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.

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.

The demolition of St. John's Chapel, designed in 1803 for Trinity Parish, helped spark public discussion about the role of preservation in New York City. The elegantly spired chapel on Varick Street in today's Tribeca once overlooked a private park in an exclusive residential neighborhood. Around 1900, with the park converted to a railroad freight yard, and church attendance dwindling, Trinity announced the chapel's demolition. The outcry from New Yorkers, including preservation champion and Manhattan Borough President George McAneny, delayed any action for nearly two decades, but plans to widen Varick Street to make way for the Seventh Avenue subway led to the ultimate demolition of the chapel in 1918.

The Schepp Building at 165 Duane Street was completed in 1881 for the businessman Leopold Schepp who needed a large manufacturing building for his spice business. His main commodity was coconut, which was processed and packaged here (millions passed through the building each year 🥥). Schepp was an interesting character who according to the NY Times in the later 1880s had "a temper that would make the North Pole melt." In the 1920s, he began giving away his large fortune: gifts up to $5,000 to his employees and the establishment of a foundation to assist boys who pledged "to abstain from bad habits." By the time of his death in 1926, he had given away more than $7 million. The Leopold Schepp Foundation continues to award educational scholarships to this day. The building lost its mansard tower between 1915 and 1928, according to a 1991 Christopher Gray Streetscapes article. The building has been co-ops since 1980 and is part of the TriBeCa Historic District.

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.

Showing a portion of St. John's Chapel and the church yard. The church and the 3-story house adjoining it have been demolished and its site is now (1937) occupied by station V of the United States Post Office.

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.

Ericsson House, ca, 1913. John Ericsson was a 19th century Swedish-American inventor and mechanical engineer whose most well-known work was in the field of transportation vessels, including the steam locomotive and naval ships. Ericsson designed the USS Monitor, an ironclad warship built in Brooklyn and tested in the line of fire at the Civil War Battle of Hampton Roads. In 1864 he purchased the Federal style home on Beach Street, which at the time faced the southern boundary of St. John’s Park. The house was decorated with marble steps, the carved door- casings and fan-lights, the massive mahogany fittings (according to a description in a 1890 Ericsson biography). Ericsson died in 1889 and the home remained through the start of the 20th century. Originally surrounded by other fashionable homes in the early 1800s, by his death it was neighbors to factories and a freight railroad. In 1920 the house was demolished for a single story garage. The street where the home was located, Beach Street between Hudson and Varick Streets, was renamed Ericsson Place after the inventor in the 1920s. Around that same time, the whole north side of this block (the former site of the private square for St. John's Chapel) was razed for the curved exit roadway from the Holland Tunnel.

St. John's Chapel was designed by John McComb, Jr., in 1803 for the vestry of Trinity Church to accommodate its expanding Episcopalian congregation and to serve Trinity's planned real estate subdivision around it's newly-created St. John's Park. The chapel's hewn-oak spire reached more than two hundred feet in height, while a curved stairway to the pulpit and carved fluted pillars lent elegance to its airy, open interior. The original location of this church was one of the most attractive in New York. It stood on the eastern side of St. John's Park whose tree-shaded walks were a favorite recreational spot for the well-to-do residents of the neighborhood. But, in the second half of the 18th century, as the fashionable moved uptown and Trinity sold the park to Cornelius Vanderbilt for construction of a freight terminal, what had been a neighborhood of patrician townhouses became slovenly and ramshackle. By the 1890’s, most of the congregation had left and Trinity wanted to sell St. John’s Chapel. Holdouts at St. John’s — including the pastor, the Rev. Dr. Philip A. H. Brown, known as the Fighting Vicar — resisted the parent church. Dr. Brown died in 1909, the year that pro-demolition candidates won a vestry election at Trinity. In 1912, the City decided to widen Varick Street. In response to protests from architects and historians, a proposal to save the Chapel would have run the sidewalk and part of the street under the columns of the portico, which would be allowed to jut out into traffic. Ignoring the New York Times' editorial opinion that "to destroy it would be vandalism", Trinity Church decided to demolish the Chapel and put the site on the market for more than $200,000.

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.

