640 Broadway ca. 1949 While it’s certainly the most famous Empire State Building, the skyscraping structure on the corner of 34th Street and 5th Avenue was not actually the first “Empire State Building.” That title belonged to a somewhat more terrestrial, but still extant, building at the corner of Bleecker Street and Broadway. In the mid-late 19th century, a six-story brick and stone structure sat on a 25′ x 300′ footprint at 640 Broadway between Bleecker and Crosby Streets. The ground floor was home to the Empire State Bank, with manufacturers located in the lofts above. In November 1895, a fire later determined to be arson, burned the building to the ground. The fire ended the Empire State Bank, which applied to the Supreme Court for dissolution on February 18, 1896. The owner immediately moved to rebuild. He hired architects De Lemos and Cordes, who that same year designed the Siegel-Cooper Building (now part of the Ladies’ Mile Historic District), and would go on to design Macy’s Herald Square. Opening in 1897, the new building at 640 Broadway helped transform this neighborhood (designated the NoHo Historic District in 1999). At the time, the area was transitioning from 5-6 story loft buildings to taller buildings, such as the Bayard Condict Building located directly across the street from 640 Broadway at 65 Bleecker Street. In honor of his former tenant, owner B. Lichtenstein named 640 Broadway the Empire State Building. This was more than 30 years prior to the development of its more famous namesake. When the “original” Empire State Building opened it housed dozens of manufacturing companies employing hundreds of young women. Fires broke out in the building in 1904, 1909, 1919, and 1921, but miraculously no one was killed. Dramatic rescue stories were reported in the Sun and Times. With the advent of its taller and more famous cousin uptown, it became less and less common to refer to 640 Broadway as “The Empire State Building.” On top of that, during the 1940s and 50s, the neighborhood in which 640 Broadway was located went into a precipitous decline. Many of the once grand hotels in the area became flophouses and shooting galleries; some even collapsed. By the 1960s, the building had taken on an entirely different character. In 1965 the offices of the protest group May 2nd Movement were located in the building. This group provided legal counseling to those seeking to avoid the Vietnam War draft. In 1971 the building housed the offices of the Law Commune, who successfully defended the Black Panthers against 156 counts of bombing, arson, attempted murder, and other crimes. They also defended Abbie Hoffman following his September 5, 1973 arrest for selling $36,000 worth of cocaine with a street value of $500,000. When arrested, he gave his address as “640 Broadway in Greenwich Village”. Hoffman skipped bail and underwent plastic surgery. After six years in hiding, sometimes dressing as an Orthodox Jew, Hoffman surrendered and was sentenced to three years, of which he served one year.

St. Michael's as viewed from Jersey Alley, ca. 1975.

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.

Catholics make up over twenty percent of the population of the United States. However, there was a time when the novelty of a Roman Catholic cathedral in the country made it a tourist destination and an artist's subject. St. Patrick's on Mott Street below Houston was one of such churches.

The NoHo Historic District was designated by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) on June 29, 1999, with the NoHo East Historic District designated in 2003 and expansions to the original district boundaries approved in 2008. This virtual walking tour features 25 buildings within the approximately 130-building original NoHo Historic District, in celebration of its 25th anniversary. The highlighted buildings represent the range of construction periods and array of building types, styles, and uses that occur throughout the district. We encourage you to explore this fascinating stretch of Manhattan virtually, or to use this tour as a jumping-off point as you take your own walk through the historic district! The three-part tour is organized by phases of development, based upon the same categories found within the LPC NoHo Designation Report. Part III includes buildings constructed from the 1890s to 1910s: The Booming Nineties a) 611-621 Broadway, The Cable Building b) 65-69 Bleecker Street, The Bayard-Condict Building c) 696-702 Broadway d) 34-36 Cooper Square, "Village Voice" Post-Consolidation Growth e) 756-770 Broadway, Wanamaker's Department Store Annex f) 684 Broadway (aka 2 Great Jones Street) g) 740-744 Broadway (aka 2 Astor Place) \-- To return to Part II of the tour, click here. To revert back to Part I of the tour, click here.

