The Lost Commercial Cable Building - 20-22 Broad Street

 

from the collection of the New-York Historical Society

John William Mackay was brought to America by his parents as an infant.  Destitute, they lived in the impoverished and dangerous Five Points district.  The immigrant boy who initially survived by selling newspapers made a massive fortune mining in the West, emerging as one of the wealthiest men in America.

Mackay organized the Commercial Cable Company with James Gordon Bennett, Jr. in 1884 to lay and operate the trans-Atlantic cable.  It was a direct competitor of Jay Gould's Western Union operation.  When Western Union refused to relay messages initiated by Commercial Cable, Mackay bought the Postal Telegraph Company and began buying up and consolidating other small telegraph companies until by 1886 his firm was an equal to Western Union.

In 1894 Mackay moved both companies into his new Postal Telegraph Building, designed by George Edward Harding & Gooch at 253 Broadway.  It was a temporary arrangement and a year later ground was broken for the Commercial Cable Building, designed by the same architects.  The site, just south of the New York Stock Exchange, extended from Broad Street through to New Street. 

The Commercial Cable Building was designed to impress.  On November 27, 1895, The Electrical Engineer described the rendering as showing "a handsome and imposing twenty-one story structure, above which rise two towers surmounted by domes representing the two hemispheres.  The towers will be connected by a mansard roof more than three hundred feet above the street level."   While the journalist said, "The general style of the building is the Italian Renaissance," the architects liberally lavished it with Beaux Arts decorations.

George Edward Harding & Gooch included the latest in conveniences and technology.  There would be six "fast electric elevators," as well as lavatories and "retiring rooms" on each floor.  The Commercial Cable Company would occupy the entire ground floor "which will be of unusual height," said The Electrical Engineer and "will be furnished entirely in marble."  The building included nineteen stories of rental offices.  The "total investment in land and structure will represent an outlay of at least $2,000,000," said that article--just under $72 million in 2024.

The architects' 1895 rendering depicted fenestration along the southern side--a feature that would cause troubles later.  Record & Guide, June 6, 1896 (copyright expired)

The Commercial Cable Building was completed in 1897 to general acclaim.  On December 24, the New-York Tribune, saying the structure "lifts its head far up into the clouds," called it "an ornament to the street."  The article added, "It is handsome in design, and represents some of the best ideas of modern building."  But while both the exterior and interior were considered beautiful, the building's function for the Commercial Cable Company was paramount.  "The lines of the Commercial Cable Company diverge to all parts of the civilized world, and the best possible service is furnished both at home and abroad," said the article.

The Architectural Record's critic was less enthusiastic, saying the designer "has put a huge brass knob at either end of the top, giving his skyline two competing features in place of one dominant feature."  He decried that the Commercial Cable Building, "reeks of a rowdy picturesqueness like cowboy slang."

The building had barely opened when it was the scene of an unusual suicide.  On September 24, The Sun titled an article, "Cat Suspected of Suicide" and explained that the janitor's "well-known cat named Thomas" had recently been intimate with a female tabby that disappeared.  The article said, "Yesterday morning Thomas was seen about the lower floors of the building.  Shortly before noon one of the elevator men saw the cat go upstairs.  That was the last seen of it alive."  Before long, Thomas "dropped from the roof of the Commercial Cable Building into New street."

American Architect and Building News, December 11, 1897 (copyright expired)

The tenants on the southern side of the building enjoyed sweeping views of New York Harbor.  But that was threatened in January 1902 when the property next door was sold to Blair & Co.  On May 16, the New-York Tribune reported, "Many of the tenants of the Commercial Cable Building are angry, because much of the light and air on the south side of the building is soon to be cut off by the erection of a new home for Blair & Co., bankers."  When the property was purchased, the Commercial Cable Company was promised that a light court would provide light and air.  But now, said the New-York Tribune, "The plans for the building to be put up by Blair & Co. call, however, for a court, but it will be within instead of outside the building."

Blair & Co. erected its building inches from the Commercial Cable Building, greatly reducing the rental values of the offices on that side.  

photo by Irving Underhill, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

John Borowski was hired as a window cleaner in May 1905.  He aspired to be an elevator operator and four months later, when he could make time, began learning.  On March 25, 1906, the New-York Tribune reported, "Yesterday he started to practise [sic] with one of the elevators in the annex.  On the twelfth floor he left the car for some purpose, and when he came back evidently started it before he was well in the car."  The young man was crushed between the floor of the car and the top of the door.

Such accidents in the decades before the invention of elevator safety devices were not uncommon.  Less than two years later, on January 13, 1908, the newspaper reported that 15-year-old Harry De Freis "was killed yesterday afternoon by falling down the elevator shaft."  He had opened the grate and looked down to see where the car was, and lost his balance.