39 Worth Street Building ARCHITECT: Isaac F. Duckworth DATE: 1866 STYLE: Italianate, Second Empire The 39 Worth Street Building was constructed for James Smith, a prominent manufacturer of fire engines. It was designed in a transitional style incorporating elements of the Italianate and Second Empire styles. The deep cornice features foliate modillions, a central segmental pediment, four large brackets with pellet molding and latticework, classically-inspired frieze and scalloped corbel table. Each story is separated by paneled spandrels and plinths or molded sill course.

226 West Broadway was the headquarters of the New York Fire Department's High-Pressure Service. This elegant structure looks remarkably different from its squat brick compatriot at 25 Joralemon. Architect Augustus D. Shepard designed this four-story and 20-foot wide structure with elements of both a "workshop and an office building," according to the structures' 1991 LPC Designation. Its facade features creme terracotta, a set of elegantly chiseled letters, and "iconographic representation of the work," including sculpted hydrants, valves and pipes. These symbols, secessionist in style, allude to the work that once went on inside.

Detail of Western Union Building, Hudson Street base, 1930. 60 Hudson Street was Western Union’s headquarters from 1930 to 1973, when the company moved operations to New Jersey. Designed by Ralph Walker of the Voorhees, Gmelin and Walker firm — who promoted the project as “the largest telegraph building in the world” — the massive building occupies the entire square block bounded by West Broadway, Thomas, Worth and Hudson Streets. Walker’s design incorporated German Expressionist elements, including a 19-shade color gradient brick, as well as Art Deco entranceway details closer to street level. Throughout its history, the skyscraper has been a key telecommunications hub: first for regional telegraphy; and, today, as a colocation (data centre) site for various Internet service providers.

Church Street, east side, south from White Street, 1928. The major street work depicted in this 1928 photograph is the cut and cover method of subway construction for the IND Eighth Avenue Line. The groundbreaking ceremony for this new line was held in March of 1925 at St. Nicholas Avenue and 123rd Street and the line opened to the public right after midnight on September 10, 1932 (four years nearly to the day after this photo was taken). Church Street needed to be widened to accommodate the planned infrastructure. The west side of the street was moved back some 65 feet, with buildings demolished or truncated. 257 Church Street is the building at left on the south corner of Franklin Street, and in the hazy distance stands the Woolworth Building.

Staple Street Skybridge, 2000.

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.

Western Union Building, First Floor Interior ARCHITECT: Voorhees, Gmelin & Walker; Ralph Walker DATE: 1928-30 Style: Modernist The First Floor of the Western Union Building is a recognized achievement in Modernistic design. Its design was influenced by the work of German and Dutch Expressionist architects and drew upon Ralph Walker’s well-defined design theory emphasizing harmony and unity. In the design of the first floor interior, executed in the expressionistic style of the exterior of the building, Walker used materials and design motifs in an innovative manner to link the interior and exterior. The design of the interior is exceptional in its extensive use of brick with ingrained, modeled ornament of various colors and patterns.

New York Mercantile Exchange entrance, ca. 1975. Completed in 1884 (as the entrance way tells us), the New York Mercantile Exchange Building was designed by architect Thomas R. Jackson. The "exchanges" were the way that a number of trades (butter, cheese, egg, dried fruits, poultry and canned goods) organized in order to maintain quality and standards, eliminate shady practices and lay out rules. (The 1872 on the facade notes the establish date of the Butter and Cheese Exchange of New York, the first exchange that would later become this larger organization.) The red brick, Queen Anne style structure has an imposing off-set tower and a mansard roof. Today the building, which sits within the Tribeca West Historic District, includes condos, office spaces, ground floor retail.

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.

Four-story Sullivan Street loft building, including the Rotisserie Range Co., at No. 26; January 24, 1927. The buildings pictured were razed shortly thereafter to facilitate the downtown extension of Sixth Avenue and the construction of the IND Eighth Avenue Line. The extended avenue opened on September 18, 1930, while the new Eighth Avenue subway commenced service eight days shy of two years later, on September 10, 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.

