The Lost Edgar Laing Stores Building - Murray and Washington Streets

The lines of the "Bogardus Building" anticipated the sleek designs to come a century later. from the collection of the Library of Congress

In the early 19th century two sprawling markets were located near the rivers on either side of Lower Manhattan--the Washington Market on the west and Fulton Market on the east.  Vendors traded in produce from New Jersey and Long Island, fresh fish and oysters, and meats.  Those doing business at the Washington Market focused mainly on fruits and vegetables

The Washington Market - from the collection of the New York Public Library

The Washington Market had opened in 1812.  An unexpected presence in the early 1840's was Laing & Randolph, coal dealers, whose coal yard and offices were located at No. 250-258 Washington Street, at the corner of Murray Street.  By 1843 the successful firm had three other coal yards throughout the city.

Edgar Hall Laing, Sr. was born in 1810.  Now, in addition to his coal business he was the first president of the Irving National Bank.  He apparently recognized that the Washington Market property held considerably more financial potential than its use as a coal yard.   In 1847 he commissioned James Bogardus to design a five-store complex on the site.

It was an early commission for Bogardus.  A year earlier the inventor was hawking his cast iron “eccentric sugar mill” and listed himself in the city directory as “eccentric mill maker.”  But his development of cast iron as an architectural medium would revolutionize architecture and engineering--enabling relatively inexpensive and fire-proof construction.  The cast sections were assembled on site and the façade was attached to the new structure.  The technique made possible large window openings and complicated ornamentation.

A close-up photo of the battered building taken in the early 1970's shows pencil-thin engaged columns and a few surviving decorative elements (right)  from the collection of the Library of Congress

The Edgar Laing Stores, completed in 1849, broke ground in other ways, as well.  It had a pre-fabricated cast iron frame system and its rounded corner and understated ornamentation are credited by some contemporary architectural historians as a predecessor to the Chicago School.  It was the first self-supporting multi-story structure with iron walls.

So new was the concept that on May 4, 1849 The New York Herald reported "This species of building is entirely new in this country, there having been, as yet, but four [sic] completed, which are situated at the corner of Washington and Murray streets, an inspection of which will at once satisfy the beholder of their utility and superiority."  The article noted that the cast iron buildings could be completed with the same number of workmen in half the time of a masonry structure.

With his market stores completed, Laing continued to diversify.  On October 31, 1850 the New-York Daily Tribune reported on his "magnificent project for the ultimate Removal of the Slaughter-Houses from the thickly populated districts."  Laing's massive project on 39th Street between Eleventh and Twelfth Avenues would consolidate no fewer than 50 slaughter-houses that dotted the city.  The newspaper called it "the most salutary and thoroughly beneficent improvement contemplated" in the city.

In the meantime, the Edgar Laing Stores filled with produce dealers.  J. Wheaton & Co., provision merchants, were here in 1851; as was the store of George Walker.  That year Walker advertised a shipment of "Glenfield Patent Starch" from England.  His ad said "The Glenfield Patent Powder Starch has now been used for some time in that department of the Royal Laundry where all the finest goods are finished for Her Majesty, Prince Albert and the Royal Family."

Edgar Laing had died on March 4, 1852.  His wife, Sophia, did not retain possession of the Washington Market property for long.  In April 1853 the stores were sold at auction.

George Walker had added a somewhat surprising product to his line that year.  While he still handled the Glenfield Starch, he now also advertised "Imported Cigars in Quantities to suit purchasers--City and country grocers, hotels, &c, supplied on the most liberal terms."  Another merchant with an unexpected product for sale was J. A. Clark.  His ad in The New York Herald on May 8, 1853 hawked "Firecrackers, of Gold Chop, together with every known (and many entirely new) descriptions of fireworks, for sale as reduced priced."

from the collection of the Library of Congress

Grocers and provision dealers continued to occupy the Edgar Laing Stores as the decades passed.  The businesses included John F. Kothe's "fine retail grocery store" in the early 1870's; and wholesale grocers and product merchants Kothe & Stemmerman; Gennerich, Hilsman & Co.; G. Pustkuchen; and J. E. Laird.