Photographer Irving Underhill captured the Commercial Cable Building from between the cornices of two structures in 1903.  King's Views of New York, 1903 (copyright expired)

Bootleg liquor and liberated flappers of the Roaring '20s visited the Commercial Cable Building in 1921 with nearly disastrous results.  Florence Rogers, a 21-year-old telephone operator, was invited to what she described as "an after-hours party in a brokerage office" on the 16th floor here on August 3.  Milton Roth, a clerk in William H. Kemp & Co., had a key to the offices and arranged the party.  There were three men and three women.

The New-York Tribune reported, "In the office cocktails were served, Miss Rogers said, and there was violin and harmonica music.  But things got ugly.  According to her, "she drank cocktails because she was told that if she did not swallow the liquor it would be forced down her throat."

At about midnight the two young women and one of the men left.  Things then became worse for Florence Rogers.  The men, one of whom had a pistol, attacked her, tearing off her blouse.  When she attempted to get to the telephone, one of the men disconnected it from the wall and Florence was "struck on the face."  Luckily, her screams attracted the attention of late-working employees in the building and as they came down the corridor, the two men fled.  When police arrived, "they found Miss Rogers in such a hysterical state that an ambulance was called."  (Not surprisingly, Milton Roth was fired the next day, however it does not appear he was arrested.)

In its November 1926 issue, The Commercial Telegraphers Journal reported that the Postal Telegraph Company was leaving its Broadway home and moving into the Commercial Cable Building.  "It is now felt that greater operating efficient will result from having both land lines and cable systems terminate under the same roof," said the article.

The following year, the New York Stock Exchange leased three floors in the building, including the coveted first floor--heretofore the bastion of the Commercial Cable Company.  Then, on October 4, 1928, The New York Times reported that negotiations were nearly completed between the Mackay Companies and the New York Stock Exchange for the purchase of 20 Broad Street.  "The Stock Exchange, it is understood, plans to take over the building as an annex to its present quarters at Wall and Broad Streets."  The article added, "There is a possibility, it was said yesterday, that if the Exchange buys a building it will raze it and build an annex especially to meet its needs."

That did not happen, however.  The negotiations fell through and The New York Stock Exchange, instead, continued renting space in the Commercial Cable Building.  In 1941, when the Exchange renewed its lease of five floors, The New York Times commented, "The building is not in use above the fifteenth floor."

What seemed inevitable came to pass in 1954 when The New York Times on August 16 announced that The Hanover Bank had purchased "more than half of the Broadway blockfront from Wall Street to Exchange Place."  The bank planned a 400,000 square feet skyscraper on the site, said the article.  "It is expected to be completed in 1956."

image via streeteasy.com

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The Lost New York Stock Exchange Bldg - 10 Broad Street

The Stock Exchange Building in 1899.  In the foreground to the left is the J. P. Morgan & Co. headquarters.  photo from the collection of the New-York Historical Society

On December 11, 1865 The New York Herald announced "The new Stock Exchange building, on Broad, Wall and New streets, was opened to the public on Saturday, and the board held its first session there.  The acoustics of the board room, which is only a small portion of the entire structure, have not been sufficiently studied in its construction, and drapery, or something of the kind will have to be resorted to in order to make the voice of the presiding officer audible over the room, the glass windows on both sides of which have much to do with the non-conduction of sound from end to end."

The new building was shaped more or less like a T.  The main facade faced Broad Street, while a narrow wing (more like a corridor) opened onto Wall Street and a larger section faced New Street.  Decades later Gustav Kobbe explained why the narrow passage from the main building to Wall Street existed, saying simply "but of course it would have been absurd for the institution which rules and sometimes almost ruins the country financially, not to have an entrance on Wall street."  The building was not the property of the Exchange, as might be expected, but was rented.

The New York Stock Exchange had been formed in 1792 "when the originators formed the association under a button-wood tree in front of what is now No. 60 Wall Street," as remembered by Henry Clews in his 1888 book Twenty-Eight Years in Wall Street.  It met in various locations over the early years, until 1842 when it moved into the new Merchants' Exchange building.  Fifteen years later it moved again to what Clews called the "Dan Lord's Building" with entrances on William and Beaver Streets.

Then, in 1863 membership and business increased rapidly and a second building, on Broad Street, was taken to handle the overflow.  Before long plans were laid for a single Exchange headquarters at No. 10 Broad Street.