176 Franklin Street, ca. 1980. The three-story Franklin Street structure was completed in 1907, replacing a Methodist chapel that had previously occupied the site. The family of Ida May Powell, the owner of the new building, had purchased the adjacent property at the corner of Hudson Street (at right) in 1903, to house their candy manufacturing business. Powell enlisted architect Henri Fouchaux, the architect who had just competed an eleventh-story extension next door, to design the Beaux-Arts building on Franklin Street. The facade was substantially altered in 1916, when another Powell, George, converted the storefront level to a restaurant. The leaded glass windowpanes date to this renovation. The Franklin Inn restaurant became a popular meeting place for the districts produce merchants, while a booster club for produce wholesalers was headquartered in the upper stories. No. 176 Franklin was raided multiple times during Prohibition, with the restaurant and a cabaret operation on the second floor censured by the authorities. In later years, the building was home to small manufacturing operations, which gave way to galleries, residences, and high end retail in more recent decades.

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.

2 White Street ARCHITECT: Unknown DATE: 1808-09 STYLE: Federal Among its important qualities, the Number Two White Street House, complete with its original gambrel roof and other fine architectural details, is an important remaining example of a style which is rapidly disappearing from our City. It is one of those very rare brick and wood houses in New York which still retains its gambrel roof and original dormer windows. Three rectangular second story windows have excellent splayed lintels with central keystone blocks.

Western Union Building ARCHITECT: Voorhees, Gmelin & Walker; Ralph Walker DATE: 1928-30 STYLE: Modernist, Skyscraper The Western Union Building is a recognized achievement in Modernistic skyscraper design. The building is characteristic of a group of communications buildings designed by Ralph Walker in the late 1920s, primarily for the telephone companies, in which he developed a distinctive design approach related to the contemporary Art Deco style. The design of the Western Union Building was influenced by the work of the German and Dutch Expressionist architects, and drew upon Walker’s well-defined design theory which emphasized harmony and unity.

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.

140 Franklin Street, ca. 1977. 140 Franklin Street, located in the center of Tribeca, is one of Manhattan's most admired Romanesque Revival buildings. Trimmed in yellow terra cotta with grand arched windows, this 6-story yellow brick structure was built in 1889 to the designs of Albert Wagner, also the architect of Soho’s iconic Puck Building, for a paper manufacturing company. In 2000, AA Studio spearheaded the renovation of this building into 14 loft-style condominiums, including a two-story penthouse.

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

Under demolition, 1936.

Duane Park 1797; redesigned: Calvert Vaux, 1887; redesigned: Signe Nielsen, 1999 161-163 Duane Street, Babcock & Morgan, 1891-92 165-169 Duane Street, Stephen D. Hatch, 1881 173 Duane Street, Babb & Cook, 1880 168 Duane Street, Stephen D. Hatch, 1886 172 Duane Street, Jacob Weber, 1871-72 Named for James Duane, a Revolutionary War figure and mayor of New York City (1784-89), this is the city’s second oldest public park after Bowling Green. Its formal layout was redesigned by Calvert Vaux in 1887, paved over in the 1940s, and restored to evoke Vaux’s design in 1999. The buildings lining the park were originally warehouses for Washington Market, many housing dairy products. Tribeca’s iconic entrance canopies, of which there are many in this nook, were installed to protect goods from the sun. Numbers 161-163, 165-169 and 173 were designed in the Romanesque Revival style of brick, brownstone and terra-cotta. They feature intricate cornices, round arches and pilasters. The gabled corner tower on number 165-169 is particularly striking. On the south side, number 168 stands out for its Flemish-style silhouette (in 1891-92, its architect designed another Flemish-style building at 451-453 Washington Street) and number 172, whose cast-iron façade was preserved in front of a renovation in glass, evokes the Maison de Verre, an iconic 1931 Paris work by Pierre Chareau. Each site is located in the Tribeca West Historic District.

39-41 Worth Street, ca. 1970-1990. No. 39 (at left) and no. 41 (center) are two cast-iron store-and-loft buildings constructed within one year of each other and designed by Isaac F. Duckworth. No. 39 was constructed ca. 1866 in mix of Italianate and Second Empire styles as an investment for James Smith, a manufacturer of fire engines. For more than 100 years (1860s through the 1970s) the building was occupied by various dry goods companies. Today it is, unsurprisingly, a residence. No. 41 was designed by same architect one year before no. 39. The “Venetian” Italianate style store-and-loft building also included a cast-iron facade by Daniel D. Badger’s Architectural Iron Works. Both buildings have retained much of their original detail above the ground floor. The AIA Guide to NYC notes that the first floors have been "castrated by banal 'modernization'."