The Financial Panic of 1873--an economic depression as devastating as the Great Depression of 1929--greatly affected the already desperate poor.  Early in 1874 the Reform Association for the Relief of the Aged and Destitute Poor was organized and asked for donations of food from wholesale grocers.  On February 26 The New York Herald announced that the merchants of the Edgar Laing Stores had pitched in.  J. E. Laird provided one basket of turnips, Gennerich Hilsman & Co. gave a bag of flour, G. Pustkuchen donated a bag of barley, and Kothe & Stemmerman provided one box of macaroni.

Over the succeeding years produce dealer George H. Barteis; A. S. Stone, wholesale fruit merchant; and Maruice A. Lippman Co., Inc. fruits, occupied stores.

As the Washington Market was flattened, the landmarked Edgar Laing Stores stood alone.  from the collection of the Library of  Congress

As the second half of the 20th century dawned, the sprawling Washington Market complex, now surrounded by towering commercial buildings, was an inconvenient presence in lower Manhattan.  After the Hunts Point Cooperative Market was completed in the Bronx in 1962, the vintage Washington Market buildings were slated for demolition.

On December 20, 1970 The New York Times architectural journalist Ada Louise Huxtable wrote "Washington Market is gone.  It is now 38 acres of pink (handmade brick) rubble...Well, not quite all."  Not yet demolished were a group of Federal-style houses (later relocated) and the Edgar Laing Stores building, which had been earlier been designated a landmark by the Landmarks Preservation Commission.

Now better known as the Bogardus Building, it was carefully dismantled in 1971, the pieces numbered for subsequent reconstruction, and the sections stored in a nearby vacant lot.

But, unprotected, a large number of the panels were stolen in 1974.  An editorial in The New York Times lamented "Clearly, the thieves were less interested in history and art than in the high price of scrap iron."  Twenty-two broken panels were discovered later in a Bronx junkyard, but two-thirds of the historic facade had already been scrapped, sold for $90 per truckload.

A surviving scrap of the Edgar Laing Stores Building is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

In response, with the cow already out of the bar, the Landmarks Commission moved the remaining 59 panels to a secure city-owned building.  But on July 11, 1977 Ada Louise Huxtable reported "Now someone has stolen the building again.  It isn't easy to steal panels weighing about a ton and a half each.  You have to like scrap iron a lot."

On the site of the Edgar Laing Stores building and its neighbors today is a residential building.  To memorialize the lost architectural treasure, a passingly similar building was erected in 1983, ironically in the Fulton Street Market, where the competitors of the Edgar Laing Stores had operated a century and a half earlier.

The Fulton Market building pays homage to the Edgar Laing Stores.  photo by Jazz Guy

many thanks to Pam Frederick for suggesting this post

The Rare 1857 Bogardus Survivor at No. 63 Nassau Street

A grisly storefront detracts from the handsome design of the upper stories -- photo by Alice Lum

By the time William of Orange-Nassau ascended the English throne in 1689 the British had controlled New York for 25 years.  In his honor Nassau Street was named (as well as an Orange Street, but that was later renamed Baxter Street).   By the first decades of the 19^th century, the venerable, curving street was bustling with commerce.

In 1827 Thomas Thomas established his kitchen tinware factory and shop.   Thomas was successful in making and selling useful household objects and by 1842 had taken his sons, Cornelius and Augustus, into the business, now called T. Thomas & Son.  On December 28 of that year a straight-to-the-point advertisement was published in The New York Tribune.  “Coffee Urns—A good assortment of Block-Tin Urns, for sale by the manufacturers.”

Apparently the post-Christmas response was not as great as desired, for two days later T. Thomas & Son cut prices.  “Coffee Urns, for New-Year’s Day.  A variety, at reduced prices, to be had of the manufacturers.”

Within a year or two of that advertisement Thomas’s son, Augustus, built a new five-story structure on the site.   After Thomas Thomas died in 1856 William V. Curtis purchased No. 63 Nassau Street from Augustus Thomas for $28,750.  By now the jewelry trade had engulfed the Maiden Lane-Nassau Street neighborhood.    Curtis had already joined with Augustus Thomas in a silk goods importing business, A. Thomas & Co.” in the Milhau Pharmacy Buidling a block away at No. 183 Broadway.

