The Lost Alexander M. C. Smith House - 122 White Street

This tax photograph, taken around 1940, shows the Sunshine Settlement sign on the facade.  The Federal-style iron fencing survives after more than a century.  from the NYC Department of Records & Information Services

In the first decades of the 19th century modest middle-class homes began appearing in the district which would become known Tribeca.  Among them was No. 122 White Street which, like its neighbors, was two-and-a-half stories tall and faced in red brick trimmed in brownstone.  The original owners were financially comfortable enough to afford extras, like the handsome doorway with its wooden columns and ample transom.

By 1841 it was home to Alexander M. C. Smith and his family.  He was a member of the Municipal Police, working from the Police Court in the Halls of Justice--a position similar to a court officer today.  Smith's son followed in the profession.  James L. Smith was listed in city directories as a "high constable."

Alexander seems to have taken a no-nonsense approach to his job.  He was on duty during the sensational Helen Jewett murder trial.  It received nationwide press because of the lurid details.  Helen was a prostitute who was violently murdered by a repeat customer, Richard P. Robinson.

On January 21, 1837 The Herald quoted James D. Hall, who was present in the courtroom, saying "I witnessed the expulsion of Mr. Howard, by police officer A. M. C. Smith--Smith told Mr. Howard he must go out--Mr. Howard replied 'I have a right to be here'--Smith then said, 'I'll be d-----d if you shan't go out,' and he then thrust him violently from the court room."

Robinson, incidentally, despite a trove of evidence against him, walked free.

The Smith family remained in the White Street house for years.  But in 1853 a scandal arose which may have prompted the family to leave.  Smith was accused of paying a $125 bribe to Alderman Thomas J. Barr to ensure his reappointment.  In his affidavit of July 1853 he insisted "I only intended it to go to the aid in the re-election of Assistant Alderman Barr, the next fall."

Six months earlier, on January 28, 1853, the house had been sold at auction.  The new owner rented rooms, and his advertisement on June 28, 1854 in The New York Herald intimated that he intended to run an upright operation.

To Let--Apartments in 122 White Street; One front basement, a parlor and two bedrooms, to a small respectable family; would be let reasonable.  None else need apply.

That group of rooms was available again in April 1860, as well as two attic rooms and three rooms on the second floor.  Among the roomers here in 1861 was John White, who taught in the Boys' Department of School No. 1.  He made a surprisingly comfortable salary for a teacher.  His $1,500 per year wages would equal $44,000 today.

Two years later the house was once again a private residence, home to the O'Keeffe family.  John G. O'Keeffe was a politician and a member of Tammany Hall.  By 1878 sons Henry and Ferdinand J. O'Keefe were making their own livings, Henry listed as a clerk and his brother simply as "agent."

It appears that at least on roomer was in the house in 1880.  John More was arrested "on a charge of stealing a watch from Commodore Nutt," according to the Brooklyn Union-Argue on September 3 that year.  Commodore Nutt was a dwarf who worked for P. T. Barnum and he, like his co-stars Tom and Lavinia Thumb, made a fortune touring with the showman.  The newspaper added that the stolen watch "was given to him by P. T. Barnum."

Commodore Nutt was the victim of John More.  from the collection of the Syracuse University Library

The O'Keefes were followed in the house by attorney John J. Gallagher. whose father was an official at the Tombs nearby.  He had been the candidate for the Labor and Republican parties for Civil Justice in 1887.  On Saturday morning, December 19, 1891, Gallagher was in his office when at around 10:00 he complained of a headache and went back home.  He died in the White Street house a few hours later of a heart attack at the age of just 29.

When this photo was taken in 1938 the Federal elements of the house were amazingly intact, including the entrance.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

By 1895 the house was being used as the Ivy Social Club.  It placed an ad in The Sun on April 2 that year announcing "The Ivy Social Club's baseball team has reorganized for the season, and would like to hear from all teams with players under 19 years old.  Address John Ramond, 122 White street, New York city."

Patrick Cooley, the club's janitor who lived in the house, made extra money by training dogs to catch rats and then selling them.  On February 13, 1898 The Press reported "Yesterday he took a gray tan terrier out for sale."  The article explained that at Madison Avenue and 18th Street he stopped a well-dressed man and touted the dog's talents.  "The man had doubts of the dog's ability, and going back into his house, brought out a rat trap, in which was a huge rat."

