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.

504-506 Broome Street, 1939.

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.

55 Thompson Street, ca. 2006. The Tunnel Garage was built in 1922 during the early automobile age, ushering in the engineering marvel of its time, the Holland Tunnel. GVSHP sought landmark designation for the building, but the City refused, and it was demolished in 2006

"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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

85 Sullivan Street ca. 1937 83 and 85 Sullivan Street are two of the district’s individually landmarked properties, both of which obtained landmark designation in 1973. The buildings were originally built in 1819, rebuilt in 1825, and modified 50 years later. As we previoulsy noted: “83 & 85 Sullivan Street were built as part of the very first stage of urban settlement of this part of town, even before the particularly virulent yellow fever and cholera epidemics of 1822 famously sent New Yorkers permanently packing from their downtown homes to the more salubrious, rural climes of Greenwich Village to the north of the City.” As the 1973 designation reports describe, the area on which these properties are located was originally part of the Bayard Farm. The first Nicholas Bayard was Peter Stuyvesant’s brother-in-law. A later Nicholas Bayard conveyed the property to Daniel Ludlow and Brockholst Livinsgton in 1789. They, in turn, sold it to Aaron Burr in 1791, who acquired a portion of the Bayard Farm contiguous to his estate “Richmond Hill”, which stood west of Sixth Avenue. Burr subdivided his property, and when he sold these lots to Anthony Bowrosan in 1802, they were on what Burr called Locust Street. Bowrosan, who operated a tavern and garden at Richmond Hill, sold the lots in 1807 to carpenters. The 83 Sullivan lot was sold to carpenter David Mulford, who first built the rear house on this lot in 1810, with 83 Sullivan being erected as a 2.5 story federal style home in 1819. 85 Sullivan was sold to carpenter Drake Crane, who first built the rear house on this lot in 1810, with 85 Sullivan being erected as a 2.5 story federal style home in 1819. Both original homes were destroyed in a fire, and rebuilt in 1825. Both homes were renovated to add a full third story, 83 Sullivan in 1880 and 85 Sullivan in 1874. The properties have remained basically the same since then. They both still have their original Federal style doorways and leaded transoms, noted by the designation reports as “unusually fine”, “Elegant and understated, they typify the architecture of good breeding”, and are among the earliest surviving Federal Style doorways in the city. The low stoops with wrought-iron railings, Flemish brickwork, and multi-paned wooden sash windows are also original.

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.

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.

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

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.

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!

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.

65 Prince Street, ca. 1897. The twin Federal-style houses built at 63 and 65 Prince Street were constructed by Samuel L. Gouverneur in 1825 and 1826. Gouverneur, by marriage to Maria Hester Monroe was the son-in-law and nephew of former President James Monroe. Despite James Monroe’s impressive military and political career—two terms as President, Minister to France and to England, Envoy to Spain, Secretary of State, and author of the Monroe Doctrine— he was overwhelmed with financial difficulties following his departure from office. Monroe came to live in the corner house in 1830, where he died on the Fourth of July just one year later. Following Monroe's death in 1831, the house changed owners many times. Eventually, John H. Contoit purchased the home for $32,500 in 1873, at a time when the neighborhood had succumbed to commerce. As wealthy families moved northwards, many mansions and homes in Lower Manhattan, including this one, were taken over by business. Contoit, who was the proprietor of the pleasure garden known both as the New York Garden and Contoit’s Garden, converted the house into a small factory and the home of G. Rosenberg's Vienna and Hungarian Café and Restaurant. The advertisement for the play, The Last Stroke, on the side wall depicts the decline of this house in which a former present ended his days. In 1905, the New York Times admitted: “The old Colonial house, 63 Prince Street, where Monroe died, is falling to decay." Despite restoration and preservation efforts, the house was sold on November 12, 1919, to an unknown speculator.

Opened in 1992 and closed in 2001, the Guggenheim Soho was designed by Arata Isozaki. The museum's attendance never quite matched the 250,000 expected annual visitors and its costs eventually caused its closure.

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.

Mercer Hotel, ca. 1975. Commissioned by John Jacob Astor III for his office and business, the Romanesque Revival structure was completed in 1888 to the plans of architects William Schickel and Isaac E. Ditmars. Owing to its wealthy patron, the Astor Building was considerably more ornate than its industrial neighbors. This building is perhaps best known for its more recent history; in 1997 hotelier André Balazs opened the Mercer Hotel, a luxury boutique hotel of 75 rooms.

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).

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.

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.

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.

