The 1882 Kursheedt Building - Nos. 145-149 West 19th Street

In 1862 Frederick A. Kursheedt took a job in a trimmings factory at the age of 16.  The diligent young man thoroughly learned the business.  By 1882 he was president of his own firm and had been awarded patents for time and labor savings inventions like his "fluting machine" and "plaiting machine," both of which produced pleats in fabrics.

That year in February prominent architect Robert Mook filed plans for a "seven-story brick factory" to replace the old buildings at Nos. 145 through 149 West 19th Street.  Frederick Kursheedt had come a long way in twenty years.  The cost of his new structure was projected at $55,000; more than $1.3 million today.

Mook created an attractive, industrial building faced in beige brick with minimal stone trim.  Its three sections were separated vertically by shallow pilasters.  The brick was used to give texture and interest in the form of bandcourses, capitals, and cornices.  Especially eye-catching was the corbel table between the sixth and seventh floors, which seemed to delightfully echo the campanile of the Palazzo Pubblico in Tuscany.

The original brick cornice was shaved and covered at some point.

The Kursheedt Manufacturing Company produced a variety of trimmings used by garment manufacturers--plaitings, braids, laces, buttons, and embroideries, for instance.   Here hundreds of workers, many of them young girls, worked at a myriad of specialized machines.  The building also contained Kursheedt's extensive library of pattern books; books of antique textile designs, and photographs of European and American embroideries and laces from as early as the Renaissance.

As was the case with most wealthy businessmen, Kursheedt held directorships in other concerns.  While the Kursheedt Manufacturing Company weathered the devastating Financial Panic of 1893, the Madison Square Bank was not so lucky.  The bank failed and warrants were issued to its officers and directors to appear before a grand jury in October--including Frederick A. Kursheedt.  There was, it seems, a question about the legality of $50,000 in securities that had been sold and a lawsuit to recover $750,000 in funds.

Getting the men to appear in court was a challenge.  On October 26 The Sun ran the headline "All The Directors Bailed" and reported "On Tuesday afternoon District Attorney Nicoll was informed that Director Frederick A. Kursheedt was too ill to leave his room at the Imperial Hotel."  Nicoll was prepared to hold him on a $5,000 bail (more than $135,000 in today's dollars); the same amount as the other directors.

Nicoll lost patience with the men and within the month doubled their bail--except for the bank's president whose bond was set at $25,000.  It would seem that The Evening World had already decided the men's guilt when it reported on November 28 "How many others were implicated in the looting of the institution was still a mystery" and advised "The prospect of additional developments in the case to-day had aroused curiosity to the highest pitch.  It was known that several other indictments were brought in yesterday in connection with the 'wrecking' of the Madison Square Bank."

Kursheedt had nothing to say to reporters.  Attorneys merely noted "that it was a very disagreeable piece of business."

Frederick Kursheedt survived the years-long case with only a temporarily bruised reputation.  In the meantime the Kursheedt Manufacturing Company enjoyed such success that in 1906 architects Davis, McGrath & Shepard were commissioned to design an annex next door.  On February 10 the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide reported "A new loft building, to be known as the Kursheedt Building, will be erected at Nos. 139 to 141 West 19th st....The front will be faced with light buff brick and Indiana limestone."

The architects renovated the lower two floors of the existing Kursheedt Building to match; replacing with brown brick with beige and updating the openings to more or less meld with the new building.

The architects extended the lower floor facade treatment of No. 143 (right) to the older building.

Frederick A. Kursheedt died in 1906 while in Paris.  An auction was held on October 10, 1910 to liquidate the estate.  The two buildings, which shared heating and electricity, were to be sold as a package.   The auction was unsuccessful and it would be two decades before the property was sold.  While the Kursheedt Manufacturing Company remained in business until 1912, when it was absorbed by Einstein,Wolff, & Co., it left West 19th Street for No. 356 West Broadway.

The floors of the Kursheedt Building were leased to smaller manufacturers.  In 1913 The American Clothes Drying Company took the ground floor for its showroom.   Founded in 1903 it manufactured driers for houses, apartment buildings and institutions such as "police stations, fire engine houses, [and] post offices."

