s textile and dry goods center.

Donald Judd House and Museum, 101 Spring Street, ca. 2000. The five-story cast iron building at the corner of Spring and Mercer Streets was designed by architect Nicholas Whyte and completed in 1870. In 1968, Missouri-born artist Donald Judd purchased the building for $68,000, having outgrown his previous workspace. For Judd, it was the first building he ever owned. He configured the space into a residence, studio, and gallery. At 101 Spring Street, Judd developed his concept of "permanent installations" in response to what he viewed as the inadequacy of temporary gallery and museum exhibitions. In his 1989 essay, ‘101 Spring Street,’ Judd wrote: “I spent a great deal of time placing the art and a great deal designing the renovation in accordance. Everything from the first was intended to be thoroughly considered and to be permanent.” Judd passed away in January of 1994, leaving behind a foundation in his name which, over the last decade, sold off $23 million worth of art from its collection to fund the restoration of 101 Spring Street. Today, the works and interior design at 101 Spring Street remain as installed by Judd.

New York City has a small collection of 18th-century buildings, and these two survivors are part of it. They retain Federal features such as their steeply pitched roofs, twin pedimented dormers, Flemish bond, and No. 134 possesses an end chimney. These buildings also share an early wrought-iron fire escape. Sculptor Eva Hesse (1936– 1970\) had a studio in the half story of No. 134.

378-374 Broadway, showing the Remington Company Building, ca. 1920. Remington is most well known as a manufacturer of guns, but at various points in their history they (and related firms) also produced items such as sewing machines and typewriters. In 1873 they released for sale the the first commercial typewriter. The machines were produced in Ilion, New York and introduced QWERTY, the keyboard layout for Latin script. In 1886 Remington sold the typewriter business to the Standard Typewriter Manufacturing Company, Inc. the three buyers were former employees, Misters Wickoff, Seamans, and Benedict. The company that would become Remington Typewriter Company (so named c.1905) originally had their headquarters at 327 Broadway (as early 1892, perhaps earlier). Circa 1910 they retrofitted a series of buildings (no. 327 and the surrounding ones) to make one large structure for Remington. After outgrowing the space they moved to the pictured structure at 374-378 Broadway. This building was replaced in 1988-1990 with the 26-story apartment house currently on the lot.

Berenice Abbott's 1937 photograph of Centre Market Place Frank Lava's storefront, February 4, 1937. This Berenice Abbott photograph shows the gun-shaped sign of a gunsmith storefront which had been in business since 1850. A number of gun shops once lined Centre Market Place, and were the appropriate neighbors of the massive Police Headquarters housed across the street in the grand Beaux-Arts building at 240 Centre Street. Lava was the third generation owner of a gunsmith shop established in 1850; he continued to manage the shop into the 1960s.

Westward view along Lispenard Street, with workings laying pipes for the high pressure water system into a trench; undated photo. In the background, an Sixth Avenue elevated train passes over West Broadway. Beyond the tracks is a storefront of Frank & Gutman, manufacturers of garters and cuff-holders, at 272-274 West Broadway. The blockfront at left was slowly transformed over the course of the next three decades. In 1909, the American Telephone & Telegraph company purchased a set of contiguous lots between Walker and Lispenard Streets. Construction of the Walker Lispenard building, a17-story skyscraper, was completed in 1914. That structure was extended to 24 stories by 1919, and plans for a further additions were filed in 1929. No. 26-28 Lispenard and a handful of other small buildings on the south side of the block persisted until April 1930, when they were finally razed ahead of the final expansion. Today, the AT\&T Long Distance Building, also known as 32 Avenue of the Americas, occupies the full block. The 27-story Art Deco skyscraper was designed by Frank Walker, and completed in 1932.

Manhattan Bridge Plaza ca. 1979 The Manhattan Bridge was completed in 1909 during a post-Consolidation building boom. The decorative grand plaza and colonnade completed in 1915 at the Manhattan entrance have been chipped away at by city administrations and the elements. It was almost torn down by Robert Moses during bridge reconstruction in 1961. Though it never achieved the elegance depicted in this postcard, the colonnade is still a part of the bridge.

Louis J. Lefkowitz State Office Building ARCHITECT: Sullivan Jones and William Haugarrd DATE: 1928-30 STYLE: modernist classical The Louis J. Lefkowitz State Office Building, historically New York State Office Building at 80 Centre Street was constructed as a piece of a master plan for this area. The nine-story edifice is composed in a modernist classical style faced in granite to be contextual, but not detract from, the courthouses in Manhattan’s Civic Center. A heavy, rusticated base boasts carved seals of New York State, and “STATE OF NEW YORK”, prominently centered on the façade, rests above the seals. The cornerstone of 80 Centre was laid on December 18, 1928 by Governor Al Smith, who used a silver trowel to apply the first layer of mortar and secured a copper box time capsule containing records, newspapers, and photographs into the stone block. The impetus for the New York State Office Building came down to economics. Throughout the 1920s, the State of New York hemorrhaged money toward expensive rents for State offices, typically in midtown. This building consolidated all State offices to one location, as the New York Times explained its dire need: “Completion of the State Building marks a realization of one of the largest units in a well-defined public building program which has for its aim the unified housing of official activities and elimination of tremendous rents.” (NYT, “Civic Centre Plan Showing Progress.” 11/2/1930) In 2018 it was announced 80 Center would be demolished to make way for a new 40 story tower that would house the new Manhattan jail. Thankfully, that plan was abandoned, but the building is still not landmarked and therefore under threat.

New York Dispensary, ca. 1915. The New York Dispensary, a philanthropic institution providing medical care for poor New Yorkers, built a new facility on Spring Street in 1912, on the site of a former coal yard. The dispensary, founded in 1790, had been displaced from locations further downtown twice in the previous four years: first, by the 1908 construction of the Centre Street Loop of the BMT Nassau Street Line (today’s J/Z subway); then for the expansion of courthouse facilities at Worth Street.

My Archive Spring 2019 "Tourist and locals both out for a summer day to get some Italian food. So many smells, so many choices, so many ornaments, and menus and cannoli. haha! It's one of my fav photos." —Justin Snyder

The Grand Theatre (also referred to simply as “The Grand”) opened in 1903 at 255-257 Grand Street, at the corner of Grand and Chrystie Streets. With its opening, The Grand became “the first theatre in America built for the express purpose of housing Yiddish productions.” An article published in The New York Times the week of the theatre’s opening entitled “A New Jewish Theatre,” remarks that it is “the first theatre in New York ever erected expressly and exclusively for foreign-speaking Jewish patronage of the better class.” The article then goes on to describe the theatre’s architecture, designed by Victor Hugo Koehler, proclaiming that it is a “handsome white stone structure – of the Renaissance style now prevailing at playhouses.” The Grand is also notable because it was the first theatre to be owned, run, and managed by the actors themselves. Judging by the mention of the “better class” in the Times article, we can imagine that this theatre, just a stone’s throw from the Eldridge Street Synagogue, would have catered solely to our historic congregations wealthy members. Early congregation leaders like banker Sender Jarmulowsky and kosher butcher Isaac Gellis would likely have attended shows here. But the congregants who could only afford the “cheap seats” at Eldridge Street may not have been welcome at The Grand. The Grand remained open for 20 years, but not exclusively as a Yiddish theatre. By 1909 it was leased to the Bedford Theatrical Company, and by 1913 it was playing Marcus Loew attractions (moving pictures). The theater closed in 1923, and after sitting vacant for several years, the entire structure was demolished in 1930. The theater was demolished in the wake of extensive neighborhood improvements on the Lower East Side, which included widening both Chrystie and Forsyth Street. As these streets were widened, all of the buildings on one side of the street were demolished, including The Grand. The demolished buildings once sat on the edge of what is now Sara Delano Roosevelt Park.

You would never guess that the building pictured at 190 Bowery is now a single-family residence. The former Germania Bank building was built in 1898-1899 by Robert Maynicke for its namesake, which served the middle class German residents who populated the area along and to the east of the Bowery, north of Division Street. The building functioned as a bank until the mid-1960s, when photographer Jay Maisel purchased it for $102,000. Maisel moved into the six-story, 72-room, 35,000-square foot building and continues to live there today with his wife and daughter, leading Wendy Goodman of New York magazine to declare 190 Bowery “maybe the greatest real-estate coup of all time.”