The Exchange as it appeared in December 1865.  Manual of the Corporation of the City of New York, 1865 (copyright expired)

The name of the architect seems to have been lost; but his stone-faced Italianate structure was impressive.  Four stories tall, its main entrance on Broad Street was within a columned portico.  The openings wore classically-inspired pediments and the whole was crowned by a carved stone cornice.

It would not take long for the Exchange to outgrow its new accommodations.  The directors were also faced with another problem:  many of the manufacturing and retail groups were leaving the downtown area, moving further uptown to Tribeca and beyond.   There was the possibility that the banking industry would follow.

On November 19, 1870 The New York Herald announced that the Stock Exchange had purchased the Broad Street building for $57,500.  "This arrangement will benefit the Stock Exchange to a considerable extent, as in five years the amount of their saving will be equal to the present cost of the building.  The question whether the business of Wall street, like the other branches of commerce, is to take its course further up town remains yet to be decided."  The cost of the Exchange paid for the building would equal about $1.1 million today.

from the collection of the New York Public Library

But owning the building did not solve the spacial problems.  The directors quickly purchased the abutting structure at No. 12 Broad Street and hired architect James Renwick, Jr. to combine and remodel the structures into a single Stock Exchange Building.

The renovated headquarters opened in September 1871.  Renwick faced the structure in white marble and widened the portico, adding paired red granite columns that upheld the long entablature.  He turned from Italianate to French Second Empire, replacing the classical pediments with arched openings

Only eight years later the Exchange had again outgrown its new home.  On October 31, 1879 The New York Times reported "More than a year ago the necessity of enlarging the Stock Exchange conveniences, and of erecting an edifice commensurate to the increasing business of the Metropolis, was seriously discussed by the members, and a Committee of Arrangements was appointed, with power to purchase additional land, or to buy a new site."

Negotiations for the abutting properties to the south, owned by the John D. March estate had dragged on until now, when the owners agreed to sell for $375,000.  The Exchange now owned, in addition to its current building, Nos. 14 through 20 Broad Street and Nos. 14 through 18 New Street.  "The intention of the Exchange is to improve and rent the buildings now on it for the present, and at a future time to cover the entire plot with a magnificent Exchange Building," said The Times.

That magnificent building would have to wait; but in September 1880 the directors called back James Renwick, Jr. to enlarge the building once again.  No. 14 Broad Street was demolished and the structure widened and a fifth floor in the form of a mansard added.  The portico was extended to accommodate three entrances.   The building now stretched 65 feet wide along Broad Street.

The Manufacturer and Builder projected the cost of the alterations at $230,000 (or about $5.7 million today).  Henry Clews estimated the cost of maintaining the building, including staff, at another $200,000 a year.

Hughson Hawley's 1882 print clearly shows the red granite columns.  from the collection of the New York Public Library.

Clews called it "a fine, solid structure, devoid of anything showy, pretentious or decorative" and added "The apparatus for ventilating the building is one of the best.  It cost $30,000, and supplies an abundance of pure air and perfumes at the same time.  The heating and cooling arrangements are the best of their kind and the lighting is admirable."

Regarding the perfumed air, Harper's New Monthly Magazine commented "'What bouquet have you this morning, doctor?' is not an uncommon inquiry of the superintendent."

James Renwick's exotically decorated Board Room (or main trading room) was brilliantly stenciled.  Three massive electric lighting fixtures illuminated the space. Twenty-Eight Years in Wall Street, 1888 (copyright expired) 

Amazingly, given the time period, the main floor (called the board room) was electrically lit.  "There are three chandeliers containing 200 electric lamps, which throw a floor of beautiful soft light around the whole interior."  The were offices for members, lavatories, and closets.  Securities were kept in large vaults which in turn contained more than 1,000 safes.

The "Long Room" for telegraph apparatus was lit by a stained glass ceiling.  King's Views of New York City 1893 (copyright expired)

As is the case today, tempers sometimes flared on the trading floor.  Harper's New Monthly Magazine noted "Fines also are charged in the half-yearly bills, and are levied on the exuberant and indiscreet at the rate of from twenty-five cents to ten dollars, at the discretion of the presiding officer, for such offenses as knocking off hats, throwing paper wads, standing on chairs, smoking in the halls (five dollars), indecorous language, interrupting the presiding officer while calling stocks, or calling up a stock not on the regular list."

from the collection of the New-York Historical Society

Gustav Kobbe in his 1891 travel guide New York and It's Environs described the Board Room saying "The turmoil of this room must be heard to be appreciated--to describe it is impossible.  It surpasses even the proverbial bear garden.  Perhaps it is more like a tribe of Indians executing a war dance than anything else."