The demonstration went downhill from there.  "Cooley took hold of the trap to release the rat, but was not quick enough, and the rat, before the dog could catch it, fastened its teeth in his right hand."  The article concluded "He not only failed to make a sale, but had to have the wound cauterized."

By now the neighborhood around No. 122 had changed.  Stores and missions moved into the vintage homes.  The Settlement Movement had appeared in America around 1890.  It stressed education over charity so that impoverished children and women could independently make their way in the world.   In 1900 V. Corena Furry founded the Sunshine Settlement at No. 60 Baxter Street, just around the corner.  

By 1903 the Transfiguration Lyceum operated from No. 122.  The organization seems to have been a sort of boys' and girls' club with extracurricular activities designed to keep the children off the streets.  There was a boys' baseball team, for example.  On June 8 1904 a notice in The New York Press announced "The Transfiguration Lyceum B.B.C. wants games with teams averaging 18 years."

In 1909 the Sunshine Settlement moved into No. 122 White Street.  That year, on June 19, Margaret Blake Robins was quoted in The Sun "We have never aimed to do 'great things.'  The settlement is simply a second home for working people and their families, where they get music, entertainment, wholesome fun, that makes them sun the streets and tenement hallways and brings out their own talent and individuality."

It was more than that, of course.  Like the Lyceum, there were a baseball team for the boys, a kindergarten, sewing school, and a mothers' club.  Robins said of the sewing classes that the supplies were provided and the students "keep the garments which they learn to make as their own.  No longer do little ones go around with dirty underclothes, or none, as it used to be, and there was 'loafing' and worse things that are unheard of now."

Following World War I the work of the Sunshine Settlement greatly expanded.  In 1921 The Brooklyn Daily Eagle Almanac listed its "social center for working girls, young boys and mothers of the neighborhood and has various industrial classes; maintains clubs, vacation funds, library, kindergarten, practical lectures, health classes, medical and otherwise."  

The boys' baseball team was still going strong in 1938 when Dorothy Dassler Furry announced in the New York Evening Post that it was available for weekend games.  "The boys range in age from twelve to fourteen," she noted.

The wooden barrier at the lower edge of this 1938 photo was erected for the construction site of the Criminal Courts Building.  from the collection of the New York Public Library/

That year the entire block across the street from No. 122 was demolished for the new Criminal Courts Building.  The opposite side was next to go, likewise demolished for the Manhattan Detention Complex.  

The Lost St. Paul's Vestry House - 29 Vesey Street

The rear of the large complex edged up to St. Paul's burial ground.  photo by Irving Underhill from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

As New York City expanded northward, a "chapel of convenience" was deemed necessary for those Trinity Church parishioners who had moved farther away.  Completed in 1766 St. Paul's Chapel sat in what, prior to ground breaking, had been a wheat field.  The chapel turned its back to Broadway so as to afford pleasing views of the river and to take advantage of its cooling breezes.

At the end of the Civil War the neighborhood around the chapel was bustling.   The famous Astor House hotel sat on the adjoining Vesey Street corner to the north and commercial buildings now girded the church property.  In 1868, according to A History of Real Estate, Building and Architecture in New York, "St. Paul's School, Church street, in the rear of St. Paul's Church, was under way."

The outreach of St. Paul's expanded as the city grew around it.  In 1886 architect Charles C. Haight was commissioned to design a sprawling multi-use building that would stretch the width of the Church Street block, from Vesey to Fulton Streets.  It edged up against the lower fringe of the burial ground.

His brick and stone neo-Tudor structure featured the expected historical elements--diamond paned windows, romantic stone oriels, and a decorative belfry with a copper bell-shaped cap.

Numerous facilities were housed under the new building's roof, the Parish Hall and Parish House, the chapel offices, and the schools.  There were two schools, one for boys and another, opened later, for girls.  The courses of instruction within the two were, given the period, necessarily different.  While boys were trained in the academics they would need in business, girls received instruction as well in "sewing, drawing, vocal music, and modeling in clay."