96 Bayard Street, 1932.

New York Life Insurance Company Building STATUS Designated Exterior and Interior Landmark 346 Broadway ARCHITECT: Stephen Decatur Hatch; McKim, Mead & White DATE: 1894-99 STYLE: Neo-Italian, Neo-Renaissance This building is a fine example of the neo-Italian palazzo mode popularized by Mckim, Mead & White. The interiors of the building are designed using excellent craftsmanship and lavish materials, typical of the finest buildings of the turn of the century. These interiors are designed in the neo-Renaissance style, and they bear the personal stamp of their architects.

The Bowery Savings Bank, 130 Bowery,1975. Now a part of Capital One Bank, the Bowery Savings Bank was chartered in 1834. The building at 130 Bowery was designed by the firm of McKim, Mead, and White in a Roman classical style and was constructed between 1893-1895. The classical facade of this early bank building set the style for banking institutions in New York City.

Long Distance Building of the American Telephone & Telegraph Company ARCHITECT: Voorhees, Gmelin & Walker; Ralph Walker DATE: 1930-32 STYLE: Art Deco The huge concentration of equipment of this building made it a communication crossroads for telephone, tele typewriting, and telephotography. Its polychrome, rough-textured brick exterior embodies the Art Deco style through its setbacks, overall sculpted quality, and linear ornament. This progressive technologically-inspired aesthetic successfully broadcasts the building’s role in housing the technologically sophisticated equipment of a critical American industry. The Long Distance Building first floor interior is a harmonious complement to the architectural character of the building’s exterior, reflected in the use of rippled surfaces, linear ornament, and earth colored materials. This building was the world’s largest long-distance communications center upon its completion in 1932. The first floor lobby features an iconographic program that clearly and artfully broadcasts the building’s significance as a hub of international communication, and it displays a linear decorative motif which symbolizes the great distances spanned by the telephone lines and radio waves channeled through this operations facility. The first floor interior was appointed with a terrazzo floor, ceramic iron-spot wall tiles with bronze details, and multi-hued glass mosaic tiles, and it is articulated in an Art Deco aesthetic, an especially appropriate treatment given the building’s associations with technology.

Manhattan Sign Company, 101 Mercer Street, 1932. The oldest building in the Soho Cast Iron Historic District, the Federal style brick house at 101 Mercer Street (aka 107 Spring Street) was built between 1806-1808. Though the original brickwork has since been covered by stucco — and at one point by clapboards, as shown in this photo — some window and lintel details persist. By the 1860s, the lower floor had been converted to a saloon. Above, signage for the Manhattan Sign Company remains, while advertisements for a store and basement to to let indicate that the company had closed or relocated.

South from 125 Worth Street, view of Thomas Paine Park and Foley Square beyond. In the late 18th century the land that is now Thomas Paine Park was part of a freshwater swamp. Now surrounded by municipal buildings and courthouses, during the Revolution it was encircled by three former British prisons for American rebels. Later part of the notorious Five Points, most of its buildings were condemned in the late 19th century. The City acquired the land in 1913, and it was officially named for the patriot and author Thomas Paine in 1977. In 2000, it along with nearby parcels in Foley Square were combined to form one larger open space.

Welcome to Chinatown, Manhattan! One of over 50 Chinatowns in the U.S. and nine in New York City alone, Manhattan’s Chinatown is home to the largest concentration of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere. The story of Manhattan’s Chinatown begins in the middle of the 19th century. Immigration to the US from Asian countries, especially China, boomed due to factors such as the California gold rush, Chinese labor recruitment for the transcontinental railroad, and the Taiping rebellion in China. Post Civil War, resentment towards Chinese immigrants due to competition with white laborers drove members of the Chinese population towards larger cities in the East, such as New York, with the added incentive of job opportunities and a more diverse population. Chinatown was born as Chinese New Yorkers, mostly men, settled around Mott, Pell, and Doyer streets in the 1870s, forming a Chinatown of only 3-blocks which, when compared to the 55-60 block span of today’s Chinatown, creates a clear image of Chinatown’s impending growth. Though the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 along with other exclusionary laws passed by Congress slowed Chinatown’s population growth, its cultural development was not impeded, with many notable business and organization establishments taking place between the passing of the act in 1882 and its lifting in 1943. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 led to a dramatic population increase of Chinatown, with its boundaries expanding to an approximately 55-block area. Immigration groups shifted–where early Chinatown had been primarily populated by Taishanese-speaking Chinese immigrants, the second half of the 20th century saw a wave of Cantonese speaking Chinese immigrants from Mainland China followed by Mandarin-speaking Taiwanese immigrants and other Non-Cantonese immigrants in the 70’s and Mandarin-speaking immigrants from Fuzhou in the 80’s and 90’s. In recent decades, the vibrant community of Chinatown has been impacted by modern issues facing both New York City and the rest of the world. Gentrification and displacement have become increasingly prevalent throughout the past few decades, with luxury developments threatening to raise real estate prices and push out working class residents and longstanding family businesses. Chinatown was also hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic, with businesses being affected as early as January 2020 due to stereotypes and racism surrounding Asian and specifically Chinese communities, and a 361% increase in anti-Asian hate crimes in 2021. Despite the challenges that have impacted Chinatown both then and now, it has remained rich in culture and community, and its resilience and character has cemented its importance in the past and present both in New York and throughout the country and world.

My Archive Summer 2019 “247 Grand Street in Manhattan. On the left Vincenzo Trimarco and on the right Giovanni "Charlie" Trimarco (the Trimarco Bros.). Their father Domenico Trimarco came from Castelluccio Cosentino, Salerno, Italy to New York in the late1870s and worked his way from a simple tailor out of an apartment to an eventual store owner before passing away in 1906. His sons (brothers to my great-great-grandmother Nicoletta Felitti of East Harlem) became very wealthy businessmen through the family clothing business and were expert tailors themselves. They were well known for suits and wedding dresses. The original Lord and Taylor was a few buildings away, and the story has it that Lord and Taylor approached the Trimarco Bros. with a proposal to partner together, but the Domenico Trimarco said no, not wanting to move back uptown to where the new Lord and Taylor would be.” —Conor Welch

No 380-382 Broadway, at the northeast corner of White Street, ca. 1912. The Italianate style white marble corner building was completed in 1860, with its first tenants including a variety of commercial interests related to the Civil War effort (garment and shoe makers, recruiters). In the opening decade of the 1900s, the Cincinnati-based Globe-Wernicke Co., manufacturers of office furniture, became the building's anchor tenant, with advertisements adorning the facade and roof. Today, the building is home to the offices of several performing arts organizations.

The Wah Yan Mue Temple was located above the Temple Garden Restaurant at 16 Pell Street in the Hip Sing Building. Hip Sing Tong is one of a dozen tongs or business and neighborhood associations that assisted new immigrants with services, jobs, and a community. Hip Sing, established in the 1850s, is also well known in the 20th century as a criminal organization. The original temple on the upper floors of 16 Pell was the Fut Cho Mue Buddhist Temple. Its successor was the Wah Yan Mue Temple, which seems to have utilized some of the same items, including the ceremonial gong (seen at right).

The Bowery north from Grand Street, 1903.

Building at the southwest corner of Lafayette and Howard Streets being dismantled during the construction of the IRT Lexington Avenue line, March 2, 1903.

Public Buildings and Court Houses: Manhattan, Department of Health, 125 Worth Street, 1938

Germania Bank Building ARCHITECT: Robert Maynicke DATE: 1898-99 STYLE: Beaux-Arts The former Germania Bank building is a Beaux-Arts style structure prominently located on the northwest corner of the Bowery and Spring Street. Built-in 1898-99 to the designs of architect Robert Maynicke, it was the third home of the Germania Bank, which was established in 1869 by a group of local businessmen of German extraction. By 1840, more than 24,000 German immigrants and their descendants were living in New York City. Their numbers increased dramatically over the next two decades. The granite and brick building features rusticated stonework, a chamfered corner with an arched entry flanked by Tuscan columns, and multi-story pilasters. The ground floor features large arched openings with voussoirs surmounted a massive denticulated cornice. A similar cornice terminates the fifth story.