Far different from today, however, was the existence of the Stock Exchange Glee Club, which gave concerts at least once at year at Chickering Hall and sometimes elsewhere.  And at Christmas all bitterness and rivalry was set aside for what was called the Christmas Carnival after the closing bell on the last business day before the holiday.  The dignified brokers suddenly acted like impish college boys.  Harper's explained:

At the Christmas season it luxuriates in the blowing of tin horns and bugles, smashing of broker hats, pelting with blown bladders, wet towels, and surreptitious snow-balls, and in the sly insertion of the cooling crystals between the collars and necks of unsuspecting brethren.  Hot pennies are sometimes substituted.

Normally stuffy brokers dance together during a Christmas Carnival in the Exchange.  Harper's New Monthly Magazine, November 1885 (copyright expired)

Surprisingly, given the up-to-date systems built into the building, the Stock Exchange got a failing grade when Sanitary Engineers Golden and Hooper inspected it on August 4, 1885.  The Times reported "They found the plumbing in a very defective condition, and also the means of ventilation entirely inadequate."  It was apparently a condition not even perfumed air pumped through the vents could disguise.  The Building Committee promised to correct the problems.

In January 1899 the Exchange purchased another abutting property, the six-story building at No. 8 Broad Street.  Six months later a competition among three prominent architects--George Kramer Thompson, Bruce Price and George B. Post--to design a new structure that would cover all of the Exchanged-owned properties was held. 

On December 14, 1899 the New-York Tribune reported that the Governing Committee of the New-York Stock Exchange had not yet been decided "whether a new building covering the whole area will be erected or merely alterations designed to increase the Board Room space will be made."  Nevertheless, architect George B. Post had already won the competition and submitted his plans.

It did not take the Board long to make up its mind and in July 1900 the Stock Exchange was moved to temporary quarters in the Produce Exchange while the old building was demolished and a new one constructed.  George B. Post's $1 million structure--an icon of New York City and American finance today--was completed in 1903.

The newly-completed Stock Exchange sits next to the 1890 Wilks Building.in this early postcard view.

The Lost Bush Terminal Building - 100 Broad Street

A number of children play in the street around the recently completed building.  Note the gargoyles that line up along the first and third floor cornices.  from the collection of the New-York Historical Society

Irving T. Bush came up with an unexpected solution to shipping, storage and distribution costs in 1895.  Under the name of The Bush Co., he organized six warehouses and a steamship pier on the South Brooklyn waterfront as a freight-handling terminal.   The operation was successful despite of-- and, in fact, because of--its location outside of Manhattan.  Directly accessible to railways and ships, the terminal was able to offer storage, receiving and shipping services to wholesalers, manufacturers and retailers.

The name of the firm name became the Bush Terminal Company in 1902.  As the business grew, so did the complex.  Bush built a railroad, added factory lofts and warehouses to what was becoming a massive operation.

On May 2, 1903 the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide reported that Grace C. Snelling had sold the seven old buildings "at the junction of Broad, Bridge and Pearl sts."  The historic location, directly across from Fraunces Tavern, had once been the site of Manhattan's first church, erected in 1633.

The unwieldy pie-shaped property would now become the new headquarters of the Bush Terminal Co., which commissioned the firm of Kirby, Petit & Green to design the structure.  Completed in 1905, the completed edifice was like nothing in the Financial District.  The architects had produced a striking brick-and-stone Jacobean style building that would have been more comfortable in 16th century England than 20th century Manhattan.   Diapered brickwork, Gothic-arched openings, and diamond-paned windows, some with stained glass, added to the picturesque appearance.  The narrow Broad Street elevation featured a two-story angled bay which supported a stone balcony.

Not all architectural critics approved.  While The Architectural Record found no fault in the design itself, a June 1906 article derided the choice of styles for the location.  It complained in part, "there can be no doubt at all as to the impropriety of turning an office building in a busy thoroughfare into a Jacobean manor-house.  A house of this character, no matter how good it may be in itself, must necessarily look affected and out of place in the midst of a lot of office buildings; and when the offices of the Bush Terminal Company are surrounded, as they eventually will be, by skyscrapers, the impropriety will become still more conspicuous."

The Architectural Record, June 1906 (copyright expired)

J. Parker B. Fiske was kinder, focusing on the handsome brickwork.  Writing in the the same periodical on January 4, 1908 he said in part that "The new office building of the Bush Terminal Company, at 100 Broad street, constructed of the dark rich red 'Devonshire' stretchers with 'Gun Metal' headers" exemplified "the beautiful soft effects which may be produced by brick with an extremely rough texture."