The Milhau Pharmacy Building stood out among its neighbors.  In 1848 it had been designed and constructed by James Bogardus who bolted onto its front an architectural and engineering innovation:  a cast iron façade.  

Bogardus had started out as a watchmaker and “machinest,” but in the 1840s began conceptualizing pre-fabricated cast iron facades.  These could be quickly bolted to the brick fronts of buildings, could imitate carved stone, be easily cast with elaborate decorative elements and—most importantly—would be fireproof.  

On the morning of June 16, 1855 a devastating fire on Maiden Lane had destroyed several businesses and the constant threat of fire terrorized businessmen and residents alike--people like William Curtis.

Immediately upon acquiring the building at No. 63 Nassau, Curtis laid plans to update it.  There is little doubt that it was Bogardus whom Augustus Thomas and William V. Curtis commissioned around 1857 to renovate the structure with an updated cast iron façade. 

Bogardus gave the building a new, Italianate face with elegant arcades—a two-story arcade at street level succeeded by a three-story arcade above.   Highly-decorated spandrels erupted from the capitals of the tall, fluted columns that supported the arches.   A regimented corbel table supported the foliate cornice.  At the base of the second floor columns he attached alternating bas-relief portraits of George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, an unusual decorative touch that he used in other of his buildings.

The two Benjamin Franklin portraits, framed in wreaths, survive.  The Washington plaques mysteriously disappeared sometime in the 1970s -- photo by Alice Lum

Thomas and Curtis most likely intended No. 63 Nassau Street to be an income producing property; and indeed jewelry firms like Auguste A. Abry, a Swiss-born watch maker, began moving in.   But the Financial Panic of 1857 and the ominous predictions of a civil war negatively influenced the jewelry trade.  In April 1860 the building was sold to Julien Gauton for $24,000.

Gauton, who was born in France, was a bootmaker whose shop was a block north at No. 89 Nassau Street.    As Curtis had intended to do, Gauton used the property as an income producer.    Joining Abry in the building were Edward Boband and Louise Cordier, watch case polishers who moved in in 1864; and Manzini & Lawson in 1866. Partners John A. Manzini and Samuel Lawson manufactured jewelry here. 

Throughout the rest of the century the building would be home to assorted jewelry and watch companies. Louis Squadrilli came to New York from Naples, Italy and set up his wholesale business here selling “coral, cameos, malachite, lapis lazuli, mosaic, lava, and garnet goods,” as the Civil War was coming to a close.   C. H. Zimmermann sold diamonds here starting in 1870, the same year that Alois Kohn & Son, dealers in gold chains; Stern Bros. & Co, sellers of watches; and Dorrevee & Troll, dealers in jewelry and gold chains moved in.

The original Corinthian capitals have fallen from the columns, but the bulk of the decorative ironwork survives -- photo by Alice Lum

In the meantime, the ground floor was home to a restaurant-saloon.  Albert Bossert and Frederick Schmid opened the business in 1864 and the space would continue as a restaurant, saloon, or both, constantly through 1917.

Stern Brothers was still here in 1881 when tragedy visited No. 63 Nassau Street.  16-year old John Maas was a clerk here, employed by Marcus Stern.  Around 8:45 in the morning on December 30 a 14-year old messenger boy, Henry Weinstein, entered the office.  Weinstein worked for another jewelry firm, Doppelbaum & Friedman, at No. 10 Maiden Lane.   He had been sent to Stern’s to pick up some rings that had been dropped off there to be finished.

When Maas opened a drawer to get the rings, he moved Marcus Stern’s revolver and laid it on the counter top.     When young Weinstein picked up the gun by the barrel, Maas attempted to retrieve it.  In the confusion the gun went off.

Workers in the other offices and shops heard the gunshot, followed by a scream of horror.  When they rushed into the Stern workshop, young Henry Weinstein was lying on the floor with a bullet wound in the middle of his chest.  He was dead before he could be lifted off the floor.

The Nassau Street neighborhood continued to be the center of the jewelry district into the 20^th century.   It was the building’s location rather than its extraordinary façade, however, that was considered valuable at the turn of the century.   In 1909 the City valued No. 63 Nassau Street at $86,000 “without the building,” and at $90,000 with it.