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.

Tracks of the Sixth Avenue El over West Broadway, with the Church of St. Alphonsus Ligouri in the background. Undated, 1870-90. The Sixth Avenue Line was built during the 1870s, with lower Manhattan tracks running over Church Street, South Fifth Avenue (today’s West Broadway), and West 3rd Street, then Sixth Avenue’s southern terminus. St. Alphonsus Ligouri was founded in 1847 by a congregation of German Catholics who built their first church nearby, at the foot of Thompson Street. In 1870, having acquired a larger lot, the parish hired architect Francis G. Hempler to design a new church. Hempler’s Lombard Romanesque structure was completed in 1872, with a prominent spire and rose window facing South Fifth Avenue. However, the church had been built on unstable footing: it’s concrete slab foundation was perched on the filled-in creek bed for which Canal Street is named. Over time, the sediment shifted beneath the foundation, leading the church building to become structurally unsound. In 1979, services were suspended over safety concerns. Two years later, the building was razed. Today, the Soho Grand Hotel occupies the site.

Powell Building, 105 Hudson Street, ca. 1975. The Powell Building, a ten-story Carrère & Hastings design completed in 1892, was originally home to the Baker Chocolate Company and other food producers. The building was purchased by candy manufacturer Alexander Powell in 1903. Powell elected to add a further eleventh story, though the facade bears little trace of its alteration.

Signage at 319 Broadway, looking at the facade of 317 Broadway, March 6, 1936.

American Thread Building, behind the tracks of the Sixth Avenue El, 1928. Architect William B. Tubby designed the eleven-story Renaissance Revival American Thread Building for the Wool Warehouse Company. Originally known as the Wool Exchange Building, it was completed in 1896. In 1981, it was converted to live-work loft units. The excavation of the foundation for the Western Union Building at 60 Hudson Street is in the foreground.

Workers dig trenches along Duane Street, near West Broadway and the Sixth Avenue Elevated trestle; undated photo.

23, 25, 27, 29, 31, 33, 37, 39 and 41 Harrison Street 1796-1828 The formation of this L-shaped enclave of nine Federal houses is the result of a preservation effort in the late 1960’s, when plans for the Washington Market Urban Renewal Area left many buildings in danger. The newly-established Landmarks Preservation Commission negotiated funding to move three Federal buildings on a now-extinct part of Washington Street to join six similar structures on Harrison Street. All nine were designated as individual landmarks in 1969. The only two with a known architect are 25 and 27, designed by John McComb, Jr., one of the architects of City Hall, who is thought to have occupied one of them. The stairway and bridge at the end of Harrison Street, part of the Borough of Manhattan Community College, provides a good vantage point from which to view them. Each site is a New York City Individual Landmark.

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.

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.

Mutual Reserve Fund Life Association ARCHITECT: William H. Hume DATE: 1892-94 STYLE: Richardsonian Romanesque Revival The 13-story (plus basement) Mutual Reserve Building is one of New York City’s most significant examples of a tall late-19th-century office building designed in the Richardsonian Romanesque Revival style, with its two designed facades featuring granite and limestone cladding, rusticated piers, foliate carving, and arcaded base and upper section. The building is notable as an early steel cage-framed structure in New York, constructed just prior to the full development of the skyscraper.

Originally, part of Trinity’s “church farm,” St. John’s Park was Trinity Church’s first real estate development project. Conceived in the early 19th century as a square of elegant townhouses, Trinity enclosed the square bounded by Varick, Laight, Hudson, and Beech Streets, built St. John’s Chapel to serve as the parish church, and sold lots around the perimeter, deeding the exclusive use of the square to residents (an example followed years later by Grammercy Square.) By 1827, the neighborhood was fashionable, and the park was landscaped with flowering trees and gardens, but it only lasted a generation. By the middle of the 19th century, the City’s elite citizens were moving uptown. In 1851, when Cornelius Vanderbilt laid tracks for the Hudson River Railroad on the west side of the square, St. John’s Park owners decamped en masse, and the mansions around the square became rooming houses. Trinity had maintained the right to sell the land with the consent of two-thirds of the owners, so in 1866 Trinity sold the park to Vanderbilt for $1 million, split between the church and the lot owners.