Entrance to Niblo’s Garden, 1887. Proprietor William Niblo acquired the Columbia Garden “pleasure garden” — an open-air entertainment venue — during the 1820s, renaming the premises Niblo’s Garden and introducing a theater and concert venue in 1834. The Garden covered much of the block bounded by Broadway and Houston, Crosby, and Prince Streets. In 1835, Niblo’s Theater hosted P.T. Barnum’s first exhibition and would soon introduce vaudeville programming to its entertainment lineup. In 1846, the original theater was destroyed in a fire. In another first, Niblo’s hosted what is considered the first-ever musical theater production: in 1866, “The Black Crook,” a lengthy musical comedy set in Germany, debuted to widespread condemnation. Naturally, the outcry in the press led audiences to flock to Niblo’s. The theater burned again in 1872 and was rebuilt, with funding from department store entrepreneur A.T. Stewart. Niblo’s held its final performance in 1895 and was soon demolished.

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.

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.

The twelve-story Little Singer Building was designed by Ernest Flagg for the Singer sewing machine company in 1903.­­ It is located in Soho at 561-563 Broadway between Spring and Prince Streets. The intricate iron tracery on the exterior makes this one very distinctive and you’d be hard-pressed to miss it if you walked past; it’s a style unique to the time period.

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.

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.

"George Maciunas did not invent artists loft living. He did, however, invent loft cooperatives and in doing so became the person responsible for the creation of SoHo. When Maciunas discovered 80 Wooster Street in 1967, the building was past its prime as a commercial venue. The Miller Cardboard Company was eager to sell and Maciunas, the Lithuanian born artist-visionary, founder of the Fluxus art movement, was eager to buy… After returning to New York in 1963, Maciunas published a one page manifesto titled 'FLUXHOUSE, PLAN FOR AN ARTIST CONDOMINIUM IN NEW YORK CITY.' In it he set forth the economic problems facing artists and proposed a solution. He envisioned purchasing underutilized loft buildings by a not-for-profit corporation and renovating them to provide living-work spaces for artists. He saw communal resources for the artists and expected that in return the artists would provide services to the greater community. It took another four years before he started to implement his plan… Maciunas went on to develop sixteen buildings but maintained a special relationship with 80 Wooster Street. Fluxhouse Coop II is generally acknowledged as the first successful artists’ coop in SoHo, if not the world." For more on the making of the co-op, check out this article by Roslyn Bernstein and Shael Shapiro on Maciunas in Gotham: A Blog for Scholars of New York City History.

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

186 Spring Street ca. 1933 In the era immediately following the Stonewall riots, 186 Spring Street (which was recently demolished) was home to a number of important figures of the Gay Rights movement, serving for a time as a "gay commune" of sorts. Bruce Voeller, who lived in the building, co-led the first delegation of gay rights leaders to ever meet with the White House, helped end the federal government's ban on employing gay people, helped get homosexuality removed from the American Psychiatric Association’s list of mental illnesses, got the very first piece of federal gay rights legislation introduced, and won the first Supreme Court case establishing rights for gay parents. Another resident, Jim Owles, was the first openly gay person to run for public office in New York. Owles, along with Voeller and Arnie Kantrowitz, founded several of the country's first and largest LGBT organizations.

While New York is now one of the safest cities in the country, it still has had its share of notorious murders, here are but a few!

Intersection of Sullivan and Broome Streets, and the newly-extended Sixth Avenue, 1932. The three-story house closest to the corner (at center) is No. 57 Sullivan Street, wood-frame rowhouse built in 1817 for mason David G. Bogert. The house was originally two-and-a-half stories, in the Federal style, with dormer windows above a simple cornice. In 1858, current owners added a third story and extended the facade’s Flemish bond brickwork to a new wooden cornice. In 1932, the demolition of an adjacent building exposed the house’s wooden frame (as captured in Charles Von Urban’s photo. The house was restored after 1995 and designated a New York City Landmark in 2009 — some 39 years after its original proposal.

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

512-514 Broome, October 7, 1935. The two Federal style building at nos. 512 and 514 seen here likely date to the early decades of the 19th century. In the early 20th century no. 512 (at right) was the New York office of a Ohio-based mosaic company. Two brick buildings still stand in this location. The building at left is now three stories and the one at right one is a single story. It is unknown whether these current structures are built from the bones of the earlier buildings. The empty lot at far left is currently still unbuilt and serves as the garden area for a Thompson Street restaurant.

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.

"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.

