The 1903 Pinaud Building - 84-90 Fifth Avenue

 

image via markplace.vts.com

In its "Building Intelligence" column on May 3, 1902, Architect and Architecture reported that developer Henry Corn would be erecting an 11-story office building on the northwest corner of Fifth Avenue and 14th Street.  Half a century earlier, the site sat on one of the most socially important intersections within the then-exclusive residential district.  The mansions on each corner--like the opulent Greek Revival-style mansion of William H. Halstead here--looked onto two of Manhattan's most fashionable thoroughfares.  Now, those wealthy homeowners had all fled northward as commercial buildings overtook lower Fifth Avenue.

Architect and Architecture noted that Robert Maynicke of Maynicke & Franke would design the structure.  The identical two facades gave his Renaissance Revival-style structure  perfect symmetry.  Stores lined the rusticated, two-story base.  The six-story mid-section, sandwiched between intermediate cornices, was essentially unadorned.  In stark contrast, Maynicke lavished the top section with double-height, elliptical arches that engulfed stacked trios of windows and gave Renaissance pediments to those in the center.  A dentiled and bracketed cornice crowned the design.

The Brickbuilder, August 1914 (copyright expired)

Construction of the building progressed with lightning speed.  Only three months after Architect and Architecture revealed Corn's plans, Blum & Koch announced in the August 1902 issue of The American Hatter, "Do not fail to note the coming change of address which will give our hats a Fifth Avenue label.  By the middle of December we hope to welcome customers to our new and more spacious quarters at 84-90 Fifth Avenue."

Blum & Koch was not the only firm who had already signed leases.  Ed. Pinaud would be the building's major tenant and had negotiated space with Corn even before the plans were completed.  Founded in France by Édouard Pinaud in 1830, the fragrance and cosmetics company was a favorite among the carriage trade (Ed. Pinaurd had supplied Queen Victoria with her toiletries).  On March 6, 1903, The Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported on the "New Ed. Pinaud Building," saying in part, 

Ed. Pinaud perfumery has erected a skyscraper that contains all the latest devices in construction and equipment.  To celebrate the opening yesterday Victor Klotz, the proprietor, tendered a reception during the afternoon to his friends and customers.

Victor Klotz had traveled from Paris to attend the ceremony.  The Brooklyn Daily Eagle noted, "The offices, all newly fitted up and finely decorated, were adorned with French and American colors and floral pieces.  A collation was served, during which corks popped merrily."

This advertisement gives the firm's address as simply "Ed. Pinaud Building."  The Argosy, October 1904 (copyright expired)

Other early tenants included apparel makers like Fein Brothers & Sturmann, a cloak manufacturer that leased 10,000 square feet of space in July 1904; clothing maker S. N. Wood & Co.; and J. C. Stratton & Co., makers of women's cloaks and suits.

The sale price of the advertised suit would translate to about $350 in 2025.  The Evening World, April 17, 1908 (copyright expired)

As the Pinaud Building rose, so did the 12-story Parker Building at Fourth Avenue (later Park Avenue South) and 19th Street.  On January 10, 1908 a fire broke out on its sixth floor.  Firefighters were faced with a modern problem--fighting fires in high-rise buildings.  Their efforts were fruitless and the Parker Building was gutted.

Exactly one week later, on January 17, The Sun reported, "The Fire Department last night attended to the first high building fire since the Parker Building burned and Chief Croker turned out to see that it didn't get away."  The fire had started in the seventh-floor loft of J. C. Stratton & Co.

The Pinaud Building was built with firefighting apparatus--standpipes on each floor that precluded the necessity of hauling firehoses up staircases.  "The fire was at such a height that the firemen decided to use the standpipes in the building," said the article.  Frustratingly, when they arrived on the seventh floor, they discovered that "some one had cut off the nozzles of the hoses, probably for the metal in them."  With the standpipes useless without functioning hoses, the firefighters had to use the pump engines on the street.  The blaze was extinguished, despite the problems.  The Sun reported, "About $4,000 damage was done."  (The figure would translate to about $140,000 today.)

By the following year, Frank & Beeman occupied space here.  The firm manufactured the popular shirtwaists--a ubiquitous women's blouse similar to a man's shirt.  The company's female workforce walked out during a strike in December that year.

Socialite Ines Milholland was an activist in women's rights (she was affiliated with Emmeline Parkhurst in the suffragist movement) and workplace conditions.  A graduate of Vassar, she allied with the young working women who struck Frank & Beeman.  On December 16, 1909, The Sun reported, "Since the shirtwaist makers have been on strike Miss Milholland has become much interested in their cause and frequently establishes herself as a volunteer picket outside factories to make sure that the police make no arrests that are not justified."