That same year Morris Grossman ran his shoe store below street level, under the Nassau Café.   On July 22 a young man struggled down the steps from the street with a heavy satchel on his shoulder.  He approached the clerk, Isidor Grossman, and explained “Pardon me, but I’ve got $900 in silver in this satchel and I’d like to leave part of it with you.  I’ve got to carry it to Brooklyn, but you can see that it’s too heavy for one trip.”

Werther later said to a reporter from The Sun that “Clerking in Nassau Street accustoms one to odd requests.”

The young man, Tommy Davies, then opened the satchel and produced two white canvas bags.  Each was marked $200 and they landed on a bench with a noticeable thud.   Davies then left with his still-ponderous satchel.

Werther consider all of this and turned to the other clerk in the store, T. H. Gaffney, saying that “he’d bet anything some villainy was afoot,” according to The Sun.   “Think a chap like that would leave his money bags with a stranger and slip away without a receipt if all was as it should be?”

Werther called a policeman, who in turn summoned a plain clothes detective from the John Street station house.    The bags of silver dollars were put in the safe and the following morning the detective hid in a cubby hole and waited for Davies. 

When Davies arrived, he said that he had taken his $500 home to Brooklyn and he would now like the other $400 back.   Detective Bill Keating popped out and demanded “Where’d you get that money?”

The 28-year-old man nervously explained that he had inherited “a lot of stock” and he had taken it to Boody, McLellan & Co. at 111 Broadway who had offered him $900 for it.  He asked for the money in silver dollars, but the cashier gave him bills and referred him to the Sub-Treasury.  “The man at the Sub-Treasury was very pleasant and gave him silver dollars as directed,” reported The Sun, “500 in one bag, 200 apiece in each of the two others.”

The detective took Davies to Boody, McLellan & Co. where cashier Harold Rice confirmed his story.  At the Sub-Treasury, as would be expected, swapping silver dollars for the bank notes was vividly remembered .  Then Davies’s mother was called to the precinct house to vouch for her son.   She did.

When Davies was asked why he wanted coins, he explained “Money’s handier for spending that way.  “I just dump the dollars in my trunk and take one out when I need it.”  He added, “I sometimes spend as much as a dollar a week.”

Mrs. Davies, when asked if she didn’t think that leaving $400 in coins with a stranger was risky, shrugged, “No, sir.  I trust everybody and so does Tommy.  Nobody ever has fooled us yet.”

Grossman’s Shoe Store became the Golden Shoe Co. in 1911 when brothers Samuel L. and Bernhart Golden took over the space.   Their marketing gimmick was to sell quality shoes at one price--$2.95.  “All Styles One Price,” read their advertisements.   One of those styles, the “Genius” was advertised on October 1, 1915.  “Olive buck tops in dark tan, gun calf and patent gold—both lace and button.”

Two years after the Nassau Café closed in 1917, the ground floor façade was destroyed and a modern store front installed.  Now there were two retail stores and a separate entrance to the upper floors.  That year jewelers Schulz-Goldman Company and the Ostby & Barton Company both took a floor in the building.  Ostby & Barton were manufacturers of plain and engraved solid gold band rings, with their factory in Providence, Rhode Island.

Jewelry firms continued to lease in the building through the middle of the 20^th century.  In 1946, after the Gauton-Carroll family had owned the property for 86 years, it was sold.   The building changed hands numerous times before being purchased by Ullman Realty Co. in 1960.  A year later the ground floor was again completely remodeled.

photo by Alice Lum

Today, despite the unsightly ground floor store front and the desperate need of a paint job, James Bogardus’s handsome and early cast iron façade is largely intact.   It is one of only five known Bogardus buildings in the country, four of which are in New York City.  On May 15, 2007, against the protests of its owner, this remarkable and rare survivor was designated a New York City Landmark.

Bogardus' 1861 No. 85 Leonard Street

Cast iron made the elaborate sprandrel decorations, ornate brackets and classical heads along the cornice affordable -- photo by Alice Lum

During the 18th century, today's Tribeca was known as the Lispenard Meadows–owned by the wealthy Anthony Lispenard.   As the city spread northward, Effinham Embree cut streets through the property.  Three of them were named for Anthony Lispenard's sons:  Thomas, Anthony and Leonard.