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.

Fire Engine Company No. 7/Hook & Ladder Company No. 1 ARCHITECT: Trowbridge & Livingston DATE: 1904-05 STYLE: Beaux-Arts Firehouse was designed in the Beaux-Arts style–or what at the time was described as the “modern French” style. Its three-bay width was dictated by the two-bay requirement of an enlarged engine company and a third bay for a separate hook & ladder company. The architects created a facade remarkable for its symmetry and emphatic horizontality. It is visually unified by superimposed architectural elements drawn from early seventeenth-century French civic architecture: the boldly rusticated Indiana limestone ground story, the brick and raised limestone bands of the upper stories, the entablature and parapet.

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.

Sixth Avenue El tracks above West Broadway, April 14, 1902. The photographer is facing uptown, just north of the Chambers Street elevated station. The building at left, No. 16 Hudson Street, is a six-story neo-Grec warehouse dating to the 1870s and operated by the Thurber, Wyland & Co. grocery wholesalers. Bogardus Triangle, a small park bounded by West Broadway, Reade and Hudson Streets, is out of frame at left.

The St. John’s Park Freight Depot, built in 1868, was the terminal for Cornelius Vanderbilt’s New York Central Railroad freight line. At right, the building’s pediment includes a 150-foot bas-relief sculpture surrounding a bronze statue of Vanderbilt himself. The station’s 8 tracks were able to accommodate 96 cars, in turn spurring the construction of new warehouse facilities to store goods bound for points west, either by rail or boat, via the Hudson River piers a few blocks away. The large loft-style former warehouse buildings that make up present-day Tribeca’s housing stock date to this period. In 1927, the terminal was razed to clear the way for the Manhattan-side entrance to the Holland Tunnel. The New York Central Railroad built a new facility, also named St. John’s, at Spring Street.

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.

New York Mercantile Exchange Building 2-6 Harrison Street Thomas R. Jackson, 1884 In the mid 19th century, buyers and sellers of various commodities recognized the need to organize in order to maintain quality and standards, eliminate questionable practices and set down business rules. Among the city’s many industry-specific "exchanges" established prior to the creation of a central stock exchange was the Butter and Cheese Exchange of New York, formed in 1872. After admitting the egg, dried fruits, poultry and canned goods trades, the exchange changed its name to the all-inclusive New York Mercantile Exchange in 1882.To accommodate this expansion, land was purchased from Trinity Church for a new building at the corner of Harrison and Hudson Streets. Architect Thomas R. Jackson, who had been head draftsman under Richard Upjohn (architect of Trinity Church), created a five-story, red brick, Queen Anne style building with an imposing off-set tower. Ornament includes rusticated granite pillars, brick pilasters with terra-cotta Corinthian capitols, paired stone columns on the fifth floor and picturesque dormers in the tower’s mansard roof. The Former New York Mercantile Exchange is located in the Tribeca West Historic District.

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.

Western Union Building Interior By the late 1920s, the grandeur of Beaux-Arts architecture had begun to seem old-fashioned. Meanwhile, new concrete vaulting methods started to rival the Guastavino system for spanning large spaces. Commissions like the Western Union Building reflect the company’s adaptation to these changing times. The Guastavino tiles in this magnificent Art Deco interior are primarily an ornamental finish, hanging from a superstructure of steel and concrete.

Showing the lower part of the 3-story house that adjoined the churchyard of St. John's Chapel. It was then known as Trinity Hospital, ca. 1914.

Merchants Refrigerating Company, ca. 1905. Constructed in 1891 as a cold storage warehouse for the Merchants Refrigerating and Ice Manufacture Company, the six -story Romanesque Revival building occupies the entire lot from North Moore Street to Ericsson Place (Beach Street when this building was constructed). Architect Thomas Jackson also designed a number of other industrial buildings in the neighborhood. After 1901 the building supplied its immediate neighbors (in the surrounding two blocks) with cooled brine (a refrigerant liquid). By 1924 the refrigerating company also owned and occupied buildings at 17-19, 27-29, and 31-31 North Moore Street. Both the North Moore Street facade (nos. 35-37 in tan brick) and the Ericsson facade (nos. 30-32 in red brick) retain the carved granite signbands with "Merchants Refrigerating & Ice Manufact. Co." and address numbers. Today the old warehouse included private loft residents and an art gallery at ground level.