"200-208 Bowery, west side, between Spring and Prince Streets, 134." The Federal style building at no. 206 (with the Barber sign) dates, along with its neighbor, to the 1810s. Once a pair amongst many Federal style buildings on the Bowery, most have been demolished and replaced or altered beyond recognition. No. 206 was constructed with a shop space on the first floor and residential space upstairs for the merchant's family. The ground floor retail space has seen a variety of businesses over its more than 200 years, including a shoe store, thread and needle shop, dentist, engraving business, and an umbrella store. At some point in the late 19th century, the upstairs space became one of many lodging houses on the Bowery, catering to " street salesmen and clerks, whose small wages will not admit of better quarters.” At some point in the 20th century no. 204 had its peaked roof and dormers converted into an additional floor. Today no. 206 remains as evidence of the early architectural of the neighborhood and houses a restaurant supply store.

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

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

Bowery Mission ARCHITECT: William Jose DATE: 1876 The Bowery Mission is significant for its 103-year history as the home of the Bowery Mission, a religious-based organization that has fed, housed and cared for countless homeless men on the Lower East Side for more than 130 years. It is constructed with red brick and has four bays of windows with incised stone lintels and sills at the third through fifth stories. The ground floor has three arch-headed openings with keystone lintels, a bracketed cornice and stone banding.

"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.

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. Michael's Russian Catholic Byzantine Church, ca. 1970-1990. The "Gothic Gingerbread" style building was constructed in 1859 as the Chancery Office for nearby St. Patrick's Cathedral (now Old St. Patrick's). The building was designed by James Renwick, Jr. and William Rodrigue, the architects who quickly after would go on to create the new larger St. Patrick's uptown. The building became a small chapel called St. Michael's for some time. In 1936 it became St. Michael's Russian Catholic Byzantine Church. The small church has served the modest but devoted Russian Catholic community. It is the last Russian Catholic parish in New York City, and only one of four in the entire country.

215 Bowery Charles Kinkel 1872 This limestone-faced building was built for the New Amsterdam Savings Bank in 1872, which failed by 1876. It then became Germania Bank, reflective of the large German population near this area at the end of the 19th century. This building was constructed on an irregularly narrow lot, and the heavy stonework and quoins enhance its narrow façade.

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.

"The Bowery, north from Rivington Street, showing a bread line extending to the Salvation Army Memorial Hotel No. 223 -225 Bowery, ca. 1932." The Salvation Army Memorial Hotel, the final destination for the men waiting on this bread line, moved into the 10-story building, known as Booth House in 1913. From this location they provided a variety of service to the changing lower Manhattan populations over the 101 years they occupied the building. For the first decade and half the Army location largely served the vagrant population that lived and passed through the Bowery, but as the Great Depression took hold, the Army realized they could no longer function only by handing out meal tickets. The needy population was growing exponentially to include out of work men from common laborers to white collar workers. Knowing that food was one of the most important needs, by 1931 the Army location at Bowery started collecting unserved food from local restaurants to serve in a makeshift dining hall in the basement. This photograph depicts the lines for that service.

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

ca. 1890 Construction on the six tenements that would become known as the Mott Street Barracks began in the 1850s. Begun by stonemason Martin Walsh, a recent Irish immigrant, the tenements would become one of the most notorious in the city. Each floor had two small apartments. These apartments, in turn, were made up of three rooms, with only one window. Moreover, these windows were overshadowed in all the back apartments by the construction of a second set of structures, directly behind the street-facing tenements. (the photo depicts the narrow alley between the two.) The dark, cramped corridors and apartments of the Mott Street Barracks soon became home to a host of pests, rodents, and disease. The lodgings didn't have plumbing so the waste and outhouses were emptied in the cellar. Filth and refuse crowded the entrances and ground. The child mortality rate at Mott Street was so high that Riis claimed that one in three children died. Moreover, the barracks were no stranger to violent crime. Robberies were fairly common and a series of murders and gang fights secured Mott Street's notoriety beyond its filthy conditions. Following a series of increasingly irate complaints by the health department, Mott Street's owner repainted the tenements and added a new cornice, but the changes were skin deep. Otherwise, the buildings remained the same. In 1896, the Health Department seized the buildings, offering one dollar in compensation. Initially razing the back buildings, it soon became clear that there was no improving the barracks, and the entirety of the tenements was demolished.