E.V. Haughwout Building, ca. 1975. The Haughwout Building, a five story building at the corner of Broadway and Broome Street, is an outstanding example of New York’s mid-19th century cast iron architecture. Completed in 1857, the building was designed as a showroom for cut glass, china, and silverware by its owner Eder V. Haughwout. First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln commissioned a set of White House china from Haughwout, and is said to have shopped at this store. Architect John P. Gaynor made innovative use of a structural metal frame to support the weight of the Daniel D. Bardger’s Italianate cast iron facades— a technique that would become essential to skyscraper construction. Gaynor’s design also included the world’s first passenger elevator. By the 1890s, Haughwout’s showroom had closed and the building was converted for loft use. Imperiled by Robert Moses proposed Lower Manhattan Expressway, the building was designated a New York City Landmark in 1965.

The Chinese Merchant's Associaton was built in 1950 by Poy Gum Lee. The Museum of Chinese America describes the building as, "a boxy modernist block with modest Chinese decorative motifs...the most iconic building in Chinatown, the pagoda-topped On Leong Tong building typified Lee’s Chinese modern style." Poy Gum Lee, born and educated in New York, was the architectural consultant for the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association. This was the first building to be constructed in a style reflective of Chinese-American culture. Additionally, Poy Gum Lee was the first well-known architect of Chinese-American descent to build in Chinatown. The building houses the On Leong Tong, or the Chinese Merchants Association, a tong society established in 1893. This building was part of the tong's territory. Upon its formation, the On Leong Tong feuded with the Hip Sing Tong over control of the area. Tongs were mutual aid societies established to protect Chinese families and businesses against racism and prejudice in the United States. Many tongs were quickly associated with street gangs as violence between tongs was not uncommon. In extension, tongs found profit in appealing to vices, and many tongs were sustained by running brothels, opium dens, and gambling houses. However, tongs acted as the court and police force for Chinese-American communities, providing a semi-legitimate structure for communities otherwise unprotected by the government. The On Leong Tong is still operational and maintains over 3,000 members.

502-504 Broadway (at left), ca. 1982. This five-story building was constructed in 1860 with a cast iron storefront at ground level. It was a "sperm candle" building, named for the shape of the windows which were reminiscent of the candles made from sperm whale oil. The various businesses that have occupied the building include furrier C.G. Gunther & Company, H. Richter's Sons Neckwear, china retailer John Vogt & Company., Canal Jeans, and most recently Bloomingdale's.

One of the most important ways we can try to better understand a historical period is to examine primary documents and sources – first-hand records – from that time. Newspaper articles, government reports and letters are all important primary sources, but photographs are among the most fun to examine. They provide visual evidence of a time period or event that can expand your historical understanding – and help you really picture what life was like back then. Every week, we’ll share with you a photograph of real people or a real scene from New York in the early 1900s. Your job? Put on your Young Historian glasses and examine it. What do you see? What do you think it shows you about the people in the picture, the place where they are, and the time period? What are the clues in the picture that tell you something? You’ll be amazed by what you can discover when you look closely!

Prisco State Bank, 1927. Prisco State Bank was founded in by an Italian man named Raffaele Prisco in the mid 1920s and occupied this classical style bank building on Mulberry Street in the heart of what was Little Italy at the time. In 1931 the bank was closed by a New York State Banking Agency and Prisco was arrested and charged with grand larceny. The charges involved withdrawing funds from an account held by the bank to pay a personal debt. Along with Raffaele, his two sons and a third employee were also charged and served time for the crime. When the bank closed, many of its clients, small businessmen of the neighborhood, lost their funds.

Broome Street, north side, west of Chrystie Street to the Bowery. July 18, 1929. At left is No. 330 Broome, a brick structure with a peaked roof. In the late 1970s, the performance artist Arleen Schloss ran A's, a performance space, studio, and gathering place for avant-garde artists, out of the loft at 330 Broome. In 1979, a young Jean-Michel Basquiat performed and showed work from his SAMO© series in the space.

247 Canal, 1930. The six-story tenement building at the corner (no. 247) is no longer standing and has been replaced by an ad hoc single story souvenir shop. The traffic tower is, of course, no longer extant either. The traffic towers of New York were attempts at safety and traffic control on city streets that were becoming gridlocked and dangerous with automobiles. In 1920 Dr. John A. Harriss, a millionaire doctor, designed the first permanent traffic lights in New York, which were a small wood shed on a steel frame. From inside the shed a police officer could change the signals, allowing for traffic to flow safely in each direction. More traditional traffic lights (red, yellow, green) began to be installed in the late 1920s, but this corner at Lafayette and Canal had not had their tower replaced when this photo was taken in 1930.

Workers install bracing ahead of excavation for the construction of the BRT Centre Street Loop, October 8, 1909. This building, No. 112 Centre Street, stood at the northeast corner of Centre and Franklin Streets. All the buildings on this block were razed in the 1930s in preparation for the construction of the Manhattan Criminal Court building at 100 Centre Street.

Odd Fellows Hall, ca. 1975. Built in 1849, the large Italiantate brownstone structure, with a steep double story mansard roof, was constructed as the grand lodge of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, a fraternal organization. Designed by architects Trench & Snook, the original structure was only five stories tall, with a traditional cornice and a broad dome above. According to a 1862 guidebook, ''Miller's New York as It Is,'' the building ''contains a series of highly ornamented lodge rooms, richly furnished in the different styles of architecture; some Egyptian, Grecian, Elizabethan, etc.'' Originally the lodge housed 79 subordinate lodges and commercial spaces on the ground floor. For organizations and clubs that could afford to build their own buildings, the cost was often defrayed some by collecting rent from purpose built retail spaces. The Odd Fellows sold the building in 1881 and the new owner, a printer, had the structure drastically altered to create lofts. The highly decorated interiors were gutted and the cornice was removed and replaced with the steep mansard. The loft spaced were occupied by manufacturing for more than a century. In the 1980s and 1990s, most of the lofts were occupied by garment factories. Despite the vast changes to the surrounding neighborhood, the building has changed very little since its massive renovation in 1881. Today it is a building of residential condominiums.

Construction on the BRT Centre Street Loop, with timbering supporting buildings along Kenmare Street, June 5, 1908. The wooden foot bridge at center is at Mulberry Street. Completed buildings in the background are on the eastern corners of Mott Street. The Centre Street Loop, approved in 1907 but never completed as planned, was designed to connect service from the Williamsburg and Brooklyn bridges, via Chambers Street. Today, some tracks are used by the BMT Nassau Street Line (J/Z trains).

China Daily News was founded at 105 Mott Street by the Chinese Hand Laundry Alliance, a rival of the Chinese Hand Laundry Association and the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association. Labeled a communist paper by its rivals, The Daily News was certainly leftist and was attacked for celebrating the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949. Some rumors even suggested that the Alliance was quietly aided by the Communist Party in China in the early years of its formation. A congressional record from 1942 wrote that the paper was suspicious, though it was helped by the fact that it was printed in Chinese and "a considerable amount of translating would be required to ascertain whether or not the paper adhered to the Communist Party line." However, by 1952, the paper was charged with violating the law by the United States Department of Justice. Two years into the Korean War, the China Daily News had been advertising ways for subscribers to skirt the Trading with the Enemy Act. The paper was caught publishing instructions on how to send remittances to families in China. Manager of the Daily News Eugene Moy was found guilty and sent to jail, where he died a few years later. Some staff members of the newspaper were deported, some fled the country voluntarily. To make matters worse, newspaper vendors were fearful to even carry the paper. Reportedly, even subscribers were hounded by the FBI. The paper survived the Cold War, but just barely. It was funded by leftists across the country who donated to its cause. The small circulation finally ceased to exist in 1989, as did the Chinese Hand Laundry Alliance.

