The Quondam Building - 450-460 Park Avenue South

 

On July 2, 1910, the Real Estate Record & Guide reported that the De Forest Estate Corporation had leased the southwest corner of Fourth Avenue and 31st Street to the Quondam Realty Co.  The article said, "Work is to be started on or about Aug. 1 for the new-story office structure."  The Bridgemen's Magazine noted that the architectural firm of Herts & Tallant had designed the plans.  "The building will be known as the Quondam Building, and will be in the gothic style of architecture, and is estimated to cost $200,000."

Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide, July 2, 1910 (copyright expired)

Those plans were soon expanded.  Construction was delayed as negotiations with Robert Goelet, who owned the abutting property, played out.  Goelet leased his plot at 450-454 Fourth Avenue to the Quondam Leasing Company, now giving the developers a parcel twice the width of the original.

Herts & Tallant filed the revised plans on March 28, 1911.  The Engineering Record noted that the "12-story brick and terra cotta commercial building" would now cost $450,000 to erect (about $15.3 million in 2026).  

Completed in 1912, Herts & Tallant had designed two buildings that successfully pretended to be one.  Faced in white terra cotta, the architects' design was a 1911 take on late Gothic and Tudor.  The two-story base included elaborate arched entrances below niches with intricate Gothic hoods.  Quatrafoil panels created spandrels within the eight-story midsection.  Above a molded bandcourse, the two-story top section drew inspiration from Tudor-style residences, like the Dalmeny House near Edinburg, Scotland, with its crenellated parapet and Tudor pinnacles.

Although they were two buildings, some floors were cut through to create full-width spaces for tenants like silk manufacturers Collins, Doorly & Franc.  When the firm moved into the building in 1912, they had already named two silk colors in honor of Presidential daughters--Alice Blue, for Alice Roosevelt, and Helen Pink, for Helen Herron Taft.  Now, on November 8, 1912, The New York Times reported, "Collins, Doorly & Franc, 450 Fourth Avenue, have obtained permission from Miss Eleanor Randolph Wilson, daughter of the President-elect, to name a new color 'Nell Rose,' in her honor."

Silk magazine, November 1912 (copyright expired)

Tenants in the buildings were highly varied.  Among them were Valentine Brothers, makers of oils and varnishes; Atlas Advertising Agency; the International Souvenir Spoon Company; and Wireless Age magazine.

Among the sales staff of Valentine Brothers in 1913 was George Pettit.  The 34-year-old was dealing with serious personal problems.  He was separated from his wife and living in a Brooklyn boarding house.  Additionally, despite his relative youth, he was suffering from rheumatism.  He remarked to his landlady, Annie Magno, "that he intended to jump from the Brooklyn Bridge," according to The New York Times.  Annie brushed it off.  But a few nights later, on September 10, 1913, she was standing outside Pettit's door and heard him exclaim, "I did it!  I did it all right!"

Pettit had swallowed poison.  Annie Magno first called a policeman and then telephoned the Swedish Hospital, but it was too late.  The newspaper said Pettit's name "was added last night to the long list of those who have committed suicide by taking Bichloride of mercury tablets."

Another fabric dealer to occupy a full floor was A. Wimpfheimer & Brother, dealers in "velvets, plushes and other pile fabrics," as explained by Dry Goods Economist in December 1916.  Other tenants in the building at the time were Cerag Company, makers of a "delicious food rich" laxative; Motorcycle & Bicycle Illustrated magazine; and the National Amateur Wireless Association.  (On January 14, 1916, The New York Times reported, "The President of the association is Guglielmo Marconi.")

The American Clock & Suit Review, June 1915 (copyright expired)

In 1917, The Merchants' Association embarked on an "Anti-Litter" campaign within the commercial district of 14th Street to 42nd Street.  As a part of the program, "block captains" were selected from one business per block.  On December 10, Greater New York reported, "The American Velvet Company, 450-460 Fourth Avenue, has appointed Mr. Michael Robertori, Block Captain."  In one of his reports, Robertori disclosed:

I have made a thorough examination of this street and found conditions very good with the exception of a coal and wood establishment that has a habit of leaving cakes of ice on the sidewalk.  I have notified him this day to refrain from doing this as the sidewalk must be absolutely free from all obstructions.  He promises to remedy this and I shall watch him closely.