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.

Fourteenth Ward Industrial School of the Children’s Aid Society (Astor Memorial Building) ARCHITECT: Vaux & Radford DATE: 1888-89 STYLE: Victorian Gothic The Fourteenth Ward Industrial School, often referred to as the Astor Memorial School is an example of Victorian Gothic architecture, it was designed by the architectural firm of Vaux & Radford. The building was donated by John Jacob Astor as a memorial to his wife, a longtime supporter of the activities of the Children’s Aid Society, and that it remains a worthy symbol of the work of the Children’s Aid Society.

Walking through the neighborhood now often referred to as NoLita (north of Little Italy), one can’t help but be struck by a four-story building on Mott Street which seems much more impressive than its modest height would imply. The stepped roof and carved foliate detail above and below the windows give the impression of a grand private residence, or at least the headquarters of some noble institution. But as most New Yorkers know, this is an old immigrant quarter, and the carving above the entrance which says “Fourteenth Ward Industrial School” gives away the building’s much less ostentatious origins. This story is adapted from a Village Preservation blog, which can be viewed here.

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

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

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

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.

John Althouse warehouses, Greene Street, March 28, 1947. A six-story brick and cast iron warehouse completed in 1884 for John Althouse, on the site of the Althouse Iron Works, an 1850s-era foundry. During the Civil War, the Althouse property served as a barracks for the 40th New York Volunteers. The warehouse was designed by William Ewan Worthen, who built an adjacent storage property at No. 146 Greene Street for Althouse in 1877.

The Triboro Barber School, 264 Bowery, ca. 1925.

The Bowery north from Grand Street, 1903.

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

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

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

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.

14th Ward Industrial School, ca. 1977. The 14th Ward Industrial School was constructed in 1888 to honor the memory and philanthropic work of Mrs. Charlotte Astor by her husband, John Jacob Astor. Long supporters of the Children’s Aid Society, this new school was to teach the impoverished children of this Italian immigrant enclave skills they would need to make their way as urban dwellers and workers. J.J. Astor commissioned Calvert Vaux to design the school. While the red brick, terra cotta, and buttresses denote a Victorian Gothic structure, Vaux added a stepped Dutch gable to top his creation. Today the former school is cooperative apartments.

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!

Above the display windows of Crate & Barrel, and the crowded Broadway and Houston Street sidewalks is a facade of uniquely decorative flourishes that hint at a time of transition for New York’s infrastructure. This building is a massive structure and was included within the boundaries of the NoHo Historic District. Two sculptures of classically-garbed women stand astride a massive circular window, sitting atop a pediment that reads ‘The Cable Building.’ The ‘cable’ in the building’s name refers not the kind of cable that transmits telegraph, telephone, or television, but the kind that pulls cable cars. Built from 1892 to 1894 by the Broadway & Seventh Avenue Railroad Company (later the Metropolitan Traction Company), the building was a unique example of a multi-use structure. It housed in its lower floors the machinery needed to propel much of the Broadway cable car system, with a large office building above. Four 32-foot wheels kept the network of cables in motion for as many as sixty cable cars traveling up and down Broadway from the Battery to Midtown (the cars moved by clamping on to the moving cable embedded in the street). The building was built with a steel and iron frame, with terra cotta and stone facing by the noted firm of McKim, Mead, and White. The New York Times noted “Although the large windows clearly denote a commercial space, the delicate terra cotta, light orange brick and elaborate copper cornice are characteristic of more monumental design. The sculptor J. Massey Rhind designed two colossal female figures flanking the doorway — commissioned sculpture is also unusual on commercial buildings. The Real Estate Record and Guide called the new Cable Building ”the highest achievement of the art” and remarked that, with its example, ‘no excuse remains for building cheaply or meanly on any New York City property.’” As the prediction of the demise of ‘cheaply’ or ‘meanly’ made buildings didn’t quite pan out, neither did the Metropolitan Traction Company’s hopes for business success. Less than a decade after the building and its massive steam-powered cable moving machinery were constructed, electric technology made it obsolete. In May of 1901, the final cable car trundled down Broadway and the line was electrified. A few years later in 1904, the subway system would begin opening and connecting the city. The building would stand to see the significant widening of Houston Street in the 1930s and housed many small-scale manufacturers and offices, including businesses like National Pants, Hercules Shoe Lace and the Doll Parts Manufacturing Association. By the mid-1980s after changes in ownership, the building was largely converted back to office use, and in 1989, the Angelika Film Center opened on the southwest side of the building, occupying much of the space that previously housed the cable car machinery.