The American Clothes Dryer Company's appliances had nothing in common with those used today.  The housewife who purchased the residential model could expect to give up a hefty amount of floor space.  And the larger affairs--used in apartment houses, for instance--were the size of a large room.  Decades before the tumbler was invented, clothes were draped over aluminum bars on asbestos-filled frames which then slid into super-heated compartments.

The household version of the clothes dryer required significant floor space.  Sweet's Architectural Catalog 1911 (copyright expired)

Many Manhattan apartment buildings installed the American Clothes Dryer Company's massive appliances.  Above is the one in The Apthorp.  Architects' and Builders' Magazine, September 1909 (copyright expired)

Although the upper lofts were occupied mostly by apparel making firms, there was one glaring exception in 1923.  Trouville & Co. was a brokerage firm and its unlikely location, far from Wall Street, was most likely explained late that year.

The first years of the 1920s saw stocks rising rapidly.  The prospect of quick riches and brokers' offering the purchase of shares with small down payments--some as low as 10 percent--soon had ordinary citizens gambling their savings.  One was a Mrs. Huey, who opened an account with Trouville & Co. on March 22, 1923. She placed an order for 100 shares of Kelly-Springfield Tire.

Two days later she received her confirmation that her purchase, totaling $6,035.31, had been made.  Then came the insistent demands from Vernon Victor Trouville for money.  She sent cash and securities totally around $4,000; but then asked for her certificates before providing the balance.

That caused a problem for Trouville, who according to Mrs. Huey's attorney, Edwin A. Falk, "presumably never having purchased same, was unable to deliver."

The incident sparked an investigation which landed Vernon Trouville in trouble.  Attorney General Carl Sherman filed a complaint that said in part "The defendant has been conducting a bucket shop and has made no bona fide purchase, and sale of securities when orders were placed with him."

Upstairs the Crown Piece Dyeing Company had a particularly talented employee.  Max Berman had owned his own small tailoring shop on East 115th Street in the early 1920s.  His debts had accumulated to several hundred dollars, so he applied for a porter's job here.  Now he earned $20 a week doing janitorial work.  He later told a reporter "my wife and three children were actually facing starvation.  I saw an advertisement that Mr. Geller wanted help and I applied, and when he heard my story he gave me a job, although he didn't need me."

Berman's most pronounced talents were neither tailoring nor sweeping.  It was his voice.  Back on East 115th Street he had been known as the "singing tailor."  Now, in April 1923 he made his debut at Carnegie Hall.

Despite what The Indianapolis Star later deemed "rave reviews," the concert initially seemed a tarnished success.  Berman had to pay $100 for the tickets, himself, and his take was just $33.  On the bright side, he told a New York Times reporter "Right now I have a chance for four engagements at $500 each in Chicago."

The singing janitor went on to operatic success and today the Max Berman Prize for vocal excellence is still awarded annually by the Cleveland Institute of Music.

Other similar garment factories like Star Piece Dyeing and Finishing occupied the former Kursheedt Building until the garment district moved north of 34th Street.  It became home to a more diverse list of tenants, like Norton Centerpieces, Inc. which moved in in 1950; and the School of Printing in 1970.

Then in 1981 the upper floors were converted for residential use--just two massive apartments per floor.  Although the 1906 renovations of first and second floors are regrettably bland, and the later entrance can be described as functional; Robert Mook's upper section deserves a look up.

photographs by the author

George Pelham's 1897 No. 97 Wooster Street

In the years following the Civil War the block of modest brick-faced homes on Wooster Street between Prince and Spring Street had seen significant change.  One block to the east, Greene Street was a notorious red light district; and the Wooster street houses were now being used for a variety of purposes.

In 1867 No. 97 Wooster Street was converted to a Young Men’s Christian Association branch.  But this was like no other Y.M.C.A. club in the city.  It was for “colored” boys only.  The New York Times would later recall that “It was an organization independent of the New York City YMCA, although the two cooperated.’

The club remained in the building at least until 1889.  But by now the area was undergoing change once again.  The former homes were rapidly being razed for tall factory and store buildings as the dry goods district overtook the blocks.

Husband and wife team Louisa and Samuel A. Friedline got in on the lucrative trend.  Friedline was a builder, and his wife bought and sold real estate.  In 1893, for instance, they commissioned architect George F. Pelham to design a $20,000 factory building on North Moore Street.  Three years later they would work together again, on Wooster Street.