The brick building at 161 Duane Street was originally constructed in 1843 as a private house. From 1860 until 1920 the structure housed a whalebone cutting business (as can be inferred by the painted sign on the facade). The workers here created hoops for horse whips, women's skirts, corset stays, collar stiffeners, and umbrella ribs out of whalebone, but by the early 20th century, fashion, material technology, and a significant decline in American whaling rendered this business largely obsolete. In the 1890s the whalebone work moved to the top floors, while the Ye Olde Tavern (seen here in 1902) moved into the ground floor. When the firm's final owner, a man named George Massmann, retired in 1920, he had worked in this building since 1866 (under both of the previous owners). Later in the 20th century, the building was home to a shoe company and likely dozens of other unknown businesses. During that time the facade and its Whalebone sign were painted white, and the older faded sign attached above the second floor was removed. In 2002 architect and developer Joseph Pell Lombardi purchased this building and its neighbor at the corner (at left). Known as the Mohawk Building—it was once the home to the Mohawk Electric Company— the 1891 corner structure was built for a confectioner. Pell combined the two interiors for residential condos while restoring both facades and repainting the building's eponymous signage.

My Archive Spring 2019 "This photo shows the southernmost bay at the Hudson Street facade on the occasion of Morse & Rogers employees moving office furniture and inventory into their newly constructed building from previous locations on Duane Street, around March 1, 1911. This photo is from a family album that I own and features my great-grandfather William Paul Fitzpatrick (1883-1968) of Richmond Hill, NY, third from left in the center with his hands on his hips. I have a large company photo of Morse & Rogers at an outing near the docks, and photos of his retirement locking up the office one last time. Morse & Rogers was a shoe seller/distributor and later manufacturer founded by Daniel P. Morse on August 1, 1884, and originally located at the first-floor loft of 132 Duane Street. On March 1, 1911, the company moved into a brand new twelve-story building developed by Central Building Improvement & Investment Company, built in 1910-1911 and designed by Rouse & Goldstone." —James Russiello

Gideon Tucker House, 1928. This house — possibly the oldest surviving building in the Tribeca Historic District — was built in 1808-09 by Gideon Tucker, an alderman, school commissioner, and the New York City Commissioner of Estimates and Assessments, whose Tucker & Ludlum plaster factory was located further east on White Street. It was later home to the now-famous abolitionist and minister, Theodore S. Wright. As one of New York City's most prominent conductors of the Underground Railroad, Wright used this Lower Manhattan building as a safe house for slaves escaping to Albany. While the dormer windows and second-story windows on the White Street side are consistent with early 19th century Federal style houses, the gambrel roof recalls the previous century’s Dutch-influenced architecture. The building has likely included a storefront throughout its existence, leading to a series of ground floor alterations. In 1941, Leonard Hecht opened a liquor store on the ground floor of the property. The neon sign and etched glass advertisements on the West Broadway shop window date to this period.

246 West Broadway, 1939. No. 246 in this photograph is the two-story center structure, with the telltale striped decor of a barber shop. According to the notes of the photographer, this is a frame building, faced in brick. Today the building remains, though its wood-frame neighbors have disappeared and it has added a third story and new stucco facing.

Langdon Building, 1922. Originally known as the Mutual Reserve Fund Life Association Building, the Langdon Building is a Romanesque Revival structure designed by William Hume. The 13-story building was completed between 1892 and 1894 and it was one of the first towers in the city to use a steel frame structure (a sort of early version of a skyscraper). While the Mutual Reserve Fund Life Association occupied a number of floors, the other floors, including the ground level, included a barber shop, cigar stand, bike showroom, ticket office, and telegraph and telephone offices. The Association moved out in 1909 when it went into bankruptcy and the building was renamed the next year. This building later served as the headquarters for the New York Landmarks Preservation Commission between 1967 and 1980.