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

Parade in front of 236 Elizabeth Street, ca. 1935.

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.

56-58 Bleecker Street; ca. 1975.

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.

View of Elm Street (Lafayette), looking uptown toward Houston Street with the Puck Building at right, August 18, 1900.

Old St. Patrick's Cathedral, door detail, ca. 1975.

New York Infirmary for Women and Children In 1857 the first female physician in America, Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, established a the first hospital for women, staffed by women, and run by women called The New York Infirmary for Women and Children. It was located in the house at 58 Bleecker Street, which was originally numbered 64 Bleecker Street. Built in 1822-1823, the house was erected for James Roosevelt, great grandfather of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who lived there until his passing only ten years before Blackwell began renting there. Blackwell's hospital opened its doors on May 12, 1857, the 37th birthday of Florence Nightingale, whom Blackwell had befriended earlier in her career. The hospital was open seven days a week and provided medical care for needy women and children free of charge. The staff at first consisted of Elizabeth, director; her sister Emily Blackwell, surgeon; and Dr. Marie Zakrewska. The hospital provided practical medical instruction for women studying for their medical degree, which was unavailable elsewhere. The hospital was operated solely by a staff of women, and its opening was attended and praised by the noted abolitionist preacher Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. However, many others were not enthusiastic about this enterprise, and according to Blackwell she was told that no one would rent her a space for this purpose, that the police would shut the hospital down, that they would not be able to control the patients, and that no one would financially support such an institution. However, the hospital was able to operate and over time views on women in medicine evolved. The hospital was responsible for innovations in hygiene-critical in preventing disease and in educating the public on those benefits, such as bathing ailing patients and encouraging them to keep clean. Blackwell also launched a "Sanitary Visitor" program to visit the needy in their homes in the slums and improve hygiene. The program later expanded into the hospital’s "Out Practice Department," a precursor of the Visiting Nurse Service. The first Sanitary Visitor, Rebecca Cole, was also the second African American woman to become a doctor in America. By 1865 the trustees applied for a charter to become a medical college, the Women’s Medical College of the New York Infirmary located at 128 Second Avenue (see map entry). The hospital still exists today as New York Downtown Hospital which merged with New York Presbyterian in 2013. Prior to opening the hospital, Blackwell's had opened a series of dispensaries in several locations around the East Village to serve poor women and children in the surrounding community. The first location was opened in 1853 at 207 East 7th Street (demolished). Blackwell moved the dispensary to 36 Avenue A/136 East 3rd Street (present day 150 East 3rd Street, also demolished). In 1854, the New York Dispensary for Poor Women and Children was incorporated and the institution moved to a small house on the corner of East 15th Street and Second Avenue. In 2018 GVSHP installed a plaque at this location honoring Elizabeth Blackwell and the New York Infirmary for Women and Children (see link below).

No. 142 Greene Street, ca. 1978. This cast iron-fronted commercial building was designed by German-born architect Henry Fernbach and completed in 1871. A century later, as Soho became the focus of the city's contemporary art scene, the building became home to a series of blue chip galleries, including Leo Castelli, Pace, and Sperone Westwater.