The New York Times, April 19, 1911 (copyright expired)

The Bush Terminal Company leased extra space in the building.  The largest tenant was most likely the Jolly Mariner's Club.   Like other downtown clubs, its membership was composed of businessmen and it offered a respectable venue for quiet luncheons.  In the evenings the clubhouse restaurant was routinely used for meetings and dinners.  On November 23, 1908, for instance, the American Institute of Architects held its "folly dinner" here; and five days earlier it had been the scene of a dinner and meeting of the Merchants' Association during which Senator Nelson W. Aldrich spoke for more than an hour on European banking.

The fact that the Merchants' Association exclusively held its dinners and meetings in the Jolly Mariners' Club was, no doubt, not a coincidence.  Irving T. Bush was the chairman of the Association's Committee on Currency.

By 1911 a subsidiary company, the Bush Terminal Buildings Company, had been formed to handle the firm's vast real estate holdings.  On June 16, 1911 The New York Times reported that the Bush Terminal Buildings Company intended to remodel the three old buildings behind No. 100 Broad Street into "a highly improved office building;" creating an annex of sorts.

"At the present time the various floors are being used for miscellaneous purposes, but it is the company's intention to equip them for the most pretentious office needs, and in doing so the Tudor-Gothic style of architecture, employed both in the exterior and interior construction of the Bush Terminal Building proper, will be carried out."

The article explained that the 19th century facades were being stripped off, "to be replaced by ornamental terra cotta, embellished with leaded glass windows and other accessories in keeping with the general style."  The tallest building, No. 30 Bridge Street, would receive an "ornamental cupola" to match the Terminal Building.  The cost of the renovations were projected at upwards of $100,000--more than $2.6 million today.

from the collection of the New York Public Library

In September that same year No. 100 Broad Street got a new tenant with a ponderous name: the newly-organized New York State Branch of the National Citizens' League for the Promotion of a Sound Banking System.  The Branch boasted high-powered officers, including John Claflin, William Sloane, Isidor Straus, and George A. Plimpton.  Perhaps not unexpectedly, Irving T. Bush was also an officer, serving as chairman of the Executive Committee.

The group had been formed partly in reaction to the devastating Financial Panic of 1907.  Clafin told reporters on October 8, 1911, "The panic of 1907 was an unnecessary panic.  It has disclosed certain weaknesses in our banking system which can and must all be corrected."

By 1928 skyscrapers were rising along the downtown skyline.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

Another financial panic, the Stock Market crash of 1929 would hit closer to home for the Bush Terminal Company.  On September 29, 1936 The New York Times reported that the directors of the firm had adopted a resolution "for a reorganization of the company" under the National Bankruptcy Act.

Happily for the company and for its thousands of customers, the plan worked and the Bush Terminal Company survived.  And true to The Architectural Record's 1906 prediction, by the second half of the 20th century the Bush Terminal Building was hemmed in by towering skyscrapers.

In June 1961, three years before the demolition of Pennsylvania Station sparked New York City's historic preservation movement, the Bush Terminal Buildings Company sold No. 100 Broad Street.  Raymond F. Ryan, the real estate broker who brokered the deal, told reporters "the Bush Building with its gargoyles and leaded windows will be replaced by a two-story-and-penthouse structure."

The Bush Terminal Company announced it would move its headquarters to Brooklyn.  The New York Times headline on June 24 read simply "Bush Sells A Landmark."

The unique structure was demolished, to be replaced by the New York Clearing House Association's new building, designed by Rogers & Butler.

The newly completed New York Clearing House building in 1962. photograph via El Imperio Moderno 

The building as it appears today.  Real Estate Weekly, March 20, 2013

The Altered 1746 Ye Olde Coffee House -- No. 105 Broad Street

In 1746 a three-story brick building was erected at No. 105 Broad Street, on a plot owned by Philip Van Cortlandt.  An inn and meeting place called Ye Olde Coffee House, it replaced the Exchange Coffee House, or New Coffee House, that had stood on the northeast corner of Water Street since at least 1709.

On the opposite end of the narrow block, at the corner of Pearl Street, was the elegant home of James DeLancy which would be purchased by Samuel Fraunces in 1762 and converted to the Queens Head Tavern.  It was renamed Frances Tavern during the Revolution.

Both structures would be important in the conflict with the British.  According to the New-York Tribune a century and a half later, “The Sons of Liberty, who later became bolder and changed their name to the Liberty Boys, organized and held meetings at ‘Ye Olde Coffee House’ in 1765.” 