The end of the line for the old Young Men’s Christian Association building at No. 97 Wooster was near when Edmond J. Sause purchased it for $22,000 in August 1895.  He resold it to the inexhaustible loft developer Max S. Korn, in February the following year.

It appears that Max and his brother, Isaac S. Korn, initially intended to develop the property; for when they sold it to Louisa Friedline two months later it was described as a “lot” with no building mentioned.  On April 11, 1896 the Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide noted that the Friedlines purchased the 25-foot wide property “for immediate improvement by the erection of a seven-story warehouse.”

George F. Pelham was brought back for the project and, of course, Samuel Friedline handled the construction.   Ground was broken on May 11, 1896 and completed in November 1897.   A commercial take on Romanesque Revival, the brick, stone and cast iron building offered five upper floors of factory, or “loft,” space above two retail floors.

The carved entablature and cornice above the second floor are highly unusual.

The two-story cast iron store front was framed in beige brick with rough-cut stone courses providing dimensional interest.  A highly-interesting entablature resembled an unrolled fluted column, below a textured cornice of regimented nubs.  The upper floors were decorated with medieval carvings; most notably at the fifth floor where carved faces upheld engaged columns.  Their capitals, carved with spiraling ferns, were connected by an ornate frieze. 

The heads and columns were reintroduced at the top floor, where they melded into the complex cast metal cornice.  Eye-catching were the twisted column extensions and the nubby cornice detail that mimicked the stone version below.

As was the case with most other loft buildings in the area, the Friedline’s new building filled with tenants in the textile or apparel trade.  Michael Abrahams, manufacturer of petticoats; and The Baker Underwear Co. were among the earliest. 

Baker Underwear also had a small factory in Peekskill, New York where it manufactured muslin underwear.  A seductive advertisement in The Sun on June 27, 1901 was cleverly worded to entice young workers there.

“A chance for a pleasant country vacation.  Fifty operators on Singer machines are wanted at Peekskill in a clean, cool factory.”   The ad promised “Good pay; pleasant workrooms; country air; healthful surroundings.”

The excited young women reading the tempting advertisement might have overlooked the fact that they were responsible for expenses, including the $3.50 per week “board in private families.”  It was briefly mentioned in “This is a splendid chance for good operators to get away from the hot city, and besides paying all expenses, have the benefit of the country.”

On the top floor in 1903 was the petticoat and women’s underwear factory of Benjamin Lustgarten.    On May 11 that year, the manufacturer would be highly grateful that next door, at No. 99 Wooster Street, was the firehouse of Engine Company No. 13.

Lustgarten and two employees, Max Weissner and Benjamin Lerner, were working late on Monday night, May 11.  There were no other workers in the building so no one noticed when fire broke out on the fifth floor.  Several firefighters were standing around in front of the firehouse and Lt. George J. Irving was looking out of the station’s top floor window when, according to the New-York Tribune the following day, “a window was blown out of the fifth floor, and smoke followed.”

Lustgarten and his employees were trapped on the seventh floor of No. 97 and, were it not for the proximity of the firefighters, most likely would have perished.  Lt. Irving rushed to the roof of the firehouse, three floors below the trapped men.  He dropped a rope to the firemen below, who tied a scaling ladder to it, which the lieutenant hoisted up.

As he climbed upwards, the other firefighters reached the roof with additional ladders.  When Irving reached the seventh floor Lustgarten was already partially overcome by smoke inhalation.  The Tribune reported “Irving handed the men down to the firemen, who took them to the roof of the firehouse and to the street.”

Commission merchant Herman Sudgen was also a tenant about this time.   Why, on June 3, 1905, he was carrying $290 in his pocket (more than $8,000 today) is unclear; but on his way home to Brooklyn that night he nearly lost it.

Pickpockets were a constant worry at the turn of the last century; and while riding on a Bushwick Avenue streetcar Sudgen felt a hand in his pocket.  The crowded car was in the middle of the Williamsburg Bridge and “in an instant the car was in an uproar,” related The New York Times.

The crook tried to get away and dropped the cash.  But the resolute Herman Sudgen refused to release his tight grip on the 26-year old.  When the car reached the Brooklyn Plaza stop, Policeman Washington Irving arrested Henry Meyer, who was still in the clutches of his would-be victim.