Ines Milholland was on the picket line outside 84-90 Fifth Avenue on December 15.  The policemen, who were well aware of her political power, stood by to ensure things remained calm.  The Sun reported, "While she was there the policemen made no arrests."  But when she stepped around the corner for a few minutes, things changed.  She returned to discover that sisters Tillie and Lotta Gold, and Sarah Rabinowitz "were in the grasp of two policemen."  Ines followed them to the station house where Policeman O'Connor at the door said, "You might as well come in too.  You're under arrest as much as these girls."

Ines Milholland was soon released, but the factory girls were sent to night court.  The Sun reported that Ines, "had intended to go to the opera last night, she said, but she spent the entire evening at the night court waiting for the cases of the three strikers to be called."  In telling the magistrate of the officers' actions, she said, "It was downright cowardly, that's what it was."  The magistrate was sympathetic and discharged two of the women and fined Lotta Gold $5.

Viola White worked for Frank & Beeman as a "shirtwaist model" in 1913.  On the afternoon of August 30 that year, she left work and entered the elevator.  Apparently forgetting something, she tried to step out.  The New York Times reported that she "was crushed to death...between the elevator and the floor on which she worked."  John Gubo, the elevator operator, was arrested for homicide.

Millionaire Joseph C. Brownstone was head of J. C. Brownstone & Co., a chain of clothing stores which operated here as early as 1919, and a director in the Bank of the United States.  On the afternoon of July 3 that year, IRS agents entered his office and arrested him.  The following day, The New York Times ran the headline, "Rich Man Arrested In Tax Fraud Case."

A friend of Brownstone, Jay A. Weber, secretary of the Pictorial Review Company, was being held "in a plan to defraud the Government out of approximately $500,000 in taxes due from the Pictorial Review Company," according to The New York Times, and for attempting to bribe an IRS agent by offering him $25,000.  Now Brownstone tried to get his friend out of trouble by offering the same agent the same amount.  Assistant United States District Attorney Benjamin De Witt said he was, "greatly puzzled that [Brownstone] should approach the same man in the same case with an offer of the same amount."

Weber had attempted his bribe inside the Hotel McAlpin in view of several witnesses.  Brownstone thought he could avoid such a trap by catching up to the agent on the street.  It did not work.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

Ed. Pinaud, Inc. remained in the building at least through 1926.  The other tenants continued to be mostly garment manufacturers, like G. Solomon, makers of cloaks and suits, and the Dependable Clothing Company.  In 1929, S. Golde & Sons leased three floors in the building.  They made coats for the U.S. Army.

Joseph Brownstone was in trouble again in 1931.  Like many banks in the early years of the Depression, the Bank of the United States failed.  Just before its closing, Brownstone issued a $275,000 loan to J. C. Brownstone & Co.  Because it would not be due until after the bank was insolvent, his firm would not be obligated to pay back the funds.  On January 1, 1931, The New York Times reported, "He said that he had a perfect legal right to borrow money from the bank of which he was a director."

A tragedy occurred in the offices of the I. Buss Uniform Company here on December 30, 1947.  When employees arrived that morning, they found 40-year-old Harold Busch dead on a cot in his office.  The New York Times reported that there was "a newspaper over his face and gas escaping from a tube near his mouth."  Busch had left three notes on his desk, "one giving burial instructions."

After mid-century, the first non-manufacturing tenants began moving into the building.  In May 1960, The Rabbinical Council of America, the offices of which were already here, opened Beth Din (court of religious law) in the building.  The Council described its purpose in The New York Times as "giving guidance in the field of marriage and family status to all Jews who require it."

The transition from manufacturing to office space continued when consulting engineer James Ruderman leased 5,000 square feet in September 1961.  At the same time, BenGor Industries, Inc., an investment firm, occupied space here.

A renovation completed in 1970 resulted in a bank and store on the ground floor, a union health center on the second, and offices and showrooms throughout the upper floors.  Among the new tenants were the offices of the American Civil Liberties Union, the computerized testing center of the Health Insurance Plan of Greater New York (HIP), and the offices of The Irish World, the oldest Irish-American weekly newspaper in America.

Other tenants starting in the 1970s included the Council on Municipal Performance, the Citizens for Abortion Rights, and NOW/NY (the New York chapter of the National Organization for Women).  They were joined in the building in the 1980s by the Teachers' and Writers' Collaborative and the Research Institute of America.   After the devastation of downtown Manhattan on September 11, 2001, the Housing Authority, which had occupied 90 Church Street, moved into 100,000 square feet of 84-90 Fifth Avenue.

Twelve years later, however, the former Pinaud Building was vacant.  Its owner, RFR Holding, described it in The New York Times on March 25, 2014 as "largely a blank canvas."

image via squarefoot.com

Robert Maynicke's design is intact, even at the ground floor, always the first level to be obliterated by modernization.

many thanks to reader Doug Wheeler for suggesting this post