In a clever scheme to ensure trained voices in the St. Paul's Chapel choir, the venue also provided one-on-one sessions for adults wishing improve their singing abilities.  The only price was their committing to join the choir.  The Extract from the Year Book and Register of Trinity Parish that year included a description of "The St. Paul's Chapel Free Training School for Church and Concert Singers."

The members, twelve ladies and ten gentlemen, receive from the organist one private lesson a week of an half hour's duration, in cultivation of the voice and reading at sight.  For this they bind themselves to assume the duties of choristers in the choir of this Chapel.

photo by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

As with all private boys' schools, the St. Paul's School included a drill room where male students received military training.  On December 27, 1895 the New-York Tribune reported "There was a numerous assembly of men and women last night in the main hall of St. Paul's parish house, No. 29 Vesey-st., at the presentation of a large silk American flag to the St. Paul's cadets by Lafayette Post, no. 140, G. A. R."

Simultaneously the girl students had been plying their talents for another presentation to the boys.   Two months later, on February 14, 1896, The New York Times announced "The St. Paul's Cadets held a special drill last night in their drillroom, at 29 Vesey Street, and were also the recipients of a set of guidons [military standards], which were presented to them by the Girls' Friendly Society of St. Paul's Church.  The two guidons are of blue silk, each bearing the letters, 'S.P.C.,' worked in gold braid."

Girls students in a reading circle and in patriotic exercises around the turn of the century.  photo via trinitywallstreet.org

The building was the scene of meeting of 200 "business and professional men" on November 12, 1897.  Hosted by the New York Local Assembly of the Brotherhood of St. Andrew, its purpose was to impart the importance of the "fundamental ideas of Christian life" in business dealings.

That meeting was a hint of the evolution of the neighborhood and, in response, of St. Paul's Chapel's redefining its services.  Once surrounded by refined residences, the chapel now also served businessmen and tenement residents.  

On June 26, 1898 The New York Times reported "The mothers of some of the children who come to the missionary meetings to sew for the poor of the parish and for missions in other parts of the country, tell of their parents who were educated at St. Paul's School."   The article noted "There are three school rooms occupied by the girls, though all the girls of the parish do not attend, by any means, for the cable cars on Broadway run too frequently for careful mothers to allow their little ones to cross the busy street.  In addition to the day school, where the children learn all kinds of plain sewing, in addition to other studies, there are societies for the children, the older girls, and the mothers."

At the turn of the century St. Paul's was highly active in outreach to the business community around it.  Women now held jobs in offices--a situation previously unheard of.  And there was no shortage of unprincipled employers willing to take advantage of the young women.

Two shots from the same vantage point show the city rising up around the Vestry House (lower right)  photos from the collection of the New-York Historical Society

The vicar of St. Paul's Chapel responded by organizing a "guild of stenographers and typewriters" in the Vestry House building in 1907.  ("Typewriter" was early term for "secretary.")  Rev. W. Montague Geer explained to reporters "There is peril in abundance in this condition of affairs, and this peril ought, of course, to be reduced to the lowest possible term."

On February 22, 1907 the New-York Tribune reported "At the end of its fourth week, St. Paul's Chapel Club for Business and Professional Women has reached its limit of membership."  A typewritten sign in the "pleasant parish house of St. Paul's" explained that the group now had 300 members and enrollment was closed.  A waiting list already held 100 hopeful names.  

Among the advantages of the club were a lunch room where hot foot was available (a monthly ticket cost 25 cents) and reading room.

Female professionals chatter over lunch in what the New-York Tribune described as "the beautiful, banner hung, oak raftered, lead paned hall in St. Paul's parish house."  photo via trinitywallstreet.org

Others while their lunch hour away in the reading room, one catching up on her needlework.  photo via trinitywallstreet.org

St. Paul's Chapel continued to adapt to the changing demographics of downtown Manhattan.  In 1909 The Chinese Sunday School was formed.  Three years later the curiosity of local businessmen was satisfied when The New York Times explained "A sign in Chinese characters hanging on the Broadway fence surrounding St. Paul's Church, which has attracted considerable attention from passersby, was translated yesterday by one of the clergy attached to the church.  It is merely an announcement of the Chinese Sunday School run in connection with the church at 29 Vesey Street."  The article added "The sign is the handiwork of Yu Yuo Tsu, one of the twenty Chinese students at the Sunday school, which has been organized about three years."