Among the broad spectrum of tenants in the building at the time were the Corrective Eating Society and the American Trapshooting Association.  

The Hammondsport Products Company was occuping space when Prohibition was enacted.  The firm held a permit "for manufacturing and selling wine for sacramental purposes," according to Federal agents.  But it seems that the firm's clients were not merely synagogues and churches.

In October 1922, agents Izzy Einstein and Moe Smith, disguised as cigar clerks in a small store in Grand Street, made inquiries about how they could obtain alcohol.  They were told that "wine could be bought from the Hammondsport Products Company, Inc. 450 Fourth Avenue, by using a password."  

According to the New-York Tribune on October 13, "They said that they telephoned to N. Rosenblum, secretary of the Rabbinical Bureau...who is also said to be a salesman for the Hammondsport company, and arranged for the purchase of the ten cases of assorted wine."  When the cases were delivered to the Grand Street address, the agents paid the trucker with marked bills.  They then seized, "the wine, the bills and the truck."  There were another 20 cases of wine in the vehicle.

Advertising agency Winemiller and Miller, Inc. had occupied space as early as 1919.  They employed what were called "illustrative photographers," and a representative told Studio Light, "We prepared to meet every demand, from a convincing and dramatic scene of fireman rescuing patients from a burning hospital...to the most advantageous display of a box of hairpins."  

In the spring of 1925, Winemiller and Miller, Inc. initiated an ad campaign for the Glen Falls Insurance Company.  For publicity, the firm launched a nationwide contest for the best fire prevention slogans.  It received more than 150,000 entries and the 100 best were awarded prizes--from $5 to $500--in the firm's offices on March 28.  (The winning slogan was, "Answer the Burning Question with Fire Prevention.")

The offices of the Westminster Kennel Club were in the building as early as 1929.  The distinguished dog show was scheduled to take place in Madison Square Garden beginning February 11 that year, and on January 27 The New York Times reported that entries "are still pouring into the offices of the club."  The article said, "Up to last night more than 2,000 dogs had been listed, with a large pile of entry blanks still to be tabulated."

Mid-century saw a new type of tenants, beginning with Leo H. Spivack, Inc. which opened its furniture showroom in May 1959.  An advertisement in Interiors that month described the showrooms as, "Newly hatched...and fairly bursting with the freshest, finest, most comprehensive collection of Scandinavian imports you ever saw!"

The original first- and second-floor detailing survived in 1940.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Furniture dealer William L. Marshall, Ltd. followed in 1961.  On August 8, The New York Times said that Marshall "has been channeling his cargoes of Asian, African and South American timber into banks, a law school, restaurants, hotel lobbies, club, libraries, executive offices of major corporations."

In 1959, Fourth Avenue was renamed Park Avenue South.  The following year, according to The New York Times, "Iranians began to move into the rug-importing trade in the city in large numbers."  Now, in 1976, 450-460 Park Avenue South had become a center for rug importers, part of what was deemed the "Oriental rug district."

The district lasted through 1983, when, according to Jon S. Ansari, president of the Amiran Corporation here, rug dealers were exasperated by the rising rents.  Other tenants quickly moved in.  Ogilvy & Mather leased "several floors," as described by Newsday on May 23, 1984 for its corporate headquarters.  Subsequent tenants included Facts on File publishing, the Montserrat Tourist Board, and Franklin Spier, Inc., which leased 21,300 square feet in 1997.

On the ground floor, the cabaret Arci's Place opened in 1999.  In 2005, PS450 opened, a restaurant with "a menu of comfort food," according to The New York Times food critic Florence Fabricant on March 23.  And in September 2028, a Felix Roasting Co. coffee bar and cafe moved in.

Renovations to the first and second floors were initiated in 2017.  Sadly, the stripped-down modernization erased what was left of Herts & Tallant's wonderful terra cotta decorations.

The entrance of No. 460 in 2011 (from Google Streetviews)

...and in 2026

photographs by the author