In 1800, the streets were ceded to the city and in 1806 the 27-1/2-foot-wide Leonard Street was widened to 50 feet.  Before long handsome residences began lining the street.  In the years preceding the Civil War, they were being replaced by tall loft and retail buildings as the area developed into a dry goods and apparel district.

photo by Alice Lum

In the meantime, James Bogardus had established his New York cast iron foundry at Duane and Centre Streets in 1848.  The main force in the development of cast iron as an architectural medium, Bogardus's quickly-built, relatively inexpensive and fire-proof construction met with huge success.  The finished sections were assembled on site and the façades were attached to the new structures.  The innovative technique made large window openings and complicated ornamentation possible, and often mimicked the limestone or marble structures nearby.

Bogardus' cast iron structure (center) remarkably duplicated the stone buildings on either side -- photo by Alice Lum

In 1860 construction began on 85 Leonard Street.  The dry goods firm of Kitchen, Montross and Wilcox commissioned Bogardus to design a loft building with retail space on the ground floor.  The firm, owned by Ziba H. Kitchen, William Montross and Aaron P. Wilcox, had leased the land from the estate of Thomas Swords with the condition that they erect “a good and substantial store house.”

Completed in 1861, the five-story Italianate structure astonishingly impersonated the stone buildings on either side.  Two two-story tall sperm candle arcades (so named because the thin columns are similar to the candles manufactured from the oil of sperm whales) rise from a cornice above the ground floor and are repeated on the fourth and fifth floors.  The cast iron allowed for more intricate ornamentation in the spandrels above the fifth floor windows than are seen in the stone neighbors on either side.

The sperm candle arcades were named because of the resemblance of the tall, slender columns to candles made from the oil of sperm whales -- photo by Alice Lum

Kitchen, Montross & Wilcox ran its retail store here until around 1868, after which the ground floor continued to be the home of dry goods merchants.

In 1883, commission merchants Whitney & Matthews did business here.  An inventory check that year revealed that around $2,400 worth of expensive silk was missing, and Detective Sergeants Crowley and William Adams were determined to find the culprit.

On June 18, they arrested a clerk, James L. Sheerer, who was found pawning a roll of silk in a Sixth Avenue pawn shop.  In his pockets they found pawn tickets for 86 silk handkerchiefs and 50 pieces of silk.  Another four pieces of silk and 96 silk handkerchiefs were discovered in his apartment on 20^th Street near Sixth Avenue

Whitney & Matthews found a new clerk.

Stevens Voisin was doing business on an upper floor in 1886 when he fled the country to escape debts.  Although the exporter had about $25,000 due to him from outstanding accounts, he was unable to pay his creditors that were pressing him.  Voisin apparently preferred Mexico to the Debtor’s Prison on Blackwell’s Island.

The ground floor, in the meantime, remained a dry goods store with Matthews, Blum & Vaughan occupying the space in 1887.  Six years later the Tappan Estate sold the building for about $102,000 to A. D. Juillard.  (Juillard was one of the main supporters of the Metroplitan Opera House.)   At the time, the ground floor was renting for $5000 per year and a potential tenant offered $4,000 a year for the upper floors “in case an elevator is put in.”

In 1897, while Fitzpatrick & Somers, agents for the Bridgeport Corset Company rented space here, Abraham Schwab, attempted to lobby for his favorite candidate Judge Van Wyck by stringing a banner reading “Republican Administration Means Official Extravagance” from the building.  The former bridge commissioner’s banner stretched across the street to No. 88.  Schwab quickly discovered that Leonard Street was Democratic stomping ground.  His banner was cut down and two others promoting the Democratic Seth Low went up.

That same year the mail order firm of H. Smail did business from an upper floor selling “imported leg bands for pigeons and poultry.  Numbered and lettered, all sizes.”

The dry goods firm of Ryan & McGraham was here at the turn of the century, followed by Thomas Michae and Cle, importers of dress goods in 1913.