191 Canal Street has a long history. It was first home to the Chinese Hand Laundry Alliance, which formed in 1933 in response to an ordinance targeting Chinese laundry owners. In 1933, an ordinance from the board of alderman required that the 3,500 Chinese-owned laundromats in New York City pay $25 in annual fees and post a $1,000 bond. Even though this ordinance did not explicitly target Chinese laundrymen in its language, they were its target. The ordinance was specifically geared toward one person laundries (almost all of the Chinese-owned laundromats were one-person businesses.) This ensured that the Chinese laundries would bear the brunt. Seeking legal protection, laundrymen looked to the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association (CCBA). The organization promised the protection of all Chinese-owned businesses so long as they paid their annual dues. In response, the CCBA asked for additional payments to open an investigation of the ordinance. Out of frustration with the CCBA's inaction and dues, the laundry owners formed the Chinese Hand Laundry Alliance in 1933. They had the help of Y.K. Chu, a regular critic of the CCBA and the editor of the Chinese Journal of Commerce. The following year, it is said that the CCBA bankrolled the formation of the Chinese Hand Laundry Association, a rival to the Alliance. The Alliance was never shy of their leftist and radical beliefs and therefore shed many members to the conservative Association in its early years. Soon becoming politically homogenous, the Alliance formed a newspaper aligned with their beliefs. The China Daily News was headquartered at 105 Mott Street, just around the corner from the Alliance's headquarters on Canal Street. The Daily News proved so successful that they were able to purchase the entire building at 191 Canal Street in 1951. Though Alliance and the China Daily News were met with success early on, this was by no means the end of the fight. The Korean War and the Cold War took its toll on both groups. Decreased subscribers and other financial strains required the news company to sell 191 Canal Street in 1951. A year later, the Justice Department charged the China Daily News with violating federal law. The paper was caught printing advertisements with instructions on how to send remittances to families in China, an act that violated the Trading with the Enemy Act. Manager Eugene Moy was announced guilty in 1954, and he died in jail a few years later. Some of the paper's staffers were deported, others fled the country. Subscribers of the China Daily News were hounded by the FBI with the intensifying pressure of the second Red Scare. However, The paper held on until 1989. The Alliance found a similar fate with "the long decline of the hand laundry industry...and the death of its elderly members."

"White Street, at, adjoining and east of the north east corner of Centre Street, showing prominently three 2 1/2 story buildings bearing No's. 118 to 122 inclusive, 1938."

American Theatre (Thalia Theatre) In the stratified world of New York City theaters, with their implicit class associations, the American Theatre, at the corner of Canal Street and the Bowery, was considered a middlebrow house. Designed by Ithiel Town with the innovative use of gas jets for interior lighting, it had opened in 1826 and, by 1833, had been twice remodeled after fires. Three thousand patrons could be accommodated within its large central pit and four tiers of galleries, which reached across the house and down each side almost to the stage. In the Jacksonian era, urban theaters like the American Theatre had assumed new importance as democratic gathering spaces, in which ticket holders could not only relax but also vent political opinions publicly and intermingle with allies and enemies seated, depending on allegiances, in the more boisterous pit or costlier boxes. Ungovernable audiences often interrupted performances.

E.V. Haughwout Building ARCHITECT: John P. Gaynor DATE: 1856-57 STYLE: Anglo-Italianate This attractive five-story building, located on a corner site, has two cast tiron fronts designed in the Anglo-Italianate manner with arched windows set between columns. The windows are reminiscent of three of Sansovino’s great library on the Piazetta in Venice. The Haughwout Building was originally designed for the display of cut-glass, silverware, clocks and chandeliers, in a store which was the foremost of its kind in the mid-19th century. This was the first store in New York to have a passenger elevator designed expressly for the use of customers.

125 Worth Street, 1936. Designed by Charles B. Meyers in a mix of Classical Revival and Art Deco styles, 125 Worth Street was constructed between 1932 and 1935. The large structure first housed the city's Department of Health. Today it is home to the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, the Health and Hospitals Corporation and the Sanitation Department.

Church Street between Lispenard and Walker Streets, ca. 1975. The building pictured at far left is 36 Lispenard Street. It was once the home of David Ruggles, a zealous abolitionist and the nation's first black journalist and printer. While the building today is just a coffee shop, nearly two hundred years ago, the building was home to the antislavery movement in New York City. From this space, Ruggles led more than 600 runaway slaves to freedom, including Frederick Douglass. He also operated a bookstore and library out of his home, where he would print anti-slavery pamphlets and the Mirror of Liberty, which was the first African American magazine. The original townhouse has since been demolished.

City Prison (1902) ca. 1939 The City Prison on Centre Street, nicknamed the Tombs after type of Egyptian edifice that inspired the original building, was notorious for its poor incarceration conditions. This imposing Gothic structure, the second prison erected at this site, opened in 1902 and contained 320 cells and two chapels. Prisoners were led to trial at the Criminal Courts Building next door through the mid-air Bridge of Sighs connecting the two buildings. This structure was replaced in 1939 with the present city prison located across the street.

149 Mulberry Street House ARCHITECT: Unknown DATE: 1811-21 STYLE: Federal Among its many important qualities, the Stephen Van Rensselaer House, at 149 Mulberry Street, is a good example of a modest early Nineteenth Century Federal style house. It has fine proportions, with its original features and excellent details well related in scale. After one hundred and fifty years, this structure continues to serve a useful purpose and in the neighborhood where it stands, it remains a quaint reminder of an earlier city.

291 Church Street, ca. 1979. No 291 (second building from the right, with the sign at top) was erected in 1877 in a neo-Grec style. The four-story, store-and-loft building was designed by John B. Snook, who built many industrial structures in TriBeCa and SoHo. A number of the historic features of the building remain, including the cast-iron columned base and the wooden signage at the top which advertised one of the tenants, a D. Rich Company. Today the buildings is occupied by Apex Art, a non-profit arts organization and a single large residence on the upper floors.

City Prison, 1938.

Manhattan Bridge, 1915. In 1910, a year after the bridge opened, the architectural firm Carrère and Hastings drew up preliminary plans for a grand entry to the bridge on the Manhattan side, in keeping with the City Beautiful movement’s emphasis on monumental architecture. Construction began that year, and plans were finalized in 1912. The arch and colonnade, completed in 1915, feature ornate sculptural detail, including pylons by the sculptor Carl Augustus Heber and a frieze by Charles Rumsey, entitled "Buffalo Hunt." The arch and colonnade were designated a New York City landmark on November 25, 1975. After years of neglect and appeals by traffic engineers to remove the structure, the arch and colonnade were repaired and restored in 2000.

"Thalia Theatre, 46-48 Bowery. Formerly Bowery Theatre. Photograph taken around 1881." Built originally in 1826, as the New York Theatre, the playhouse was established as direct competition to the Park Theatre on Park Row and Ann Street. The wealthy and fashionable citizens who had recently moved to the newly developing neighborhood on nearby Lafayette Street wanted access to high-class European theatre. The building itself was constructed on land that had once been occupied by the Bull's Head Tavern, one of George Washington's headquarters during the Revolution. After only two years in business, the theatre suffered a major fire in 1828, and the interior was rebuilt behind the surviving facade and renamed the Bowery Theatre. Though it would have a series of other names (American Theatre, Thalia Theatre , Fay's Bowery Theatre) it was from 1828 on generally referred to as the Bowery Theatre. The theatre's most successful period was from the 1830s to the 1850s, when it made a name for itself as a American nativist and populist hub (unsurprisingly it was during this period that it was renamed American Theatre). The building survived through the constantly changing neighborhood and populations of the mid to late 19th century and early 20th century. After a series of 19th century fires and rebuilding efforts, the theatre was finally destroyed by a fire in 1929.

135 Grand Street, 1911. Designed by Neville & Bagge in 1893-1894, the seven-story Renaissance Revival structure was constructed as a loft building to house manufacturing and small warehouses. Some of its tenants have been a shirtwaist factory, leather goods, a bank, automotive and machining parts. The empty lot at left was not empty for long after this 1911 photograph was taken. A seven-story neo-Classical building, constructed of terra cotta, rose by the end of 1911.