Neckwear manufacturer George M. Batt was called for jury duty in 1907.  He sat on the case of Frederick Schoneland who was arrested on criminal assault charges.   Batt and the other jurors infuriated Judge Rosalsky when they attempted to force his ruling.

After hearing the evidence, they told Rosalsky that if he would impose a sentence of no more than two years in prison, they would find Schoneland guilty.  Otherwise, they would find him not guilty, resulting in his release.   Refusing to be intimidated or bullied, the judge sent George Batt and his co-jurors home and called for a new trial.

Abraham Wittcover’s Swiss Embroidery and Novelty Company, once a thriving concern, was doing poorly around the time of Batt’s expulsion from the case.   Finally, as the summer of 1908 approached, he declared bankruptcy and closed the firm.

No longer able to afford his home, he moved his wife and little girl to a Williamsburg flat on Thursday, June 11.  He then disappeared.  Mrs. Wittcover, according to newspaper reports, tried to find him in Manhattan.  And, ironically, Wittcover showed up at the Williamsburg apartment on Saturday while she was searching for him and, “finding the flat locked up, went back to Manhattan.” 

The desperately broken man had taken a room in a hotel on Third Avenue at 24^th street.  On Sunday morning hotel employees smelled gas.  “When they broke in the door they found Wittcover dead in bed, with a tube attached to an open gas jet in his mouth,” reported The New York Times.

The tragedy continued when Mrs. Wittcover identified the body in the morgue.  After throwing herself on her husband’s body in despair, she rushed to the East River where she attempted suicide.

William Diamondstein’s firm, The Carlyle Hem-stitching and Button Company, and apparel company Weinstein & Regoff would have to start over elsewhere after a devastating fire tore through the building early in 1917.   On May 15, 1917 agents William A. White announced they had fully leased the factory spaces of No. 97, “which has been extensively altered since it was partially destroyed by fire.”

Maxine Mfg. Co. had taken the third floor, Langer & Co. the fourth, H. Bernstein & Sons the fifth, Miller Bros. Co. leased the sixth floor, and Gustav Abrahams Co. was now on the top floor.   In December Frank & Lambert Co. filled the last vacancy when it leased the store and basement.

For the next few decades the building would continue to house garment companies.  But in the 1920s there were hints that the apparel district was abandoning the neighborhood.  The Iron Pipe and Specialty Co., Inc. was in the building through the late ‘20s, for instance.  And the Security Hand Bag Co. and the Cup Craft Paper Corp. added to the non-apparel tenant list.

By mid-century the neighborhood's loft buildings were neglected and abused—and many of them stood vacant.  But the area, now known as Soho, caught the attention of artists.  In an article about loft art shows on April 19, 1968 The New York Times noted “And last month, a group of artists who work in a building at 97 Wooster Street—Sue Aitkin, Tony Balzano, Rudolph Baranik, George Gillson, Bob Pittenger and May Stevens—staged a three-weekend group show in an empty studio lent them by the landlord.”

Where women’s muslin underwear had been manufactured, artists now lived and worked.  In 1971 artist Ruth Vodicka’s had her home and studio here, for instance.  And on September 16, 1972 A. I. R. Gallery opened in the building.  A cooperative run by and for women artists, it was deemed by The Times to be “the first women’s independent gallery.”   It would remain in the space at least until 1980.

A formal conversion of No. 97 Wooster was completed in 1986, resulting in “joint living-work quarters for artists” on the upper floors and a clothing store at ground level.   Yet, despite two fires and several remodelings, even the cast iron storefront survives intact.

The artists who lived here in the 1970s did not have the amenities offered today.  photo Corcoran Group

Although the loft spaces are still mostly open, the $8,000 per month rental fees for one apartment in 2016 suggest that the artists living here are no longer struggling.

photographs by the author

Richard Berger's No. 43-47 East 10th Street

Brothers Louis and Samuel Sachs were highly successful fur manufacturers and importers in the 1880s, doing business under the name L. Sachs & Bro.   Around 1890 they branched out into real estate development.   That year alone they completed the six-story cast iron building at No. 112-114 Prince Street (which they occupied), the $40,000 loft building at No. 124 Greene Street, and the large factory structure at Nos. 21 to 29 West 4^th Street designed by Richard Berger.