A large iron bell hung outside a neighboring building, according to the New York Herald on September 2, 1920, “in the early days of New Amsterdam, when the clangor of its iron tongue rang out joyful news on special occasions or announced the safe arrival of merchant vessels from the Fatherland.  Later, when Ye Olde Coffee House had become the meeting place of the Sons of Liberty, so tradition hath it, this time-pocked old relic summoned them to assembly, and in 1776 it rang for them the call to arms against the mother country.”

Following the Revolution, the building became home to businesses related to the shipping industry.  By 1856 L. B. Crocker & Co., had its office here.  The firm, consisting of L. B. Crocker and George Jennison, operated a line of Erie Canal barges.  The extent of its business was reflected in the $2,000 note the Lake Erie, Wabash and St. Louis Railway Company sent to it in July that year.  The payment would amount to nearly $58,000 in 2016 dollars.

Ship chandler George W. Hadden had problems with theft that same month.  On Saturday, July 12 he appeared before Justice Davidson, charging that “William Thomson and John Johnson had stolen from him 350 lbs. of boat lines, hawsers and two hatch cloths, worth $40,” as reported by The New York Times.  “The accused were committed for trial.”

Also in the building was the lighterage firm of John S. Conklin.  His job, the moving of cargo from large ships to smaller vessels so they could be off-loaded in port, became dangerous in 1858 when New York City was terrorized by an outbreak of yellow fever.  The panic was so great that rumors spread that Castle Garden, the “Emigrant Depot,” would be burned.

The 43-year old Conklin joined with eight other “lightermen” and presented a list of increased charges for “lightering infected cargoes from Quarantine.” Among the group were well-known businessmen like John McCreery and Cornelius Vanderbilt.

Following the Civil War M. F. James & Co. operated from No. 105.  The agent handled a variety of merchandise and overstock cargo.   In June 1873 the firm offered “a valuable steam canal boat for sale—has powerful machinery and suitable for freight or towing; also several coarse and coal freight Canal Boats.”  A year later it offered “A Canal cargo of about 200 tons of American (sterling) cannel coal will be sold at a great sacrifice in quantities of 20 tons and upwards, or entire cargo.”

In 1882 little historic importance was placed on the 136-year old building.  Architect George F. Pelham was hired to modernize the outmoded structure by adding two stories and a Victorian barroom at the ground level.  The handsome cornice proudly announced the date of the renovations.  Marble quoins and lintels contrasted with the dark red brick.  The New-York Tribune noted that despite the changes, it “retained considerable of the older structure, built in 1746.”

The date 1882 was inscribed in a marble quoin block.  Close inspection shows the original date of construction, 1746, in the block two below.

The renovated structure became home to the New York offices of the Philadelphia-based A. E. Massman Bros.   Founded in 1868, Philadelphia’s Leading Industries described it in 1886 as “importers of wines, gins, brandies, etc., and dealer in fine whiskeys, sole proprietors of the Standard Silver Rum Copper Distilled Whiskey.”

In October 1885 A. E. Massman Bros. hired James H. Graham to run the New York office.  A nearly one-man show, he was “in charge of the New-York agency of the firm as salesman, collector, and bookkeeper.”  With no one from the home office to look over his shoulder, Graham helped himself to the receipts.

He was fired the following year, on August 1, 1886.  During this time his employers charged “he had collected $2,222.14 from customers of the firm for goods sold and had failed to account for the money.”  The amount Graham embezzled would amount to about $58,000 today.

Later that year, on November 9, 1886, Robert H. Noble dealt with a near riot at his office in the building.  Noble headed up the New York office of Fowler Brothers, the third largest meat packing concern in Chicago.   The firm employed about 1,800 butchers at its seven-acre facility there, and slaughtered more than 160,000 hogs every year.   But that year the company was shut down by a labor walk-out.

Unwilling to be controlled by the butchers’ union, Fowler Brothers placed an advertisement in New York newspapers promising “steady work and free transportation to Chicago” to as many as 1,000 “able-bodied workmen.”  They failed to advise Robert H. Noble of the action, however.

The New York Times reported that when he arrived at work, “He could not understand why the office door, the long iron stairway leading up to it, all the sidewalk, and part of the street, should be crowded with all sorts and conditions of men.”

About every ten minutes, with the help of a hulking butcher whom he quickly hired, the exasperated Noble cleared his office and the stairwell.  A New York Times reporter managed to thread his way through the mob “to secure a brief hearing from Mr. Noble.”  He was told:

“I don’t know how many hundred or thousand men we’ve had here to-day, but I do know that they are the sorriest lot of men that I have seen gathered together in my life.  Out of all the applicants I have been able to secure 25 who call themselves butchers…We have accepted about 200 men, and I expect that, with the afternoon rush, we shall be able to get the greater part of the required thousand and ship them to Chicago by the night train.”