491 Broadway (tallest building, at center), ca. 1905. The slender, twelve-story, limestone-fronted loft building at 491 Broadway was designed by the Buchman & Deisler firm for real estate developer Jeremiah C. Lyons, and completed in 1897. The Wurts Bros. photograph above, ca. 1905, captures an outstanding array of painted advertisements on the exposed sides of Broadway and Broome Street buildings, promoting products from “kid gloves” to “linen-mesh underwear.”

Centre Street, west side, from Leonard to Franklin Street's, showing the entrance to the original 'Tombs," ca. 1890. Formally called the New York Halls of Justice and House of Detention, the Tombs was the municipal jail in Manhattan. A series of jail buildings in this location have used that nickname, though the one pictured here was the first. Designed in an Egyptian Revival style in 1838, the jail was a huge structure at 250 feet by 200 feet. The site of the massive building was the former location of the Collect Pond, which had once supplied the city with drinking water.

National City Bank of New York, 1929. Founded as the City Bank of New York in 1812, the National City Bank of New York boomed post World War I. In need of new branches, they purchased a plot from another bank on the corner of Broadway and Canal. Designed in a sleek, white Art Moderne style by Walker & Gillette, the building was completed in 1927. The massive entrance was topped by Deco stylized eagles surrounding the bank's seal. The bank, after various name changes, became Citibank in 1976, and remained in this building until the 1990s. It has since been converted to retail space.

The corner building at 85 Mott Street began its history as a luxurious brick-fronted home, complete with all the trappings of a Federal-style while also holding on to some Georgian elements. It featured dormers on a peaked roof, a pair of chimneys, and charming arched windows. Owing to its corner location, it perhaps received much more sunlight than most mid-block Federals. It likely only remained a single-family home for a short time, as the density of the city closed in on it. By 1835 it, and its two Mott Street neighbors, were bought by the Bull family and became multifamily dwellings. . Over the next century, the structure at no. 85 saw likely thousands of residents cycling through the various ethnic communities that inhabited the neighborhood. In the 1870s the ground floor was converted into commercial space, occupied by variously by a tavern and retail shops. . The Bull family sold the three buildings in 1939 and Chinatown-born architect Poy Gum Lee was hired to design a new structure for the On Leong Tong, or Chinese Merchants Association. The resulting building, completed in 1951, was a cultural hybrid, which combined a Modern style with stereotypical “Chinese” features, like a pagoda roof and projecting balconies.

New York City Police Headquarters ARCHITECT: Hoppin & Koen DATE: 1905-09 STYLE: Edwardian Baroque Among its important qualities, the Former Police Headquarters Building is one of New York City’s most important examples of the Edwardian Baroque style of architecture and of Beaux-Arts principles of design. It incorporated a new, official image for the nation’s largest and most sophisticated police force.

41 Mott Street in rendering at the far right, 1950.

Built in 1895 and designed by architects Napoleon LeBrun & Sons, the firehouse has the look of a 16th-century French chateau. It has ornate decorative stonework details of shells, dolphins and floral wreaths. The main section of the building has a high hip-roof, towers, elaborately embellished dormer windows, and an iron railing at the peak. The building was occupied by the fire department until 1972. Since that same year, it has been occupied (and the exterior lovingly maintained) by the Downtown Community Television Center, a non-profit media arts center.

Cortlandt Alley looking south to White Street (77 White Street visible), 1994. Cortlandt Alley is one of the few New York City alleys that retains its dark, seedy charm. In sunlit, polished (and often posh) Manhattan, this small, secluded stretch looks like what you might imagine the movie version of a New York alley looks like. Here the graffiti, fire escapes, metal shutters, and backdoors remain, creating a narrow street that was first laid out in 1817 and is named for the founding Dutch family, the Van Cortlandts.

Golden Pacific National Bank, 1991. In 1982, the firm P.K.Y. Chen completed a drastic conversion of a few early 20th-century buildings at the northwest corner of Canal and Centre Streets. Designed for the headquarters Golden Pacific National Bank, the new edifice had the look of a Chinese pagoda. The main Canal Street frontage stands six stories while a two-story wing extends along Centre Street to Howard Street. The building is rendered in tan brick, multi-colored tiles, red piers, and numerous green, tiled, pagoda-style roofs. While the original tenant vacated the building two years after it opened when they became insolvent. Today, the main tenant is once again a bank, but its best-known occupant is perhaps the Starbucks at its corner.

173 Worth Street, April 7, 1928. A home on the north side of Worth Street, east of Baxter Street. Today this land is part of Columbus Park.

St. Nicholas Hotel, Broadway, October 6, 1873. In January 1853, D.H. Haight's St. Nicholas hotel opened on Broadway, at Broome Street. Contemporaneous records credit the enormous white-marble structure to architect John B. Snook, with cast iron storefront attributed to Griffith Thomas. According to the New York Times, the St. Nicholas was New York's first building to cost over $1 million in construction; the hotel was soon extended north to Spring Street. The St. Nicholas was also the first hotel to offer “water closets” with hot and cold water in every room. The cost of a room ranged from a high of $5 a night to a low of $1– a time when the average monthly pay for a soldier was $11. During the Civil War, the hotel became the New York City headquarters of the Department of War. The St. Nicholas was also the site of an infamous episode of late-Civil War history: On November 25, 1864, a group of Confederate sympathizers enacted a plan to set New York City ablaze through a scheme of coordinated arson. The conspirators were to set small fires simultaneously, at prominent hotels across the city. The plot was unsuccessful; most fires were extinguished before they could spread. By the late 19th century, St. Nicholas had grown unpopular as tourists opted to stay further uptown, closer to fashionable districts. In 1884, it closed its doors for the last time and was razed — mostly. Beginning in the mid-1870s, as sections of the remaining building turned to other uses, two small parts were salvaged; they now live on as the modest facades of Nos. 521 and 523 Broadway.

Odd Fellows Hall ARCHITECT: Trench & Snook DATE: 1847-48 STYLE: Anglo-Italianate Built in 1847-48, it is an early and particularly fine example of the Anglo-Italianate style of architecture that architects helped introduce to New York. It is one of the few surviving institutional buildings of any style from the 1840s, an important period in the architectural history of the city. The design with its emphasis on planar surfaces accented by a rusticated base, central projections, and colossal pilasters is characteristic of the style and takes full advantage of the building’s prominent site.

180-184 Lafayette Street, ca. 1970-1985. These three classic SoHo buildings were constructed at various times, by different architects in different styles, and slightly different purposes, though they all epitomize the historic built environment of this neighborhood. No. 184 (at right) is the oldest. Designed in 1871-1872 by William Jose in an Italianate style, this five story tenement was built for and continues to be used for residential purposes on the upper floors. The two buildings at left are Queen Anne style loft buildings. No. 180 (left) was designed by Buchman & Deisler in 1891-1893, while no. 182 (center) was built in 1890-1891 by Thom & Wilson. These buildings signaled a shift in the area from SoHo's early history as an entertainment center, to its 20th century life as a manufacturing and industrial hub.

"138-142 Bowery, south of the S.W. corner of Broome Street, 1932." The building at 140 Bowery (with the Callahan the Hatter sign) was a Federal style house built as early as 1808. The building was likely, exclusively, a home until 1825 when a dry goods store moved into the ground floor space. That store was followed by a jeweler and a hat and artificial flower shop. In 1868, the retail space was taken over by the Callahan the Hatter store, which would remain in place for more than 60 years. John Callahan, the Irish immigrant who established the store, had a sharp marketing sense and big plans. Callahan, at one point, had 700 advertising signs around the city, and in late 1870s expanded the store into the second floor residential area. According to the notes on this photograph, Callahan's was popular among "many of the beaux and dandies of the 'Gay Nineties." The building survived into the 2010s when in 2011 it was being considered for landmark status. At that point the owner removed the twin dormers and covered them with a black asphalt material. In 2014 the three buildings at Nos. 136 through 140 Bowery were sold for $45 million. They were demolished in the spring of 2016.

The intersection of Canal, Baxter, and Walker Streets, ca. 1870. The above view is westward, toward the Hudson River. At center left, west of Centre Street, is the warehouse of the M\&G Wilkinson wood and willow ware wholesalers. At bottom left is the Grand Street Ferry-bound streetcar, likely en route from the Cortlandt Street Ferry downtown. The image, credited to "American Photo," also appears in the New York Public Library's Photographic views of New York City collection. Notes there date it to ca. 1860, though the presence of M\&G Wilkinson advertising (founded 1867) indicate a later date.