Within the year the brothers would put the prolific architect to work again.  On January 31, 1891 the Real Estate Record and Builders’ Guide reported that “After May 1^st next L. Sachs & Brother will improve their property at Nos. 43, 45 and 47 East 10^th street.  Richard Berger has plans on the boards for two six-story and basement brick, stone, iron and terra cotta store buildings…These buildings will be finished in hardwood throughout and complete in all appointments, elevators, steam head, and electric lights and other improvements being provided.” 

The Sachs brothers were invading a still-upscale residential neighborhood.  Next door at Nos. 39-41 was the The Lancaster apartment building where moneyed residents no doubt eyed the demolition of the old buildings with suspicion.   That, in part, may explain the $100,000 the developers spent on the new building—in the neighborhood of $2.7 million today.

The impressive structure was completed within a year.  The concept of two buildings was discarded and, instead, there were two store spaces at sidewalk level and massive lofts on the five floors above.  Berger used cast iron to frame the openings, making possible expanses of glass that poured sunlight into the factory spaces.

 

Between floral panels that include embracing putti is a bas-relief portrait.

An industrial take on Romanesque Revival, Berger’s design used three five-story arches to lighten the visual bulk.  The style, which was often ponderous, emerged at Nos. 43-47 East 10^th Street as light and airy.  Berger adorned the façade with terra cotta panels depicting bas relief portrait busts, embracing putti that morphed into floral forms, and flowery garlands and ribbons.  The top floor featured a string of 12 arched openings that unified the massive arches below.

The new building quickly filled with publishing firms, among the first of which was Lovell, Coryell & Company.  It was the first home of the firm which John Wurtele Lovell and Vincent M. Coryell had recently founded .   In March 1892 it signed a three-year lease for the third and fifth floors at $4,500 for the first year and $5,000 each year afterward. 

The building as it appeared in 1904 -- One Hundred Years of Publishing 1804-1904 (copyright expired)

Once in, the company wasted no time publishing its first titles.  In July that year it released J. M. Barrie’s Auld Licht Idylls; Of the World, Worldly by Mrs. Forrester, and J. H. Pearce’s Inconsequent Live.  The volumes retailed at about $1 for cloth-covered hardbacks, and 50 cents for paperback.

By May the University Publishing Company had moved in.  The firm printed textbooks and other educational publications, such as “Maury’s Geographies; Holmes’, Davis’, and Lippincott’s Reading Books; Venable’s and Sanford’s Mathematics; Clarendon Dictionary, Gildersleeve’s Latin, and other standard and popular books.”

Joining the firms in the building was William Wood and Company—the oldest publishing house in New York other than the Methodist Book Concern.  Samuel Wood founded the business in 1804 at No. 362 Pearl Street; and it was now headed by his grandson, William H. S. Wood and his three sons.  The firm published medical journals and magazines, including the American Journal of Obstetrics and Diseases of Women and Children; the American Druggist; New Remedies; and the Medical Journal.

William Wood & Company dealt in technical medical publications -- The American Journal of Obstetrics and Diseases 1895 (copyright expired)

The academic works of William Wood and Company and the University Publishing Company were a world apart from the light reading sold by Lovell, Coryell & Co.  In 1893 it published Mrs. Oliphant’s The Marriage of Elinor; Penance of Portia James by Tasma; and F. W. Robinson’s The Wrong That Was Done.  Lovell, Coryell & Co. was still publishing J. M. Barrie’s latest works, releasing A Tillyloss Scandal and Two of Them that year.   Despite its three-year lease, Lovell, Coryell & Company moved to East 16^th Street later that year.

The personal advertisements in the back of William Wood and Company’s Medical Record often included positions-wanted ads from out-of-work doctors.   One, in December 1893 read “A regular physician of mature age desires a position as Associate with, or Assistant to, some busy practitioner.”

Another publisher, Maynard, Merrill & Co. had also moved in when the building opened.   Like William Wood and University Publishing, it produced academic works like An Essay on Addiction which it released in 1892 and The School Journal.   In the spring of 1893 the firm sent printed pages and covers of Alonzo Reed’s “early study of the English language” to George W. Alexander’s bookbindery at No. 108 West 18^th Street.   On June 21 Alexander’s operation was destroyed by fire and the Reed material was badly damaged, much of it falling through to the cellar.