34-46 Varick Street - Laight Street, Manhattan, NY

317 and 319 Broadway, March 6, 1936. Constructed in 1869–70, Italianate cast-iron buildings at no. 317 and 319 were designed by D. & J. Jardine. This firm is well represented in surviving 19th century commercial and residential buildings in the Ladies Mile, Upper East Side, Soho, and Greenwich Village Historic Districts. Called the "Thomas Twins" for the street they straddled, the mirrored five-story buildings remained together 1971 when no. 317 was demolished. The entrances to the buildings were both originally at what is now the second story, and were moved to altered ground floors in 1912. In this 1936 photograph, the second story of no. 319 seems to be encased in glass. Today the glass has been removed and the original entrance (now window) arch and its two neighbors on the second floor are unobstructed.

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.

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.

Workers laying pipes for the high pressure water system into a trench along Hudson Street, at Reade Street; undated photo. The covered sidewalk at center-left stands outside No. 13-15 Hudson Street. The market stand was operated by William Orlando Saxton, "one of the city's leading butter and egg merchants." Saxton, a Long Island native, founded W.O. Saxton & Co. in 1884; the company operated from a series of storefronts in present-day Tribeca, including, from 1901-12, the stand pictured above at the northwest corner of Hudson and Reade.

The area now known as Tribeca was originally developed in the early 19th century as a residential neighborhood close to the city’s center in Lower Manhattan. Its street grid was laid out at right angles off of Greenwich Street and on a diagonal off of Broadway, creating blocks of different lengths and irregular open spaces. The residential character of these blocks allowed for the retention of small lot sizes in future waves of development, thus creating a neighborhood with richly textured streetscapes of varying styles of architecture. After the Civil War, shipping hubs moved from the East River to the North River (later renamed the Hudson River), and South Street Seaport was traded in for steam-powered shipping on the west side via long piers. With a newly thriving industrial waterfront, the neighborhood was poised for change. Around 1812, Washington Market was established on the streets from Fulton to Vesey and Washington to West (near the current site of the World Trade Center). The market grew considerably between 1812 and the middle of the century, becoming the city’s major source for consumables. Hundreds of vendors sold all manner of imported and locally made goods and produce to store owners, restaurateurs and home cooks alike. The growth of the market was, no doubt, fueled by the shipping industry on the river nearby, facilitating the transfer of goods. The market moved to Hunts Point in The Bronx in 1967 and the World Trade Center was developed shortly thereafter. Washington Market Park, located at Greenwich Street between Duane and Chambers Streets and designed by Lee Weintraub in 1978, was named after the historic market. With the combination of a bustling industrial waterfront and thriving commerce, the Federal and Greek Revival residential buildings north of the market were transformed into food storage warehouses and over the course of the rest of the 19th and into the 20th century, the majority of these would be replaced entirely with store and loft buildings and warehouses. This architectural development, which spanned roughly 50 years from 1860 to 1910, encompasses a balance of utilitarian and decorative forms in a range of popular styles of the period, all while defining the identities of the enterprises housed within and the expression of American commercialism as a whole. These buildings still dominate the character of the neighborhood today. Originally referred to as the “Lower West Side,” there are differing accounts as to where the name “Tribeca” came from. It originated in the 1970s, after a Special Lower Manhattan Mixed Use District was adopted for the area south of Canal Street, between Broadway and West Street. A realtor, advertising real estate within the new district, referred to it as Tribeca, which stood for the Triangle Below Canal. Most likely, the realtor hoped to inspire a similar transformation to that of Soho, whose industrial buildings had been converted into artists’ lofts and trendy apartment buildings. Four historic districts were designated in 1991–92: Tribeca East, Tribeca West, Tribeca North and Tribeca South, which was extended in 2002. These are located in Tribeca’s center, while pockets around the historic districts and most of the neighborhood’s periphery remain unprotected. Community members are currently advocating for more individual landmarks and expansion of the historic district borders.

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

My Archive Spring 2019

\#386 Washington Street shows Lewis DeGroff and Son Wholesale Grocer. There are horse-drawn wagons at the loading dock, loading barrels onto their carts. There are several other business next to DeGroff and Son. 1906.

Storefront and barbershop at the southwest corner of Church and Reade Streets; February 27, 1927. The building at left, No. 170 Church Street (a.k.a. 85-87 Reade Street) would soon be demolished to facilitate the widening of Church Street for construction on the IND Eighth Avenue line. The demolition exposed the eastern wall of the Cary Building, the 1850s-era cast iron fronted loft building stretching the full block between Chambers and Reade Streets.