74 Franklin Street, date unknown. This Federal-style building was constructed in 1815 by a John Wood, likely a successful merchant. In 1853 the structure was purchased by G. A. Bradbrook and the ground floor was converted into a venue for his 'outfitting store.' At that time the cast iron storefront was added, as well as the full fourth floor with an Italianate pressed metal cornice. Later tenants of the storefront included shops that sold 'fancy goods and corsets' and one that produced and sold umbrellas and parasols. The upper floors were converted into a factory space. Throughout the 20th century the building cycled through a long lists of owners and tenants. In 1998 the upper floors returned to residential occupation, likely for the first time in nearly 150 years, while the lower level remains a commercial showroom.

Kitchen, Montross & Wilcox Store, No. 85 Leonard Street, ca. 1974. Constructed on property owned by the estate of Thomas Swords, this cast iron structure was commissioned in 1861 by dry goods merchants Kitchen, Montross, & Wilcox. The firm, leased the land to architect James Bogardus under the condition that he erect “a good and substantial store house.” When completed in 1861, he unveiled a five-story Italianate structure that amazed its owners. Unlike the neighboring buildings made of stone, the facade at No. 85 Leonard Street was made from cast-iron, allowing for greater detail in its ornamentation. Kitchen, Montross & Wilcox operated a retail store in the building until 1868, whereafter the ground floor remained in use by various other dry goods merchants. In the late 20th century, Joseph Salamon of FRF Promotional Fabrics purchased the building and rented out the fourth floor as an artists' studio. In 1974, the site achieved Landmark designation, in recognition of its significance as perhaps the only extant structure by Bogardus (while a handful of other Bogardus-designed cast iron facades remain on buildings associated with other architects, the design construction of 85 Leonard is believed to have been executed by Bogardus, alone). A plaque testifying to his influence reads: "James Bogardus, Originator and Constructor of Iron Buildings, New York."

"Wooster Street, south from Grand Street to its southern end at Canal Street, showing the New York Telephone Building, 1933." The New York Telephone Building at 32 Sixth Avenue, now called the AT\&T Building, (seen here from the corner of Grand and Wooster Streets) is an Art Deco skyscraper. Constructed in 1932 (from a much smaller original building) by the firm of Voorhees, Gmelin and Walker, the building housed the technical offices and equipment for the AT\&T's transatlantic communications. A grand 27-story structure that highlights classic Art Deco features, including asymmetrical massing, striped motifs, and light colored brick parapets at the roof line. Equally spectacular is the lobby of the building, which features a tiled world map (appropriate for a long distance communication building) and mosaics with themed on the seven continents. Both the interior and exterior of the building are landmarked.

Soy Kee Co. Soy Kee and Company was an importer and exporter of Chinese goods, selling curios, chinaware, lamps, silks, ivory carvings, imported Chinese teas, candies, coffees, and other accessories. It was first located here at 36 Pell, under a Chinese eatery before moving to 7-9 Mott Street where it occupied the ground floor space of a building known for its busy upstairs restaurant, called Port Authur. It is unknown when Soy Kee and Company opened, but its move to Mott Street occurred sometime after 1903. In 1921 Soy Kee and Co. became the owners of the building they had long rented at 7-9 Mott Street.

Bowery Savings Bank Interior ARCHITECT: McKim, Mead & White; Stanford White DATE: 1893-95 STYLE: Roman Revival The interior of the Bowery Savings Bank is an early example of the Roman Revival style which was to become standard for savings bank buildings and was intended to express both simplicity and grandeur. The skylit, eighty-foot square, steel-framed banking room has details that closely follow Roman prototypes and it compares in scale to the grandest buildings of ancient Rome. The banking room is a prime example of a type which evolved in the second half of the nineteenth century characterized by a symmetrical arrangement and a prominent, axially-placed freestanding bank vault in a large centralized space organized with a peninsular layout of the tellers’ area to accommodate male and female depositors. In response to contemporary sanitary concerns, the interior was designed with durable, easily cleaned, surfaces and the building’s form was exploited to provide effective natural ventilation.

The Wood's Mercantile buildings, Nos. 46 and 48-50 White Street, ca. 1982. The Wood's Mercantile Buildings, described as "handsome examples of mid-19th century commercial architecture," were built in 1865 as storehouses for the brothers Samuel and Wood, importers of dry goods. The five-story marble buildings include a ground floor cast iron facade, in keeping with the Civil War-era fashion for commercial buildings throughout present-day Soho and Tribeca.

Though Broadway has become synonymous with theater in New York, the Lower East Side has a rich tradition of theatrical productions. To explore this, let's take a look at two of these theaters on the Lower East Side, The Grand Theatre and the Loews Canal Theatre. Both of these theatres are closed today, however, after their final curtain their fates have been entirely disparate.

Germania Bank, ca. 1905. Robert Maynicke’s Renaissance Revival building, completed in 1899, was the third location of the Germania Bank, which was founded by a group of German-American businessmen in 1869.

"West Broadway, (left) at and adjoining the north east corner of Grand Street, showing the 2-story Sapphire Hotel, 1939."

6 Centre Market Place ca. 1937 The shop on the small alley of Centre Market Place had belonged to gunsmiths since the 1850s. Its oversized shop sign was an age-old form of European advertising, originally devised for illiterate patrons and still useful on the multi-lingual Lower East Side. The ornate French Baroque police headquarters was built across the street in 1909 for the then-staggering cost of $1.5 million, and stood as a potent symbol of the rule of law. One of Abbott’s photographs of the shop offers a straightforward description of the storefront, similar to Atget’s Parisian views. A second photograph, with the camera pointed up from beneath the sign, transforms the gun from a symbol of a craftsman’s trade into a surrealist found object or a political joke. The shop remains a gunsmith, although the sign is gone. In the 1970s, a new police headquarters was built near the Municipal Building. The old headquarters is now a landmarked luxury condominium called The Police Building, home to artists and celebrities.

My Archive Spring 2019

Umberto's Clam House, pictured here in the distance, at the corner of Mulberry and Hester Street, has long been famous as the site of a mob hit. The establishment was opened by Umberto Ianniello in 1972. His son, Matthew Ianniello AKA "Matty the Horse" was a rambunctious mobster and part of the Genovese crime family. He was later be found guilty of skimming the profits from around 70 Manhattan restaurants, bars, and strip clubs. This list included his father's restaurant. At 4:30 in the morning on April 7, 1972, gangster "Crazy Joey," Joe Gallo was killed while dining at Umberto's with friends and family. His party included Gallo's wife of three weeks, her 10-year old daughter, and his bodyguard Peter Diapoulas, and Diapoulas' date. They had just come from the Copacabana nightclub at 10 East 60th Street. Gallo, who was celebrating his 43rd birthday, supposedly thought the Genovese family wouldn't take offense at his presence as Little Italy was believed to be off-limits for gang brawls. Gallo was a member of the Profaci crime family and had been marked for execution by the Colombo gang for several months. The shooting left bullet holes in the facade of the restaurant across the street (they were still visible in the mid-1990s!) The next morning, Colombo gang member Joseph Luparelli turned himself in to the FBI as one of the perpetrators. Luparelli detailed the events of the evening as follows: Luparelli and a friend, who happened to be at Umberto's Bar, spotted Gallo and entourage enter the restaurant and take a table facing the door. Luparelli rushed to a nearby hangout of other Colombo members to alert them to the sighting. The men included Philip Gambino and Carmine Di Biase. They phoned acting head Yacovelli and left the restaurant briefly the arm themselves. Shortly after, five men drove two cars to Umberto's, four of whom entered the back door of Umberto's and shot 20 bullets. Three of these bullets entered the mobster's body. Gallo stumbled out into the street and he died on the pavement. The Colombo men fled to Nyack, New York, at which point Luparelli began to become concerned that the others planned to kill him as well. He turned himself into the FBI after fleeing to California. Matty Ianniello claimed that he was not involved in the incident in any way, and recounted diving from the cash register into the kitchen when the first shot was fired. On the floor of the kitchen, Ianniello covered his eyes. The next thing he heard was the empty clicks of a gun pressed against his skull. Fortunately for Ianniello, Gallo's bodyguard depleted his ammo trying to save his client. On February 13, 1986, the court sentenced Matty Ianniello and eight others to time in prison after being indicted for racketeering charges. With "Matty the Horse" in jail, the Federal Government began overseeing the business of Umberto's. United States Attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani administered this action, which made it the only restaurant in the country to have been overseen or seized by the government due to mob activity. From 1988 until 1994, all managerial manners and finances were handled by government-appointed Michael C. Prezioso. Owner and brother of Matty, Robert Ianniello, complained that the interference left slim profits during the 6 years of supervision. A revision to the agreement restored Ianniello's management rights in 1994, though Prezioso would still be allowed to perform spot inspections of all financial records. Umberto's has moved twice since the 1972 shooting, once in the mid-1990s to Mulberry and Broome, and again in 2010 to a spot closer to the original. Umberto's is owned by Robert Ianniello Jr., the grandson of Umberto Ianniello. The original Umberto's building is occupied by Ristorante Da Gennaro.