6-8 Delancey Street, date unknown (post 1929). Built on the foundation of a former theatre, the building at no. 6 Delancey Street was constructed in 1928 as a commercial space. But the financial crash of the following year prevented any retailers from succeeding in the space initially. Though a number of sources claim that Tree Mark, an affordable shoe store, did not move into the building until after the Second World War, there is evidence (a newspaper advertisement) of the store occupying the building as early as 1934. The shoe store lasted three decades in that space before closing. In 1997 the building was taken over by the Bowery Ballroom, a well-known music venue.

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).

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.

Trenches for the high pressure water system along East Houston Street, between Mulberry and Mott Streets; undated photo. The Houston Street elevated station of the Third Avenue El is visible in the distance. At left, in the storefront of No. 50, is the tin shop of Niklas Hupfer. A few years earlier, in January 1894, an early-morning fire broke out in the basement of the five-story tenement building. The New York Times attributed the blaze to an errant cigar butt, and each of the building's 27 residents were fortunate to escape. Sgt. John Kellaher, on watch duty at Police Headquarters around the block, was credited with quick and decisive actions helping to avert loss of life. The buildings at left, on the north side of the street, were all demolished in late 1929, ahead of construction for the IND Sixth Avenue Line's Houston—Essex segment. IND construction led to the permanent widening of the Houston Street thoroughfare.

Police Headquarters, ca. 1900. Between 1863 and 1909, this unassuming Mulberry Street building was the headquarters for the New York City Police Department. Completed in 1862, in one of the densest areas of the city and only a few blocks from the notorious Five Points area, the building had a rich and sordid history. The New York Times noted in 1909, upon the removal of the police department to its new building on Centre Street, “No other building in the city, probably, is richer in memories than 300 Mulberry Street.” After being abandoned by the NYPD the building was used for magistrate and traffic court purposes through the mid century and razed sometime in the late 1950s or early 1960s. The building was a backdrop for any number of 19th century historic events and political players. During the draft riots in 1863, superintendent of police, John A. Kennedy, was beaten and left near death at headquarters. In 1895 a reformer, Teddy Roosevelt, was named Police Superintendent, a brief stop on his route to the White House.

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.

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.

"Bowery, west side, north from and including Prince, to and including East Houston Streets, 1934." The Federal style building seen here, with its brick facade, peaked roof, and dormers, likely dates to the early decades of the 19th century when Bowery was lined with these Federals. Though the large second story windows and dormers are no longer extant, and the Bowery facing facade is drastically altered, the bones of this original building remain, and can be seen more clearly on the Prince Street facade.

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.

Parade in front of 236 Elizabeth Street, ca. 1935. The flag bearers are holding the American flag and the flag of the Kingdom of Italy (originally the Sardinian flag), which was used from 1861 until 1946.

203 Bowery, between Spring and Rivington Streets, 1932.

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.

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

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

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

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

Puck Building ARCHITECT: Albert Wagner; Herman Wagner DATE: 1885-99 STYLE: Romanesque Revival The Puck Building, originally the home of Puck magazine, is one of the great surviving buildings from New York’s old publishing and printing district. The red-brick round-arched structure occupies the entire block bounded by East Houston, Lafayette, Mulberry and Jersey Streets, and has been one of the most prominent architectural presences in the area since its construction one hundred years ago. The style is an adaptation of the Romanesque Revival, which had reached great popularity in the 1880s.

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!

Roman Catholic Orphan Asylum ARCHITECT: Unknown DATE: 1825-26 STYLE: Federal This late Federal style institutional building was a popular type in the post-Revolutionary period. This three-story brick structure, with attic and low basement, retains a great deal of its original character. Formal in design, severely stark in appearance, the plain exterior is enhanced by a centrally located arched doorway, of great architectural beauty. This is one of the few complete late Federal period doorways in the City.

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.

"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.

On June 5th, 1870 Jacob Riis arrived in New York with 40$ and a revolver. Riis was one of the millions of immigrants arriving on the shores of the United States at the end of the 19th century. Seeking a better life, the immigrants were packed into the tenements and slums of New York. In the 1880s, the Lower East Side was the most densely populated place in the world. Riis's documentation of the inhabitants of these neighborhoods would make him famous and drive a reformist movement.