In 1885 John S. Conklin was still running his lighterage business here.  He left work on September 13 that year and took the ferry to Passaic, New Jersey where he lived.  Oddly enough, when his carriage met him at the station, he sent his driver home on foot and he continued on with his housekeeper at the reins.

The following day The Sun reported “At Franklin’s crossing they were warned of the approach of a train, but the housekeeper drove on.  Soon the headlight of the Shohola special train flashed upon them, and the horse stopped directly on the track, either because he was frightened or because he was pulled up.”

The carriage was “dashed to pieces” and the 70-year old Conklin died on site within a few minutes of the impact.

In 1895 Lamson Co., “registers” leased space in No. 105 Broad Street; and five years later the National Cash Register Company signed a lease.

In the meantime Bernheimer & Son had been running the corner saloon since the building was remodeled.  Around 1905 Fritz Lindlinger took over the saloon.  The former President of the Liquor Dealers’ Association, he gave a nod to the location’s history by naming it “Ye Olde Lindinger’s Tavern.”

The New York Herald later recalled “Fritz…had made it a downtown shrine for those who liked to mingle with their daily dram and luncheon just a dash of the musty flavor of things historically antique.”  He decorated the bar with German steins, old crockery ale bottles, Revolutionary era firearms, and Dutch relics like clay pipes.  Perhaps most interesting was the ancient iron bell, reportedly the same that summoned the Sons of the Revolution, which Lindinger hung over the corner entrance.

Fritz Lindinger would remain in the tavern for years; but his stay would be frequently bumpy.  On the afternoon of June 16, 1909 three undercover detectives entered the barroom, suspicious that Lindinger was running a poolroom—the term for an illegal horse betting den.  It resulted not only in the arrest of the tavern owner, but of the detectives.

The following week, on June 24, the officers appeared before a grand jury facing charges of assault in the third degree filed by Lindinger.  He complained they “started a disturbance, declaring that the café was a poolroom, and threatened to arrest the men in there at the time.”

The Times reported “One of the men, he said, tried to grab a $1 bill, with which a customer was paying for drinks, to use as evidence.  A fight started, in which the detectives were ejected from the place.  They returned later, however, with other men and arrested Lindinger on a charge of keeping a poolroom.”

After Lindinger’s case was dismissed for lack of evidence, he filed suit against the officers.

Interestingly enough, it was lack of evidence--not the facts--which got Lindinger off the hook.  Such would not be the case nine years later.  As he sat at a table in the tavern on May 4, 1918, three detectives rushed in and seized him.

The Times reported the following day “There was considerable of a wrestling match, and when it was over the detectives said Lindinger had shred various pieces of paper that were found on the floor.  Some of these, they added had such cryptic messages inscribed as ‘Blue Laddy,’ ‘Hourless,’ and other stars of the racetrack, followed by figures showing, the detectives said, the odds against each horse.”

There were also charts of the horses running and the races scheduled that day at the Lexington and Have de Grace race tracks.   Fritz Lindinger was in more hot water than he had been in 1909.  The Times sub-headline read “Restaurateur Must Explain His Knowledge of Betting Horses.”

As the United States was drawn into World War I, one of the upper floor spaces became the office of the U.S. Army’s Air Service Officer, Major J. McClintock.  On April 6, 1919 he encouraged Army veterans to re-enlist in a statement from No. 105 Broad Street.

In part it said “if flying is to continue in the American Army men now experienced in that branch of the service must re-enlist.”  He used the shaky labor market as an argument.  “For men who have had service in the army, it is believed that there is a decided advantage for the period of one year enlistment or until labor conditions have become more stable, at which time they can expect more positive market for their service in civilian life.”

It was not the war that bothered Fritz Lindinger so much as Prohibition.  On December 7, 1919 the New-York Tribune wrote “Fritz Lindinger, who now holds the title to what was the first coffee house in New York, ‘Ye Olde Coffee House,’ which was established under that name at 105 Broad Street, in New York, says it does not matter any longer whether people know where his tavern is or whether they ignore it.”

His cynical viewpoint was a result of Prohibition.  “Mr. Lindinger has used the old coffee house for many years as a tavern.  Since prohibition he declares that he cannot sell anything worth while.  Coffee does not interest him.  The house, as it stands on the northeast corner of Broad and Water streets, is the same building which was built in 1746, except that one story has been added and the outside wooden stairway, which was the only approach to the upper floors in Washington’s day, has been removed.”