Broadway, north of Spring Street, 1898. Street scene featuring streetcars, horse-drawn carriages, cobblestones, and cast iron facades along the west side of Broadway. At left, the building with awnings and a pair of American Flags is the “Charles Broadway Rouss” building. In 1889, Rouss, a wealthy, self-made merchant, built a massive three-bay-wide building at 549-553 Broadway to house his department store. A keen self promoter, Rouss stamped his name “Charles Broadway Rouss” across the facade, between the first and second stories. Eleven years later, Rouss acquired the lot immediately to the north, and added a matching fourth bay, adopting the 555 Broadway address. “Charles Broadway Rouss” was amended to cover the facade’s full width. Indeed, when Rouss died in 1902, his death certificate bore his adopted middle name.

"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

Charles Broadway Rouss Building, 1938.

You'd assume that in two decades time these little food joints, pictured in 2001, might have disappeared. But, alas, a shop that sells 1,000 carrot 🍰 a week, a 🍕 chain owned by Albanians, and many greasy spoons ☕ are resilient. Discover the everyday culinary delights that have persisted on Broadway.

112 Prince Street, c. 1978. Artists Richard Haas' first mural, on the north party wall of 112 Prince Street, is called "Soho Mural." It was completed in 1975 after Haas proposed his idea to Doris Freedman, who led City Walls Inc. Haas drew from his surroundings in SoHo, a neighborhood rapidly changing due to plans of urban redevelopment and large-scale construction that disrupted the cityscape and left an abundance of exposed blank walls in the area. The mural's building, at 112 Prince Street, is now listed as part of the SoHo Cast-Iron Historic District, though this designation came after the completion of Haas' work. Haas worked with architect Hanford Yang to acquire drawings of the West facade, which he meticulously copied in oil paint onto the brick party wall of the building. Ada Louis Huxtable, renowned architecture critic for the New York Times, called the work "an exercise in art and wit and instant architecture," a year after it was painted. Her successor Paul Goldberger called Richard Haas "the great architectural muralist of our time" in 2000. Haas started a campaign to conserve his first piece of work, titled "Save 112 Prince," in 2015.

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").

No. 420 West Broadway (left), ca. 1980. The loft building at 420 West Broadway dates to the 1870s, when it was built for the prominent developer Amos R. Eno by architect Robert Mook. The building was extended to Thompson Street during the 1880s. Until 1970, the building's tenants represented a variety of manufacturing industries, including glass and paper products. After 1970, the building became a locus of the burgeoning downtown art scene, and home to several prominent gallerists. In 2001, the remaining gallerists were displaced, as the building was redeveloped for residential use. Today, marketing materials refer to it as the "Soho Gallery Building."

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

View north from the northeast corner of Prince and Elm (now Lafayette) Streets, January 4, 1901.

174-178 Grand Street, ca. 1978.

In 1853, young Samuel L. Clemens wrote his mother in Missouri: "Well, I was out of work in St. Louis, and didn't fancy loafing in such a dry place, where there is no pleasure to be seen without paying well for it, and so I thought I might as well go to New York." It was the first time the future Mark Twain would visit, but it wouldn't be the last. New-York Historical's 2019 exhibition 'Mark Twain and the Holy Land' took a deep dive into a pivotal moment in Twain's career: the five-month cruise to Europe and the Holy Land that would inspire his bestselling travelogue 'The Innocents Abroad.' Like many good journeys, it started in New York. Check out some NYC sites that have a Twain connection.

Josiah Purdy House, 1932. In 1818, Josiah Purdy built a Federal style frame house at the corner of Spring and Wooster Streets, likely including a ground floor storefront. The house was home to a succession of working class families on the upper floors, while the ground floor space had by 1870 been converted to a saloon. Charles Von Urban’s 1932 photograph, taken during Prohibition, shows a painted advertisement for Peter Doegler beer (“available in bottles and barrels”) on the upper-floor clapboards along Wooster street, though the storefront itself appears to be available for rent. From 1978-2006, Tennessee Mountain, a barbecue restaurant and bar, operated in the first two floors. The restaurant was likely responsible for the addition of ahistorical ground floor bay windows. A 2006 restoration project replaced the Wooster Street clapboards, refreshed the Spring Street Brickwork, and reverted the bay window alterations.