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

Subway Tavern, ca. 1905. The Subway Tavern was not any regular bar. Situated in a dense neighborhood, near a station of the new subway system, the tavern was created to be a moral one!? Conceived by Bishop Henry Codman Potter of the Episcopal Diocese of New York, it was meant to be a bar where "proper and gentlemanly" drinking wold occur. Staff here was empowered to monitor and guide patrons towards responsible drinking habits. Located in a former saloon (with unrestricted drinking one assumes), the Subway Tavern had a front room open to both sexes and a back room that was for men only. Patrons could have one, maybe two drinks before being cut off. Though noted in local and national news for its peculiarity, the experiment was largely a failure. The Episcopalian Church was not thrilled with their name associated with bar only a few blocks from the immorality of the Bowery. And within a year the bar was empty. (Presumably those who might have had two drinks here before moving on to a less virtuous establishment gave up the pretense and just started drinking elsewhere.) The Subway Tavern closed in 1905 and the location reopened soon after as an ‘out and out saloon,' likely making both the religious men (except for Bishop Potter) and the neighborhood imbibers much happier.

155 Wooster Street, ca. 1935. In 1968, Paula Cooper opened her first gallery in this building, becoming one of the first gallerists to open up shop downtown, in a neighborhood that would soon become synonymous with the city's contemporary art scene. Cooper's inaugural show included works by Sol LeWitt, Dan Flavin, and Donald Judd. The gallery relocated to Chelsea in 1996.

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.

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

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

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

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.

Cobblestone removal on Mott Street, between Prince and Houston Streets at an unknown date.

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.

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."

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.

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.

Laura Keene's Theatre ca. 1863-66 This structure was opened on November 18, 1856 and soon afterward re-christened Laura Keene's New Theatre. This name was attached to half a dozen theaters during the period from 1850 to 1870. She retired in 1863, and John Duff, who then became the manager, re-opened the house as Mrs. John Woods Olympic Theatre. After Mrs. Woods retirement in 1866 it had a checkered career and was demolished in 1880. Joseph Jefferson appeared here in the play "Our American Cousin" on its first performance on October 18, 1858.

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.

Olympic Theatre (Laura Keene's Theatre) In remembering the 150th anniversary of the Lincoln assassination, the Merchant’s House Museum displayed a dress in the house that was worn by a member of the Tredwell family to an entertainment venue known as Laura Keene’s Theatre. In one of the pockets was a ticket from a performance there. This is how I first became aware of this lost theater, which had burned down in 1881. But first, who was Laura Keene? While her name may not be familiar to many people today, Keene was a noted actress and theater manager who happened to be onstage at Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C. the night that Abraham Lincoln was assassinated 150 years ago last April. She played the lead role in the play, Our American Cousin. Interestingly, that play debuted at Keene’s theater in New York in 1858. The popular Laura Keene’s Theatre was located at 622-624 Broadway, between Bleecker and Houston Streets, in present-day NoHo. The thru-block building extended to Crosby Street. 1862 Perris & Browne Map Laura Keene’s Theatre is the thru-block building at right, which faces Broadway and Crosby Streets. 1862 Perris & Browne fire insurance map. Plate 49. Source: NYPL. Replacing the theater was a six-story cast-iron building constructed in 1880-82, which is now part of the NoHo Historic District. The designation report for the historic district mentions that the theater originally opened in 1856. It is reported that Keene managed this theater until 1863, by which time her popularity had been waning. Keene hailed from England, but had been performing at various theaters up and down the East Coast of the United States. In New York, she became a theater manager at a time when only men held this position. Before and after opening a theater named after her, she appeared in a number of theaters along Broadway – stretching from present-day TriBeCa to 14th Street

236 Elizabeth Street, ca. 1935. The altar here is set up in front of what looks to be a bakery. It was perhaps erected to celebrate the feast of St. Joseph. March 19th each year is celebrated by Italian communities all over the world. The rituals include a parade and a communal meal, usually paid for and served by the wealthier citizens to the those less fortunate (at least in the old country). The food is laid out on a table or altar with religious items and photos or objects belonging to loved ones. The meals include traditional dishes such as pasta (with breadcrumbs symbolizing sawdust to recall St. Joseph's work as a carpenter), pastries, and bread baked in the shape of rings, to symbolize Jesus' crown of thorns. Note the piles of ring shaped bread in the shop's window.