The debris in the basement was regarded as worthless and Alexander traded it to the junkmen for clearing out the space.  But not all of Maynard, Merrill & Co.’s pages and covers made it to the junkyard.   Bookseller William Beverly Harison of No. 59 Fifth Avenue collected what The New York Times called the “impaired and soiled sheets.”  By picking and choosing the best elements, he bound them into volumes and put them in his bookstore.

Unfortunately for Harison, the original publishers discovered the sneaky deed.  They took him to court in January 1894, charging that he “has sold and exposed to sale a number of copies of the book made up from damaged and soiled sheets, and in violation of the original copyright.”

The Times deemed the case “a novel suit” and when one of its reporters knocked on the door of Harison’s house at No. 102 West 93^rd Street on January 4, the embarrassed bookseller “refused to discuss his side of the case.”

As the century drew to an end, dry goods and garment firms moved into the area.  Among the first to invade the publishing building on East 10^th Street was Northrop & Curry.  The makers of boys’ clothing took the top floor around the beginning of 1897.  The family-like interaction among  its employees was reflected in an paragraph that appeared in The Sun on April 28, 1897.  “Employees of Northrop & Curry have organized for the coming season, and would like to hear from teams of dry goods and clothing houses for Saturday afternoon [baseball] games during June, July and August.”

The following year, just before dawn on June 16, 1898, “the neighborhood of Grace Church was shaken by a loud explosion,” according to The Sun.   The explosion had occurred in the Northrop & Curry shop and immediately flames burst out through the arched windows.  The newspaper reported that “the tenants in the Lancaster apartment house, next door, whom the explosion had aroused from sleep, cried pitifully to be let out.  They thought the house was on fire.”

The factory space, including the elevator shaft, was tightly closed.  The circumstances led fire investigators to believe that the gases and heat from the fire had built up with no means of escape, until the pressure blew out the windows in the loud explosion.  “It is what the firemen call the back draught,” reported The Sun.  “About $8,000 damage was done.  The street was littered with broken window glass.”

The New York Times added that the contents of other floors were badly damaged by water and increased the estimate of damages to $10,000.  The other tenants in the building at the time were William Wood & Co.; another publisher, Fords, Howard & Hulbert; and S. & T. E. Harris, clothing manufacturers.

William Wood & Co. moved out the following year; but Fords, Howard & Hulbert—the last of the publishing firms in the building—would remain into the new century.    John R. Howard was president of that company.  Wealthy and respected, he lived in Montclair, New Jersey.  The Times noted “The family is very prominent in Monclair, Mr. Howard being Trustee of the First Congregational Church.”

Howard’s son, Edward Fords Howard, was “very prominent among the young people” and was enrolled at Yale in 1903.  He was absent from campus for two days on February 28; but his friends assumed he had gone home to visit.  Then on the afternoon of February 28 two Yale students were walking along the edge of a rocky cliff when they discovered the young man’s body halfway down the rocky face.

Newspapers called it “a mysterious death” and The New York Times reported “From the position of the body when found it was impossible to decide whether or not it was a case of accidental death.”  The mystery was, apparently, never solved.

In 1901 Charles E. Heymann, “importer of raw ostrich feathers” moved in.  He would stay in the building for two decades. 

Other garment-related firms to move in included that operated by James Tobias.    The furrier was 51 years old in 1906 and suffered recurring headaches.  On September 2 that year he sent a servant to the drug store for headache powders.   He took the medications then “rolled from his chair and died almost instantly,” according to The Times.   His wife told investigators he had been taking headache powders for about a year.

Heymann was apparently the victim of a massive stroke.  “An investigation will be made,” said the newspaper.

Other garment companies in the building included Silverman Bros. which took the fifth floor in 1914; Blackfort-Mintz Co. on the second floor the following year; and Bonar Phelps & Co., manufacturers of straw hats.

No. 43-47 East 10^th Street continued to house apparel firms through the 1930s.  When the K. W. Improvement Company purchased the building in June 1939, it announced plans for “extensive alterations.”  It was assessed at the time of the sale at $100,000.