A.D. Juillard’s daughter Helen put her late father’s real estate up for auction on February 10, 1920, including 85 Leonard Street.   It was purchased by the Durham Hosiery Mills Company which installed its headquarters here.  Two years later Lewis, Gerstman & Co., manufacturers of pajamas, occupied an upper floor.

By the second half of the 20^th century the SoHo neighborhood was the haunt of struggling artists who used the loft spaces for studios, while art galleries began replacing retail stores.  No. 85 Leonard was purchased around 1974 by Joseph Salamon of RFR Promotional Fabrics, the same year it was designated a New York City Landmark.  Salamon continued to rent the fourth floor as artists’ studios.

The original first floor storefront is amazingly intact.  The wood-framed shop windows and the transoms survive.   A treasure to Bogardus fans, the foundry mark is still clearly visible today:  “James Bogardus, Originator and Patentee of Iron Buildings, Pat. May 7, 1856.”

The 1857 James Bogardus "George Bruce Building" No. 254 Canal Street

photo by Dorothy Spears

When George Bruce bought the land at the corner of Canal and Lafayette Streets (then known as Elm Street) in 1832, the area was still mainly industrial. The waterway that had run down the center of Canal Street, giving it its name, had been covered over in 1821 leaving an especially wide thoroughfare.

Here Bruce, who was more well-known as a printer and typographer, erected a lumber mill that operated for over two decades. The inventive and ambitious Scotsman had come to the United States before he was 15 years old. By the time he built his mill he was highly-regarded in the printing industry and deeply involved in the education and training of working-class men and boys.

The tone of Canal Street was changing in 1855, with more refined commercial buildings being constructed, when a raging fire destroyed the mill and adjoining buildings and the fury of the blaze at one point threatened the entire block. Rather than rebuild his mill, Bruce opted to erect a loft building to house his printing concern.

“Having deliberated some time whether to erect an ordinary building on the ruins that should immediately pay an interest on cost, or an edifice suitable for the future trade of the street,” an associate would explain decades later, “he decided on the latter course and placed a costly iron structure on the property.”

Having invented a new form of mechanical type-casting and stereotype methods Bruce had already amassed a fortune. Gambling on Canal Street’s future as a commercial center, he envisioned a large structure with three separate stores on the lower floors and loft space above.

In the meantime, James Bogardus—who had also been involved in the printing industry--had been making his mark on the New York architectural scene. The cast iron facades which he designed, produced and installed, were groundbreaking in affording rapid construction, relatively inexpensive and ornate designs, and incombustible material.

With the fire that wiped out his lumber mill fresh in Bruce’s mind, the concept of a fire-proof building had great appeal.

Bogardus produced a five-story Italianate palazzo structure with expansive windows that allowed sunlight to pour into the building. Completed in 1857, the vast corner building featured fluted Corinthian columns at street level and between the upper windows. A generous cornice caps the structure’s distinguished façade. It was, as the AIA Guide to New York City would later describe it, “breathtaking.”

The building was home to Charles Scott & Co. in the 1860s, importers of embroideries and “white goods” and in the 1880’s wholesale tobacco dealers Wise and Bendheim were here.

In December 1910 the building was auctioned with 22 other properties comprising George Bruce’s estate. Having made what The New York Times reported were “wise investments in real estate,” Bruce left property with an estimated value of between $2 and $3 million.

By the middle of the century 254 Canal Street, along with its surroundings, had declined. When Nathan Wilson purchased the building in 1948 from Moe Levy & Son, it was a manufacturing loft with various shops on the ground floor. In the early 1980’s the ground floor was essentially covered over by slapped-on storefronts and the all but one of the wooden doorways were replaced by modern glass and metal entranceways. Metal flashing covered much of the first floor cornice.

A decade later, new owners CHH Realty Company recognized the importance of the now-landmarked building and partner Michael Salzhauer told authors Margot and Carol Gayle the firm “is committed to the maintenance of this historic structure.”

photo by Americasroof

Indeed, today the largest surviving James Bogardus building in New York City shines again. Like many of the Canal Street structures, it has been restored to its 19th Century appearance, including the once-lost street level.

