The 1929 Tree-Mark Shoe Building (Bowery Ballroom) - 6 Delancey Street

 

photograph by Corey W. Schneider

By the 1890s, many of the Federal-style houses along Delancey Street near the Bowery had been razed or remodeled for commerce.  One that survived in 1898 was 6 Delancey Street.  That year Carl Werner was arrested for operating a "disorderly house" (a brothel) in the premises.  The vintage building would survive nearly two more decades.

On January 17, 1914, the Record & Guide reported that Monroe & Landseidel, "will complete plans for a 2-story brick theatre...to be erected at 6-8 Delancey st. for Earnest Plath."  Variety noted the building would cost $10,000, or about about $315,000 in 2025.  Something went awry, however, and the architects withdrew the plans.  

The project was taken up by the Meyer & Schneider chain of theaters, which hired Lorenz Weiher to design the motion picture house.  Completed that year, the Art Theatre held 500 seats and cost $25,000--more than double that of the earlier design.  It would be renamed twice--to the M. & S. Theatre around 1918 and later The Delancey.

The motion picture theater would not survive especially long.  It was demolished in 1928 to make way for a "one-story brick store" for the Marbitz Realty Corp.  It was designed by Henry Creighton Ingalls for the owner's lessee, the Tree-Mark Shoe Co., Inc.  His plans projected the cost at $30,000 (about $534,000 today).

Founded in 1918, the Tree-Mark Shoe Co., Inc. specialized in orthopedic shoes, custom-made for specific customers with special needs.  The firm staffed its showroom with "podiatrist-salesmen."  

Ingalls had designed several theaters, including the Henry Miller Theatre and The Neighborhood Playhouse.  Completed in 1929, his symmetrical Italian Renaissance design for the Tree-Mark Shoe building smacked of a theater--its entrance placed within a dramatic, double-height arch.  The facade was faced in rusticated limestone, and octagonal openings floated above the show windows.  The frieze below the denticulated cornice was ornamented with stylized fleurs-de-lis.  Tree-Mark Shoes was incised into the stone parapet.

Although it appeared to be a two-story structure from the street, the showroom was technically one.  A mezzanine ran along the sides at what otherwise would be the second floor.  The offices were tucked into alcoves at this level, lighted by the octagonal windows.

Hundreds of boxes lined the walls and a magnificent chandelier hangs above the marble-tiled floor.  photo by Wurts Bros. from the Museum of the City of New York

Although Tree-Mark Shoes was well-known for its orthopedic footwear, it also did a brisk business with ready-made stock.  Aware that the population of the district was heavily Jewish, the firm routinely ran advertisements in Yiddish language magazines and newspapers.

The Jewish Journal, May 20, 1949.

An advertisement in the Brooklyn Jewish Center Review in January 1934 addressed patrons' struggles during the Great Depression. 

For 18 years Tree-Mark has made shoes that sold from $8.50 to $13.50.  And for 18 years people from every part of the city bought them at these prices because they were satisfied Tree-Mark Shoes were scientifically created to serve the cause of healthy feet, without sacrificing style.

But today we are living in a new period, one that requires financial adjustment.  Tree-Mark has therefore made a new model of its famous shoes that is priced at $6.95.

  

Brooklyn Jewish Center Review, October 1934

Tree-Mark Shoes, Inc. prospered here for more than half a century.  The title of an advertisement in The New York Times on October 23, 1979 revealed that the firm still focused on orthopedic problems.  "Hammer-toes?...get a Ghillie!"  The Ghillie model was designed to correct the foot issue and cost $55 (about $230 today).

After being home to a carpeting and a lighting store in the late 1980s through the mid-1990s, in 1997 the property was acquired by the Bowery Ballroom, founded by Michael and Brian Swier with Michael Winsch.  While much of Henry C. Ingalls's interior detailing was lost in renovating it to an performance venue, others were preserved.  The Bowery Ballroom website mentions, "the brass rails, the brass and iron exterior metalwork, the mahogany lined VIP rooms and the coffer-vaulted plaster ceiling of the mezzanine bar" remain.

Among the earliest groups to play here was John Lurie and The Lounge Lizards.  On June 5, 1998, The New York Times reported, "Film-noir rakishness, rippling minimalism and a touch of late-night blues merge in John Lurie's music for the Lounge Lizards."

Wurts Bros. took this photograph in 1930.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

The venue continues to be operated by its founders.  Over the years, Bowery Ballroom audiences heard the likes of Patti Smith, Kanye West, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Tony Bennett, Radiohead, and, most recently, Paul McCartney.

The March 2003 Environmental Impact Statement by the Federal Transit Administration's Second Avenue Subway Evaluation praised the Tree-Mark Shoe Building as, "a distinguished example of Italian Renaissance inspired commercial architecture."