254-260 Canal Street ARCHITECT: Unknown DATE: 1856-57 STYLE: Italianate This building is one of the earliest surviving cast-iron fronted buildings in New York. It is an excellent early example of the successful adaptation of the Italianate style to cast-iron architecture. It is representative of the development of the “commercial palace” type in response to the unparalleled commercial growth of New York City in the early 19th century

78 Mott Street, 1914. James Naughton (referred to as Joseph in at least one source) was born in Ireland and immigrated to New York in the 1860s. For more than five decades he served the Chinatown/ Five Point area as an undertaker. He purchased a number of local buildings including Nos. 37 and 78 Mott Street, as well as the stables at Nos. 31-37 which operated for both mortuary and police horse needs. Though Irish and certainly having enough Irish clients, he also advertised to and served both the local Italian and Chinese communities.

174-178 Grand Street, ca. 1978.

Looking east on Leonard Street toward McKim, Mead & White's Clock Tower Building, the former headquarters of New York Life Insurance Company, 346 Broadway; ca. 1977. In 1868, the New York Life Insurance company purchased a fire-damaged property at Broadway and Leonard Street from the Appleton's publishing house, and enlisted architect Griffith Thomas to design its new headquarters. By the 1890s, New York Life had expanded domestically and internationally was in need of a larger building for its main office. The firm solicited proposals for an eastward extension of Griffith's 1870 building, selecting Stephen D. Hatch's design for an extended structure to occupy the square block bounded by Broadway, Catherine Place, Elm (Lafayette) and Leonard Streets. Hatch — whose winning bid notably included a lower commission that his more-celebrated competitors — died just three months into construction in 1894. McKim, Mead & White took over the commission, and completed Hatch's design, with some alterations, in 1896. However, where Hatch's design was grounded in the materials and scale of the original Thomas building, New York Life and MM\&W came to favor a grander statement. The original, Thomas-designed building was razed later that year. The new design, supervised by partner William Rutherford Mead and architect Henry Bacon, associate called for a commanding, three-story pavilion and clocktower atop a new, twelve-story neo-Italian Renaissance building flush with the completed structure along Leonard Street. The updated building, complete with its signature clocktower, was completed in 1898. The clock itself was designed by the E. Howard Clock Company and installed, along with its 5,000-pound bell, in 1897. New York Life's tenure was relatively brief: the company moved to a new, Cass Gilbert-designed headquarters on Madison Square Park in 1928, with 346 Broadway and its clocktower passing into City ownership. In 1972, the curator Alanna Weiss, who would go on to found and direct the P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center (now MoMA PS1), established the Clocktower Gallery in the building's top story of the former New York Life Insurance Company building. The gallery, a multidisciplinary space for exhibitions and performances by contemporary artists, operated until 2013 when the building was sold by the city. The fate of the clocktower and its clock became the subject of litigation and intense debate Following the sale to developers Peebles Corporation and the El Ad Group, who planned to convert the tower into a multi-story penthouse apartment. The condo conversion plan would have required the electrification of the clock — which was restored in 1980 and continues to be wound manually every week — a move initially approved by the Landmarks Preservation Commission, but later overruled by a State Supreme Court Judge. The Clock Tower's fate remains in limbo (the prospective developers are mired in court battles over project funding), but for now the massive, mechanical timepiece continues to tick away, still guaranteed to be accurate within 10 seconds per month.

The Bowery is one of New York’s most storied streets with a rich and varied past that reflects the hurly-burly history of New York City itself. As Manhattan’s oldest thoroughfare, the Bowery began as a Native American trail and originally extended the length of the island north to south. New York’s early Dutch settlers widened the trail for their own use to connect New Amsterdam at the tip of Manhattan with their farms, or bouweries, farther north. This “Bouwerie Lane” became simply “Bowery Lane” under the English in 1813 and the name has remained unchanged since. By the 1830s, the Bowery was mostly developed into single-family Federal-style rowhouses inhabited by New York’s wealthy merchant class. Remarkably, some of these buildings still survive today. Massive immigration to New York beginning in the 1840s led to new residents, and Germans became a large presence just east of the Bowery in an area which became known as Kleindeutschland. Many prestigious institutional buildings from this era survive today on the Bowery and reflect this German presence. As immigration continued to increase in the decades before the Civil War, the upper class who resided in the townhouses moved northward, and the rowhouses were then converted to multiple dwellings and businesses like beer halls and saloons. By the end of the Civil War, the Bowery had become a primarily commercial area with little new residential development. To accommodate the waves of returning and homeless veterans, the area increasingly became home to flophouses and other types of cheap lodgings. During this period, it also became a major theater and nightlife district, where vaudeville and other popular entertainments were developed. The Third Avenue elevated line opened in 1878 and cast the street into deep shadow, further discouraging new residential development. Regardless, due to prevalence of affordable lodging, at the turn of the 20th century the Bowery was housing more than 25,000 men per night. With this large transient population came a host of social ills and during this period, the Bowery gained a national reputation as a “Skid Row” and a “Thieves’ Highway.” The area upheld this reputation until the Second World War, when the draft depopulated the area. The G.I. Bill and other social programs of the post-war era greatly reduced homelessness and the seemingly permanent transient population of the Bowery never returned to its early 20th-century peak. The street developed into a thriving light fixture and restaurant equipment district, although many of those businesses have recently closed in the face of new hotel and commercial development. The Bowery remains an architecturally rich area with a unique mix of Federal-style rowhouses, grand institutional buildings, tenements and commercial loft buildings, each type speaking to a different era in the boulevard’s storied history. Many of these buildings were spared because the elevated rail line, which was removed in the 1950s, deterred speculative development for decades. In recent years, however, new large-scale development has increased and is putting the built heritage of the Bowery greatly at risk.

E.V. Haughwout Building ca. 1974 In 1857 the first practicable passenger elevator to be installed in a mercantile establishment was put in operation in this building. Haughwout's boasted a fine line of glass, china, and silverware. Its proud exterior, harbinger of the endless vista, is somewhat reminiscent of Sansovino's Library on the Piazetta in Venice. The attempt to borrow beauty from the Continent, for even such newfangled structures as these cast-iron buildings, was indicative of our lack of assurance in the direction of our own architectural development.

Fire Engine Company No. 31 ARCHITECT: Napoleon Le Brun DATE: 1895 STYLE: French Renaissance Eclectic Fire House Engine Company is a fine example in the realm of public architecture. It was built in French Renaissance Eclectic style. Its main features include the delicacy of details displayed in shell forms, dolphins, floral wreaths. The main mass of the building is well composed with its high, hip-roof and iron crestings embellished by dormer windows and low corner towers.

9-13 Mercer Street, site of the Museum of Holography, ca. 1978. This five-story cast iron-fronted building, erected in 1870 for the India Rubber Company, is where artists Jody Burns and Posy Jackson founded the Museum of Holography. When the Museum opened to the public on December 9, 1976, it became the world's first permanent venue for the exhibition of holograms, collection of artifacts, and education about the scientific principles and artistic applications of holographic technology. The museum closed permanently on Sunday, March 1, 1992. The building has since been leased as commercial space to advertising agencies and media companies, including the publishers of V Magazine, while its upper floors remain in residential use.