Members of the Chinese Sunday School.   photo via trinitywallstreet.org

In the spring of 1913 the City was planning a new subway which, according to the New-York Tribune on May 21, "will run down Broadway and curve under the southeasterly part of the Astor House, across Vesey street and under the northwest corner of St. Paul's churchyard into Church street to Trinity Place and on to the East River."  But the City promised there was no danger to St. Paul's Vestry House.  It had agreed to pay Trinity Church $129,000 for "easement rights" under the building, and budgeted another $89,000 to ensure support of "the parish house and school."

And so business in the Vestry House complex went on as usual.   Memorial exercises for the 17th anniversary of the sinking of the battleship Maine were held here on February 15, 1915; and with a new war raging in 1917, a lunchroom for soldiers and sailors in uniform was opened.  Later that year, on October 27, The Living Church reported "Large classes are attending the free lessons in military French which are given at the parish hall of St Paul's Chapel, 29 Vesey street, to soldiers, sailors, doctors and nurses preparing to go to the battle line."

In the meantime construction of the subway was going on underneath the Vestry Building.  On October 4, 1916 engineer H. De B. Parsons addressed a meeting of the American Society of Civil Engineers, during which he explained in part "As the tunnels run diagonally beneath the building, it was necessary to remove its original foundations entirely, to construct new foundation piers, and to transfer the load of the building to these new piers by means of cross-girders."

Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, 1917 (copyright expired)

In 1918 the membership of the Business Women's Club had grown to 800.  The Vestry Building now also housed the Missionary Society, the Young Men's Club, Boy Scouts of America, Camp Fire Girls, the Girls' Friendly Society, the Women's Singing Class, the Candidates Class "for girls under fifteen," the Chinese Sunday School and "popular half-hour band concerts every week," according to the Directory of Social and Health Agencies of New York City.  There was also an Employment Bureau, described as "a free bureau to counsel and help male and female applicants."

On February 29, 1922 The New York Herald reported "Clouds of smoke poured from the upper windows of St. Paul's Parish House at 29 Vesey street yesterday and many thought the church buildings in Church street doomed."  The Evening World reported "Fire Watchers Fill St. Paul's Graveyard" and reported that people fled down to the fire escapes.  Fire fighters, however, found the source of the fire and soon extinguished it.

Two weeks later, however, a more serious blaze erupted.  On March 21 the Fire Marshall Brophy established that "the fire started from spontaneous combustion in a wooden closet in the luncheon club on the top floor, in which were stored a collection of cans partly filled with paint, some turpentine and a case of paraffin drinking cups."  Damages amounted to $100,000, according to The New York Times; nearly $1.5 million today.

Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, 1917 (copyright expired)

New Yorkers may have been shocked when The New York Times reported on June 4, 1927 "After operating every week-day for some twenty years the Mid-Day Lunch Club for Business Women at St. Paul's house, Vesey and Church Streets, has been closed because the city has taken over the property on which the building stands for subway construction...The clergy offices have removed to the second floor of the Astor House Building, 217 Broadway."

The venerable brick and stone structure, long a landmark in downtown Manhattan, was demolished, leaving no hint that a building ever stood on the site.  Today a wide sidewalk, pierced by subway entrances, and a widened Church Street appear to have always been there.

The 1846 A. T. Stewart Building aka The Sun Building - 280 Broadway

photographer unknown, via WriteOpinions.com

Alexander Turney Stewart started business in 1823 with a small lace and linens shop in half a store in a little wooden building at No. 283 Broadway, between Church and Reade Streets.  He had a sleeping room in the rear.  The Irish immigrant possessed a genius for marketing--he came up with the concept of a department store, recognized the value of customer service rather than overcharging the buyer, and would later develop the idea of mail order business.

In his 1884 History of New York City, Benson J. Lossing wrote "Mr. Stewart, by great commercial sagacity and operating upon a cash basis, had accumulated a fortune sufficient to enable him to purchase Washington Hall, which had been used for many years as a hotel."   

Stewart's magnificent store would replace an equally magnificent structure.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

Stewart paid $70,000 for the property--about $2.73 million today.  On the site, directly opposite the spot where he started out, he would erect "a magnificent marble structure" which Lossing called "the pioneer of marble, freestone, and iron stores on Broadway."  Designed by Joseph Trench and John B. Snook, it was also the first commercial building in the Italianate style.


