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.