The Bruce Building, 254-260 Canal Street, ca. 1974. The cast iron corner building at Lafayette and Canal Streets was designed for George Bruce, a Scottish-born polymath and printing magnate in mid-19th century New York. The facade was likely designed by James Bogardus, the foremost practitioner of architectural cast iron in the pre-Civil War period, and completed in 1857. While Edmund Vincent Gillon's mid-1970s photograph shows the ground floor encased with contemporary storefronts (Billy's Donuts, off-track betting), the street level has since been restored to its original condition.

149 Mulberry Street, 1932. The Federal style building, seen at left, was more than 100 years old at the time of this photograph. Built by Stephen Van Rensselaer, a businessman, landowner, and politician, circa 1816, the home was actually built on a plot on the northwest corner of Mulberry and Grand, but moved to this location in 1841. The once wood-frame and now brick clad building retains much of its Federal styling, including the dormer windows. Currently home to a restaurant and cocktail bar called the Mulberry Project, from 1947 until 2005 it was Paolucci’s restaurant, and prior to that (at least in 1932 when the photo was taken) it was Villa Nova Restaurant.

453-455 Broome Street, ca. 1975. Built in 1872-1873 and designed by Griffith Thomas, this cast-iron building was the headquarters of the Hancock Silk Company. Hancock Silk was, for much of the 19th century, the oldest dress goods importer in the country. Founded in 1818 they went out of business unexpectedly in 1897. In the 1920s the building housed A. Galewski & Sons, a leather and canvas manufacturer. During the later 20th century the building was converted into residential lofts and a ground floor commercial space.

This collection of locations in Chinatown was curated in collaboration with Think!Chinatown to celebrate, appreciate, and support the local community of Chinatown. This collection of historical photographs illustrates the diverse businesses, architecture, and communities that have occupied the streetscapes of this vibrant neighborhood over the last two centuries!

15-27 Mercer Street, ca. 1915. The building at left (nos. 15-17) are a 1886 cast iron facade loft building. Surprisingly, it is a relative newbie on this block, where 11 of the 17 buildings were constructed before 1861. No. 19 (at center with the arched windows at the third and the fifth floors) is a 1861 stone building, constructed for S.B. Althuas, who had an iron works on this same site as early as 1852.

From pig's knuckles to spaghetti to liver balls, find out how a city eats in years past!

103 Bowery ca. 1935 The Blossom Restaurant occupied the ground floor and Jimmy’s Barber Shop the basement of the Boston Hotel, a flophouse on the Bowery. As a child, Al Smith, governor of New York from 1919 to 1928, lived next door at 105 Bowery when it was a lodging house. Abbott made three exposures, one without figures, one with a ragged man perusing the restaurant menu, and a third showing the barber Jimmy and his assistant waiting for customers. The third version is the most emotionally resonant: the restlessness of these hapless people exemplifies the mood of the Depression. Like so many other buildings on the Bowery today, this one is occupied by a restaurant supply wholesaler.

Canal Street, with subway construction on Broadway visible in the background, August 30, 1914.

155 Worth Street. ca. 1911. The Italian school opened by the Children's Aid Society on Worth Street was originally established in 1855. Situated in the neighborhood known as Five Points, the school (located within the building known as the Five Points' House of Industry) was considered a successful experiment of public education. The eight-story classical designed building seen in this ca. 1910 photograph was likely constructed in the early years of the 20th century. It would not survive long. In 1930, it was replaced by the Egyptian decorated Art Deco New York State Office Building (which today is the location of the Manhattan Marriage Bureau, and thousand of 'city hall' weddings).

94-100 Lafayette ARCHITECT: Howells & Stokes DATE: 1907-08 This building at 94-100 Lafayette is the only known store-and-loft building designed by the eminent architectural firm of Howells and Stokes. It is an excellent and intact example of a later commercial-style construction. The building served as an important showcase for hardware in New York City; that its original tenants were two of the most important hardware manufacturers in the country and that the building reflects the area’s role as a center for wholesale businesses.

Silk Exchange Building, October 7, 1935. This long and narrow building (the Broadway frontage is only 28 feet, while the Broome Street frontage is 200 feet) dates to 1896. In the late 19th century this corner was the center of the silk district. The designer, contractor, and real estate developer for the building was John Townsend Williams. The ornate facade of the 12-story building was limestone, buff-colored brick and terra cotta. The plain limestone base is in contrast to the highly decorated and textured terra cotta ornamentation at the upper levels. The original tenants included a number of silk manufacturing companies earning it the name The Silk Exchange Building.The silk focus of the structure survived through the 1910s after which it began to move uptown, and by the 1920s most of the silk merchants had moved out. In 1938 (when this Federal Art Project photograph was taken) the building was the headquarters of the Banco di Sicilia Trust Company. After suffering through the financially unstable and gritty years of the 1970s, along with the rest of SoHo (and the city), the building was converted to residential units, and is now known as the Haggin Building.

41 Mott Street, 1933. No. 41 (at the center of the frame with the balcony at the top) was home to the Chinese Merchants Association or the On Leong Tong, in the first half of the 20th century. The Association celebrated the opening of their new headquarters in 1921 with an eleven-day celebration. Its opening night saw 15,000 revelers crowding the narrow street of Chinatown and more than 6,000 merchants from 20 different cities. In 1950 the On Leong Tong Merchants Association moved into a new Chinese Modern building on Mott and Canal Streets. Since 1977 No. 41 was has been owned by the Lee Family Association, the oldest and largest tong in New York City. The building today has a modern style white facade, installed at an unknown date in the midcentury. Its lower floor has long been home to Golden Fung Wong Bakery, one of the oldest bakeries in Chinatown.

The Canal Street Station on the Third Avenue Elevated Railway, c. 1880. The Third Avenue El opened in 1878, with operations from South Ferry to 129th Street, later connecting to service in the Bronx. The Third Avenue El was the last of the Manhattan elevated railways to close — after the Second, Sixth and Ninth Avenue lines — following pressure from City Hall and property owners along Third Avenue. On May 12, 1955, the Canal Street Station closed, as Third Avenue service was eliminated south of 149th Street in the Bronx.

Gunther Building, 469 Broome Street, ca. 1975. The 1871 Gunther Building, called "one of \[architect] Griffith Thomas' finest designs" by the Landmarks Preservation Commission, was constructed as a warehouse for the furrier William Gunther. Thomas, a prolific architect of the latter 19th century, was responsible for the design of several recognized buildings in the LPC's 1973 SoHo Cast Iron District. William Gunther was the owner of C.G. Gunther’s Sons, a fur retailer founded by his father, Christian G. Von Gunther, in 1820. According to Time magazine, Gunther's was the only men's fur department in Manhattan that offered "coats made of every kind of fur, from buffalo, favored by post-Civil War tycoons, to collegiate raccoon.” Like many of SoHo's cast iron warehouses, the Gunther Building was converted to live/work loft residences, under a cooperative structure notable for the absence of monthly maintenance fees. Between 1996-2001, the architect Beyhan Karahan, a Gunther resident since 1994, led a restoration of the building's cast iron facade. Upon the project's completion, her firm, Beyhan Karahan and Associates, was recognized by the Preservation League of New York for its faithful restoration.

178 Hester Street, 1932. Despite the asphalt shingles that can be seen on the side of the building and the odd perhaps 1980s style brick facade, this building is the early 19th century, wood-frame structure seen in this 1932 photograph. Built in the first few decades of the 19th century, the history of this structure which survived alongside the construction of the taller tenement buildings that define these streetscapes, tells the story of this neighborhood. In 1855 a volunteer firefighter named John Nichols, who was a teamster by trade, lived here. In 1900, owing to the massive influx of Italian immigrants, the building had residents with names like Dominick Pagano and Guadazro Gaetano. Supposedly a mob hit occurred just outside the store at no. 178 in 1906 when Angelo Ladero (a fish dealer with a shop at 120 Mulberry Street) killed Michael Dambra after he left the store. In 1908 the owner of two pushcarts resided here.