"I am the Best Artist" on the West Broadway facade of 500 Broome Street, ca. 1986. The mural "I am the Best Artist" is the work of René Moncada, a South American-born artist. He created a number of these self-aggrandizing pieces on walls in SoHo beginning in the 1970s. This mural at West Broadway and Broome was the most prominent, completed in 1986, and measuring 10 foot by 50 foot. It became an iconic and culturally important art piece for the neighborhood and within the NYC art scene, propelling the artist into renown in the art world. The street art here is no longer extant, most of his street art was removed or covered up as the neighborhood began to change and gentrify in the 1990s.

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.

On May 25, 2020, George Floyd was murdered by then Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin. As Floyd was arrested for supposedly using a counterfeit $20 bill to buy a pack of cigarettes, the officer knelt on the back of his neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds as he lay face down on the street. Despite Mr. Floyd’s pleading with the officer stating “I can’t breathe” several times Chauvin continued to use the non-sanctioned technique to restrain and subdue the victim until he died in what culminated in an extrajudicial murder. All of this was captured on video by witnesses, security cameras at a nearby restaurant, and the body camera of J. Alexander Keung, an officer complicity standing nearby. When the news broke and the footage hit the internet, the country was distraught. At the time, the world was already reeling from the Covid-19 pandemic, in the midst of a near nationwide lockdown with many out of work or working from home. Similar to the ways in which television made the injustices of the Jim Crow South no longer ignorable to Americans around the country it was almost impossible to miss the footage of this event as it proliferated across the internet and media outlets. Yet again, another murder in the seemingly never-ending string of violence committed by police forces against communities of color. Demonstrations began the very next day in Minneapolis. They spread throughout the country and eventually the entire world. All eyes were on this moment and communities mobilized to express frustration with the endemic of police brutality as well as the judicial and societal complacency towards that violence. They also came together in solidarity, ready to confront the reality of the murder, the truth behind the systemic inequalities that allowed the murder to occur, and not just to demand change but actively engage and construct ideas of what that change can and should look like. Things were no different in SoHo, Manhattan; a place that is known to be more aligned with the retail trends of the wealthy rather than a hotbed of community activism. Despite that reality the area was reclaimed by the community and made into a center of direct action. The streets, formerly deserted, were transformed into a parade ground of demonstration and the plywood boards that secured the storefronts of shops that serve the elite were co-opted by local artists and activists to transmit messages that resonated with those concerned with improving the whole of society. Since then, former police officer Derek Chauvin was charged with second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter in the death of George Floyd and the three officers also present: J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas K. Lane, and Tou Thao have been charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder. It is important to note that this is not justice this is accountability, but it could be a step in the right direction towards preventing further injustices by police. Local artist James Hong realized what was happening and knew it was important to capture and preserve this juxtaposition on display in the midst of a community reclaiming the streets as part of a nationwide response to the murder of George Floyd. In his own words “The poignancy of Soho – the pinnacle of consumerist society – transformed into a platform of social messaging cannot be lost. This may serve as a reminder that no matter how things in society may be beautifully cloaked in delivering subliminal messages of how we should live, a raw but potent social message can subvert it- not with iPhones and high tech, but with messy paint, caulk and spray cans.” James’ actions led to this selection of ten photographs, and many others not included here, to be exhibited at the Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space in the fall of 2020. The plywood windows of SoHo are torn down by this point but James and Bill DiPola, director of MoRUS, had the foresight to save the very same plywood in these photos and install them as gallery walls for the pictures to hang on, in effect recreating parts of SoHo within the museum and immortalizing the conversations these boards promoted from their storefronts. They are still on display at MoRUS and will live here on the Urban Archive so that you too might tour the neighborhood during one of its most critical moments of direct action taken by a community in the 21st century.

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.

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.

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.

561 Broadway (center), ca. 1977. The Little Singer Building is a 12-story Art Nouveau structure. Designed by Ernest Flagg for the offices and factory of the Singer Manufacturing Company, the L-shaped building was completed in 1904 (four years before its more massive sister was built further downtown). The main facade on Broadway is a charming mix of brick, steel, terra cotta, and glass rendered in red and green. It features a nine-story recessed central bay. The secondary facade at 88 Prince Street mimics the Broadway frontage. Since 1979 the building has been a co-op with 20 offices and 15 live/work units for artists.

504-506 Broome Street, 1939. These two Federal style buildings on the northwest corner of Broome and West Broadway, which were not in the best shape when this photograph was taken, are no longer standing. Gone too, of course, is the elevated line that ran next to them on West Broadway. According to the SoHo Historic District Extension Designation Report no. 376 West Broadway is the same plot as 504-506 Broome, and in 1993 a one-story garage was replaced with the three-story stucco building that now stands on this corner.

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.