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.

Sidewalk altar, ca. 1935.

Saint Patrick’s Old Cathedral ARCHITECT: Joseph-François Mangin DATE: 1809-15 STYLE: Gothic Revival, Church Although only the shell of this building remained intact after the church was completely gutted by a fire in 1886, the original Cathedral, when completed in 1815, was one of the earliest examples of Gothic Revival architecture in the City. Some of this early Gothic work survived the restoration of 1868. Formal and severely plain in appearance, this smooth-faced windowless wall has great dignity and character in its restrained simplicity.

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

Building at the northeast corner of Houston and Elm (now Lafayette) Street during construction of the IRT East Side Line, October 26, 1900.

Although its cornerstone was laid in 1809, St. Patrick's was not dedicated until May 1815. The War of 1812 and financial difficulties within the diocese delayed its construction. Leading citizens attending the opening ceremonies included Mayor John Ferguson and his predecessor, DeWitt Clinton. The novelty of a Roman Catholic cathedral within the United States made the original St. Patrick's on Mott Street, below Houston, a tourist destination and an artist's subject.

Construction of the Mulberry Street: IRT East Side Line, now the site of 54 Bleecker Street. Taken 11/13/01.

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.

The Bowery Mission was established in 1879 and was the third rescue mission founded in the United States and the second in New York City. Since 1895 the mission has been operated by the Christian Herald Association. The mission occupied various buildings on the Bowery in its early years before moving into a permanent home at no. 227 in 1909. The building at 227 Bowery was constructed in 1876 for an undertaker and manufacturer of coffins. When the Mission leased the building, it also commissioned work for the neo-Grec structure, including the addition of a Tudor Revival style mock half-timbered facade on the second floor. Fronted with four stained glass windows, a new Gothic Revival style chapel was installed behind the stained glass. This religious-based organization was well-known for its bread lines. Numerous photographs taken during the Depression depict these queues. Today, the long-running service agency continues to provide food, shelter, employment, and medical assistance to homeless men (while also working with women and children at other locations).

Mott Street Industrial School, ca. 1890. 256-258 Mott Street once housed the Fourteenth Ward Industrial School, also known as the Mott Street Industrial School and the Astor Memorial School. The structure was built in 1888-1889 as the Children's Aid Society. Construction of the project was funded by John Jacob Astor III, who named the school in memory of his wife, a lifelong supporter of the Children's Aid Society. The Society was founded by Charles Loring Brace. Brace, a philanthropist, noticed declining conditions in New York and decided "something must be done to meet the increasing crime and poverty among the destitute children of New York. \[The Society's] objects are to help this class, by opening Sunday meetings and Industrial Schools." The Mott Street building is the only of the Children's Aid Society buildings to be designed solely as a school: others offered accommodations as well as a few classrooms. From 1889 and 1913, 256-258 Mott Street hosted night and day classes to serve the large working-class Italian immigrant community of the neighborhood. Architects Vaux & Radford, who built a number of other buildings for the Children's Aid Society over their careers, designed the school. The four-story structure is built in the Victorian Gothic Style, complete with carved stone, terra cotta, molded and colored brick, and arches topped by Tudor roses. The crowning feature of the building's facade is its three-sided oriel. An architectural critic at the time said the school was "of real interest as works of architecture as well as monuments of a noble charity." In 1913, a larger structure was built as part of the Children's Aid Society on Elizabeth and Hester Streets. The building was leased to the New York Association for the Improvement of the Conditions of the Poor, who eventually bought the structure and renamed it the Mulberry Community Center. The new community served a variety of functions, including offering medical and dental services in addition to English classes. At a point later, the structure's interior was remodeled for industrial use. The building was subsequently converted into apartments, which still occupy the former school. 256-258 Mott Street was designated a New York City landmark in 1977 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.

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.