Air conditioners poke through the windows in the 1970s -- photo by Edmund V. Gillon from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&VBID=24UAYW3CRNQM&SMLS=1&RW=1536&RH=731

The new owner’s alterations happily did not extend to the façade.  Richard Berger’s handsome design survived unchanged—right down to the storefronts—throughout the century.  In 1973 the last industrial tenant moved out as the building was converted to residential space.  Today there are ten apartments per floors above the ground level in the imposing brick loft building.

photographs by the author

Alfred Zucker's No. 712 Broadway

In the 1830s the stretch of Broadway from East 4 Street to Astor Place was lined with elegant Federal-style mansions.  No. 712 exemplified the grand residences.  Three and a half stories tall, it featured an ornate entrance with an exquisite fanlight. 

But the golden age of this section of Broadway would not last long.   By the end of the Civil War No. 712 had fallen to commerce; its brick façade painted to resemble heavily-veined marble.  The home of Tilman’s, sellers of artificial flowers and feathers, it foreshadowed the coming millinery trade, still blocks to the south.

No. 712 Broadway was covered in faux-marble plaster by 1866 when Tilman's Flowers took over.  photograph by Maurice Stadfield, from the collection of the New York Historical Society

On February 22, 1890 the Real Estate Record and Builders’ Guide reported that the “three-story brick store” had been sold for $88,000 to  “Mssrs. Scholle Bros.”  That significant price tag would translate to about $2.3 million today.   But Bavarian-born William and Jacob Scholle recognized the property’s potential on a block rapidly filling with tall commercial structures.

Three weeks later architect Alfred Zucker filed plans for what the Record and Guide called “a handsome store building.”  Zucker would soon make his mark on the neighborhood.   Before 1893 he would design about eight substantial structures within a two block area.

For some reason construction was delayed for two years.  But finally, on February 20, 1892 the Record and Guide reported “The old-time building at No. 712 Broadway is being torn down preparatory to the erection of a fine new store and office building on the plot.”

The fine new store and office building was completed in 1893.  Eight stories tall, its side piers--two stories of chunky granite and six stories of faceted brick—pretended to be structural.  But they disguised a modern iron framework.  They abruptly ended in blunt carved drums that rose slightly above the cornice.  Zucker filled in the space between with airy cast iron.  Spartan, pencil thin columns separated expanses of glass.  Their lack of ornamentation was made up for by the intricate designs of the cast spandrels.   

Intricate cast iron was flanked by faceted, unadorned brick piers.

The area was now the center of the garment and millinery industries.  Among the first tenants was Lion Mfg. Company, makers of boys’ clothing.   The firm sold apparel to retailers like Bloomingdale’s which resold its double-breasted suits for $5.00 and $6.50.

But not every tenant was in the garment trade.  The office of The Murray Hills professional baseball team was here immediately after the building’s opening.  On August 16, 1893 The Sun noted “The Murray Hills have Aug. 19 open to play any first-class club.  Address Nat C. Strong, 712 Broadway, New York city.”

N. Beubrik & Brother moved in as well.    The brothers established their clothing manufacturing operation during the Civil War.  Clothiers’ and Haberdashers’ Weekly sympathetically described them on December 20, 1895 saying “The partners are both old men, who have been connected with the clothing trade over thirty years.”

The elderly brothers were now in financial trouble.  When creditors appeared at their office here on Friday, December 13, 1895 they were shocked.  They “discovered that the firm had discontinued business and removed its stock.”

When the elevator boy was questioned, he said that during the past two weeks the firm “removed about twenty-five cases of goods in lots of three or four cases.”  The slippery old men had eluded their creditors, leaving about $700 worth of goods behind.

Clothiers’ and Haberdashers’ Weekly reported “The liabilities are estimated at $38,000, and there are no apparent assets.”

At the turn of the century, the city enacted a forerunner of Clean Air Laws by prohibiting the burning of bituminous, or “soft coal.”  The burning fuel gave off heavy black smoke as opposed to the more expensive but cleaner-burning anthracite coal.  The superintendent of No. 712 ignored the regulation, possibly in an effort to save his employers money.

About two blocks away, at the corner of Great Jones Street, was a fire alarm box.  Early in 1901 a concerned citizen, seeing the black smoke rising from No. 712, turned in an alarm.  Four FDNY engines and two hook and ladder companies responded, only to discover there was no fire.

A few months later the scene was repeated.  Then, on October 28 that year the fire alarm box was pulled once again.  The Evening World wrote “For the third time within the year an alarm of fire was turned in from the box at Broadway and Great Jones street early this morning because a citizen noticing the soft coal smoke arising above the building, concluded that the building was afire.”