George Bruce’s 1857 jewel is once again what the Landmarks Preservation Commission called “one of the finest and most distinctive cast-iron buildings in New York.”

A Bogardus Treasure Reclaimed -- 75 Murray Street

Photo epicharmus.com

In the years prior to 1860 the commercial district was still in the downtown section of Manhattan. Here, in 1848, John Bogardus designed, produced and installed a cast iron façade for the John Milhau’s new pharmacy at 183 Broadway, between Corland and Dey Streets.

The great fires of 1835 and 1845 that decimated the lower portion of Manhattan created a near-paranoia among merchants and developers. Bogardus’ new concept of facing buildings in an incombustible material was ground-breaking and exciting.

In addition, Milhau’s drugstore which featured soaring piers with Doric columns at every floor, applied ornamentation and an elaborate cornice frieze was constructed in the span of three days.

Bogardus was on the way to fame and success. The inventor who only a year earlier was hawking his cast iron “eccentric sugar mill” and who listed himself in the city directory as “eccentric mill maker,” was now an architect and structural façade founder.

Photo epicharmus.com

In 1858 Bogardus manufactured the commercial building at 75 Murray Street. By now his facades had become more ornate and visually appealing and this new building had all the bells and whistles. Italianate in style, each of the five stories was separated by deep cornices supported by modified fluted Doric columns. Fearsome Medussa head keystones capped the window arches on the third and fifth floors below elaborate leafy knee brackets.  Rolling iron shutters, devised by Daniel Badger, were installed over the street level entrances and windows that could be lowered at night for total security.

Bogardus created, for a relatively low cost in an extremely short construction time, a sumptuous building.

Brothers John and Francis Hopkins established their glassware business on the first floor while among the tenants on the upper stories was John F. C. Thielemann’s importing business.

In 1874 General Francis Darr manufactured “fancy soaps” at 75 Murray. In his employ was young James R. Washington, a clerk and bookkeeper. In June of that year Washington quarreled with the building’s porter, Joseph Pfohl, drew a revolver and shot the janitor in the right knee.

Pfohl was quickly transported to St. Vincent’s Hospital in a carriage and, despite Darr’s attempts to cover up the shooting, Washington was arrested by Detective McDonnell shortly thereafter. Darr bailed out his employee for the astonishing amount of $1000, explaining that the boy was General George Washington’s last direct descendant.

By the turn of the 20th Century the building was owned by the Heyman Brothers who held significant property in Manhattan.

Various tenants moved in and out of 75 Murray throughout the 20th Century and the wear and tear of a century and a half of use was evident when George and Christiane Aprile first saw it in 1992. The couple’s son, Matthew, would be attending nearby Stuyvesant High School and they needed a home closer than their Brooklyn neighborhood.

When they purchased the building for $635,000 the following year it had “no windows, no water, no electricity – just a façade,” according to Aprile. The couple immediately sought to restore the façade of the landmarked building.

Within the architectural community, a confirmed Bogardus building is the baseball card equivalent of an Honus Wagner. In his 1956 book “Bogardus Revisited,” Turpin C. Bannister said “For most historians, the prophet, apostle, and patron saint of Ferromania has been James Bogardus.”

The New York Landmarks Preservation Commission had carefully avoided attributing the structure to Bogardus. Because building permits did not exist in Manhattan until the spring of 1866, there was no official documentation to support the claim, despite the similar character of other existing Bogardus works.

It was historian David Kahn who noticed a foundry mark on the cast iron steps where the thick layers of paint had started to chip away. The foundry mark read “James Bogardus Originator & Patentee of Iron Buildings Pat’ May 7, 1850.”   No. 75 Murray Street was one of only a handful of surviving Bogardus structures.

The Apriles owned a treasure.

The approximately $600,000 restoration began in November of 1993, resulting in the cream-colored façade gleaming once again. The street level amazingly retains its original 19th Century storefront, including the Badger roll-down shutters – still in working condition.

photo sothebyshomes.com

Each of the first four floors was renovated into full-floor loft spaces for events, a “ballroom” and temporary exhibition space. The top-most floor became a residential penthouse with private roof deck.

photo sothebyshomes.com

In 2010 the 12,000 square-foot property was put on the market for $17.5 million.