On February 5, 1920 The Sun reported that the Hegeman family had sold the venerable building which it had owned “for 125 years.”    The Hegeman family traced its American roots to Joseph Hegeman, who arrived from Amsterdam in the 17^th century; and his wife Femmetji Remsen, who was born in New York in 1672.  A string of marriages linked their family to Thomas Gardner's (Gardner to Aycrigg to Hegeman).

Later that year, in June, Fritz Lindinger and his partner, William Hemme, were arrested “charged with maintaining a nuisance.”  The nuisance was the whisky their bartender served to two undercover revenue agents.  (They were charged 70 cents a glass.)  The bartender was hauled away with his employers.

It was the end of the line for Fritz Lindinger’s “Ye Olde Lindinger’s Tavern.”  On September 1, 1920 a public auction was held.  Fritz kept the bar open until 2:00 and “dispensed generously such innocuous beverages as the historic bar had to offer in these degenerate times,” said the New York Herald.  “But at 2 o’clock sharp the bar was closed forever.”

Lindinger did not stay to watch the auction.  “So help me God, I was crying like a baby,” he later told a reporter, “and I had to go upstairs to my rooms.  I couldn’t stay here and see all the old things auctioned off.”

The Sun reported “The mahogany bar, plate glass mirrors and like fixtures were being removed by the National Salvage Company, whose representative said: ‘For the last year we have been saloon undertakers; that has become one of our most extensive specialties.”

An antique clock, purchased for $16, was sawed out of the woodwork, leaving a jagged hole.  A reminder of the Revolution, two letters signed by George Washington were among the relics sold.  One brought $150.  The antique flintlocks, sabres and firearms brought from $1.50 to $8 for the best specimens.

The Herald listed among the auctioned items a Tammany cane, said to have been owned by Richard Crocker, “a collection of old German steins, a lot of copper fireplace kettles, wooden shoes from Holland, pipes and other curios [including] a pulley block reputed to have come from the rigging of the original Mayflower.”

The sole item Lidinger refused to sell was the ancient iron bell.  He told a reporter “But we didn’t sell the old liberty bell; that was reserved from the sale and I don’t know what we will do with it yet.”

The New York Herald announced that the barroom “is to be remodeled and opened by a firm to which it has been rented for use as a buffet lunch establishment.”  However, soon after its opening William Siebert’s “buffet lunch establishment” proved itself to be what Federal agents termed a “blind pig.”

On May 5, 1921 it was raided.  Seiberg and eight customers were arrested, charged “with having liquor before them in tea cups.”  They were held in $500 bond.   Three of the patrons arrested were described as sea captains.

Agents kept an eye on No. 105 Broad Street.  When the Annex Grill Restaurant was raided again on May 28, 1928 Federal Judge Thatcher had had enough.  He ordered the space padlocked for one year under the prohibition law.

After the Annex Grill was padlocked, the space became a less-controversial drugstore.  photo from the collection of the New York Public Library

Meanwhile, the upper floors continued to house nautical-related concerns.  In 1930 the Neptune Association had its headquarters here.  Composed of merchant mariners, the group distributed more than 3,000 ballots to members “scattered among the ports of the world and at sea” in 1930.  The vote of “masters and officers of the American merchant marine” showed they were strongly in favor of the repeal of Prohibition.

The Neptune Association was quick to issue a statement which explained that the vote “does not indicate that American masters and officers are drinkers, but that their means of employment has been threatened by prohibition and their safety at sea jeopardized by the removal of medicinal liquor.”

That same year the Association staged its fourth annual Labor Day “International Lifeboat Crew Race.”  The races were for steamship lines crewmen who rowed lifeboats up the Hudson River.  The winner received the William H. Todd Cup.

In the 1930s and 1940s the building would be home to the Scandinavian Seamen’s Club, the International Longshoremen’s Association Local 333, and the Nordin Seamen’s Club, founded in 1937 by Danish seamen.

The historic importance of No. 105 Broad Street finally came to the notice of the Sons of the Revolution, owners of Fraunces Tavern, in 1956.  Their bid to take over the property was denied by the Slum Clearance Committee after owners Edward Kronish and A. L. Cohen promised “that it [would] be remodeled to conform to the architecture of the neighboring tavern.”

A project completed in 1962 resulted in a cleaned-up façade, offices and “light manufacturing” on the lower floors, and one apartment each on the fourth and fifth floors.  Other than its grossly inappropriate ground floor where Fritz Lidinger ran his tavern, the building is handsomely intact.

At the other end of the block (left) sits Fraunces Tavern.

And passersby, looking up at the 1883 inscribed in the cast metal cornice, are given no hint that it dates to 150 years earlier; nor that it played an important part in the birth of the Unites States.

 many thanks to Matt Kess for suggesting this post
photographs by the author