Fire Chief Croker had had enough.  He instructed Policeman McCauley of the Mercer Street station to arrest the building’s engineer for violating the soft coal law.

The estate of Jacob Scholle still owned the building in 1903 when the Norwich Nickel and Brass Company leased the store and basement.  Upstairs, Gustav Krakauer moved in, a “manufacturer of pantaloons;” as did the Waverly Novelty Company, “manufacturers of pattern hats.”  The Connecticut-based Norwich Nickel & Brass Co. would retain its showroom here for years, selling display fixtures to clothing retailers.

The Norwich Nickel and Brass Co. offered an extensive array of store displays here Men's Wear, August 8, 1906 (copyright expired)

Harry J. Jacobs was a clothing salesman working here in 1907.  When he made an inappropriate comment to the sister of Earle Kakke, things got heated.  Jacobs appeared before Magistrate Baker on January 21.  “He said that Kakke had written to him, making a threat against him because of a fancied insult to his sister.”  The threatening letter was signed “E. H. Lowenthal.”

Earle Kakke, who made his living as a real estate dealer, admitted he had written the letter, “but contended that he did not mean it in the nature of a threat.”   The judge was not convinced.  Kakke was held on charges of sending a threatening letter through the mails.  It is unclear as to whether Harry Jacobs learned his lesson about how to speak to women.

At the time of Jacob’s messy incident the building was filled with garment and hat manufacturers.  Louis Lazarus moved here from No. 583 Broadway in 1907.  In reporting on the relocation Millinery magazine said “he is designing and manufacturing tailored and untrimmed hats for ladies’ and misses’ wear.  The assortment in all the newest braids and trimmings is such that buyers will be impressed with their style, quality and salableness.”

There were no fewer than six other clothing and millinery manufacturing firms in the building at the time.

No. 712 Broadway was struck with tragedy on the evening of April 27, 1912.  Louis Ginsburg was an elevator operator here and after work that day he was walking along Third Avenue near 11^th Street.  Suddenly a man approached him, jammed the muzzle of a revolver into his side and pulled the trigger.

The New York Times reported  the Max Moskowsky and Jacob Batherman, “who were near by, saw the deed, and started a cry of murder.  The man who had fired the shot ran.  He knocked down half a dozen people with well directed blows of his fists.

“Just as the murderer was about to dive into the Subway express station at Fourth Avenue and Fourteenth Street, he ran into the arms of Patrolman Thompson, of the Fifth Street Station.”  The witnesses told Thompson what had transpired.  The bleeding elevator operator identified his attacker.

When the assailant was taken into the police station, he was recognized as the man who had come in the day before complaining that he had been slashed with a razor at a restaurant on Third Avenue.  The 21-year old John Gallagher was taken to the hospital, where Ginsburg again identified him.

At the time, death bed confessions or identifications, called “ante-mortem statements,” were considered iron-clad.  As he lay dying, Ginsburg said he had never seen Gallagher before and did not know why he was shot.

As the decades passed, the garment and millinery district moved north of 34^th Street.  In 1938 the store was leased to Wehman Bros. Books.  A much different type of commercial tenant took space on the upper floors.   In 1959 Permarite Corp. was here, hawking government surplus sunglasses to retailers.  At least two handbag manufacturers were in the building in the 1960s, and in 1980 Beam Supply, a janitorial supply house operated here.

By now the Broadway block filled with trendy shops catering to the New York University students and the artists spilling over from the Soho lofts and galleries.   In 1982 the upper floors of No. 712 Broadway were converted to “joint living and work quarters” for artists.  The ground and second floor became home to Antique Boutique—a vintage and imported clothing and accessories store with no-so-vintage prices.  In January 1985 it advertised Italian leather bags ranging from $175 to $325.

Luxury apartments replace the spaces where ladies' straw hats and boys' suits were manufactured.  photo http://streeteasy.com/property/7747147-712-broadway-2

Alfred Zucker, known for his exuberant use of carved stone and chunky Romanesque elements, reined himself in when designing No. 712 Broadway.   It survives as an integral part of the long block of commercial structures that transformed the neighborhood in the 1890s.

non-credited photographs taken by the author