Hancock Building, 1978.

Built in 1897 by the firm of Marsh, Israels & Harder, the Hancock Building was the home of Hammacher & Schlemmer beginning in 1904. The city's first hardware store, established in 1848 in a building on the Bowery, moved into this new structure after its small local storefront boomed into national company and popular mail order catalog.

The seven-story building has Romanesque details such as the arched windows on the top floor. It also features Beaux-Arts decoration, like the elegant scrolled detail above the entrance and Ionic pilasters (columns projected from the facade) on the middle stories of the building.

The hardware company moved once more to a larger location out of necessity in 1926. (The new location was 147 East 57th, which remains the flagship store today.) Today the building looks very much the same as it did in this 1970s photograph.