Intersection of Sullivan and Grand Streets; March 8, 1927. This photo was taken in preparation for the construction of the IND Eighth Avenue line and the extension of Sixth Avenue (the lot at right has already been cleared for the project). Two blocks east, the Grand Street station of the Sixth Avenue El is visible above West Broadway. Today, the intersection of Grand Street, Sullivan Street, and Sixth Avenue is known as Duarte Square, after Juan Pablo Duarte, a founding father of the Dominican Republic (in keeping with Sixth Avenue's 1945 honorific renaming as the "Avenue of the Americas").

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

Bulldog emblem on the American Express Horse Stables, Hubert Street facade, ca. 1970. The American Express Carriage House was built in 1866 and expanded in 1898 to house the stables of the American Express Company. American Express stagecoaches operated out of this building. For years the company enjoyed a virtual monopoly on the movement of express shipments (goods, securities, currency, etc.) throughout New York State. American Express, today’s multinational financial services company, was created in 1850 by the merger of three express delivery companies: one owned John Butterfield, one by William Fargo and one by Henry Wells. When Butterfield and other directors objected to the proposal that American Express extend its operations to California, Wells and Fargo started Wells Fargo & Co. in 1852. Long after the stagecoaches, the building was the center of NYC nightlife when it housed the nightclubs Heat, B Square, Shelter, Vinyl and, from 1983 to 1987, Area. Area was a themed nightclub that attracted many celebrities. Along with Danceteria and Limelight, Area defined the 1980’s nightclub scene. In 2008, the building was converted to residential condominiums.

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.

Henry J. Meyer warehouse, Laight Street, 1939. During the latter half of the 19th century, the northern portion of present-day Tribeca, between the Hudson River shipping piers and the St. John’s Freight Terminal, developed into Manhattan’s commercial warehousing hub. With a constant stream of goods arriving from international and domestic suppliers, new warehouse operations for a variety of commodities — dry goods, cold storage, etc. — alleviated intermodal bottlenecks, facilitating New York’s growth as a shipping port. Laight Street, the main route between St. John’s and the U.S. Appraiser’s storehouse, was uniquely situated for warehouse development. The five-story Rundbogenstil (a German Romanesque Revival style) warehouse at 54-56 Laight was George W. DaCunha’s second building for Henry J. Meyer, an early proponent of the district’s storage industry. It continued to operate as a warehouse facility under a succession of owners through the 1970s, before conversion to office space in 1988.

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.

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.

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.

Puffy's Tavern at 81 Hudson Street is a famed watering hole founded in 1977 by Frank E. Marco, Ned Schnier, and Jim Stratton at 81 Hudson Street. The pub served as a meeting place for local artists and intellectuals in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. The tavern is still open, serving the ever-changing residents of TriBeCa.

Workers dig a trench for the installation of the high-pressure water system at the northeast corner of Hudson and Thomas Streets; undated photo. The sidewalk shelter at right covers the loading area for the R.C. Williams & Co. building at 56 Hudson Street. Established in 1811, the wholesale grocers had been headquartered in this building since the late 1880s. Contemporaneous trade publications show the firm to have been an active player in the city's produce distribution sector (albeit with predictably dry headlines, e.g.: "Green Olive Importers Engage in Advertising"). In 1926, R.C. Williams purchased a full-blockfront site on Tenth Avenue, between West 25th-26th Streets, in anticipation of the construction of the High Line freight railway. The ten-story R.C. Williams warehouse, designed by Cass Gilbert and completed in 1928, occupies the full site between Tenth Avenue and the elevated trestle to its west. In fact, when the High Line opened to rail traffic on August 1, 1933, the first carload was delivered to R.C. Williams. After R.C. Williams departed, the Hudson Street warehouse was demolished to make way for Ralph Walker's Western Union Building at 60 Hudson Street.

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

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.

Holland Plaza Building ARCHITECT: Ely Jacques Kahn DATE: 1930 STYLE: Modern Classical Holland Plaza Building is an exceptionally fine example of an industrial building in the Modern Classical style. The building was constructed on Canal Street, opposite the entrance to the newly-built Holland Tunnel. It was designed to be read as an industrial building, without extraneous added ornament, but it nevertheless has a decorative scheme that is completely integrated with the skin of the structure.

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.