The glistening white marble upper floors sat upon a storefront with Corinthian columns and expanses of plate glass show windows.  The tireless diarist and former mayor Philip Hone visited the store a few weeks before its completion.  "Mr. Stewart's splendid edifice, erected on the site of Washington Hall...is nearly finished, and his stock of dry goods will be exhibited on the shelves in a few days.  There is nothing in London or Paris to compare with this dry goods palace."  His sole problem was the plate glass show windows which he called a "useless piece of extravagance."  (He envisioned a boy's snowball producing disaster.)

The gleaming white structure stood out among brownstone and brick buildings.  Lights & Shadows of New York Life, 1872, (copyright expired)

The new emporium opened on September 21, 1846.  It quickly gained the popular moniker The Marble Palace, no doubt because of The Evening Post's describing, "the looming front of a marble palace, five stories high, decorated in the most beautiful style of art."  The newspaper added that "an incessant current of carriages may be seen approaching and leaving and as upon Jacob's ladder an unbroken file of angels, ascending and descending its marble steps."

The New York Herald reported "When we visited the store about 12 o'clock, we found a line of carriages drawn up in front reaching from Chambers to Reade streets.  Crowds of fashionable people were passing in and out, and all were warm in their expressions of gratification of all the beautiful and tasteful arrangements and architecture of the this whole building."

from the collection of the New York Public Library.

Well-dressed women entered into a rotunda decorated with wall and ceiling frescoes and dominated by a glass dome 80 feet above the floor, 70-feet in circumference.  An ornate chandelier, expansive mirrors imported from Paris and a graceful flight of stairs elevated the store above anything shoppers had seen before.  

Visiting A. T. Stewart's was as much a social activity as a shopping event.  A gallery encircled the rotunda for promenading--the popular Victorian ritual of seeing and being seen.  The Continental Monthly commented that the name Stewart evoked "a train of ideas, a marble front, plate glass, gorgeous drapery, legions of clerks, paradise of fashion, crowds of customers, and all the fascination of a day of shopping."

Stewart's extravagance stopped short of waste.  He is shown here chiding a clerk for using too much twine. Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly, June 1876 (copyright expired)

Tremendous success necessitated enlargements.  Additions were made in 1850-1851 and again the following year, both designed by Trench & Snook.   The enlargements doubled the size of the original building.   In 1853 A. T. Stewart's did $7 million in business.

The unrelenting northern movement of commerce prompted Stewart to erect an even larger retail store in 1862, engulfing the entire block of Broadway between East 9th and 10th Streets.  No. 280 Broadway now held the firm's wholesale store and its clothing manufacturing shops.  The building was enlarged again in 1872 by architect Frederick Schmidt.

In 1876 the store had grown with several additions.  Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly, June 1876 (copyright expired)

Alexander T. Stewart died on April 10, 1876.  Judge Henry Hilton, one of the executors of the Stewart estate, took control of the real estate.  Two years later, in November, The Carpet Trade Review reported "The down-town marble building on the corner of Broadway, Chambers and Reade Streets...is soon to be vacated."  The departments still housed in the building were moving north to the Broadway and 10th Street store.  Hilton let No. 280 remain vacant until 1884, when he added two floors, expanded along Chambers and Reade Streets, and converted the interior to offices.

King's Handbook of New York City pictured the 1884 expansion. (copyright expired)

In April 1885 The Presbyterian Home Missionary announced "After the first of May next our friends will please find us or address us at Stewart's Building, 280 Broadway."  The once-elegant retail palace saw a mish-mash of businesses for the next few years.  By 1888, however, the majority of the tenants were attorneys and legal firms.  In the 1890's the city moved several its departments in.  On February 19, 1896 The New York Times reported that the city was paying a total of $95,540 per year in rent here--in the neighborhood of $2.88 million today.

When war broke out in Europe, offices in No. 280 Broadway became home to the Army Recruiting Headquarters.  On June 6, 1917 it got a somewhat surprising neighbor.  The New York Times reported "On the first floor of 280 Broadway, separated only by a few doors from the headquarters of the United States Army recruiting in the city, the British Recruiting Mission began...to enlist British subjects for service with their own colors"

When this photograph was taken around 1917 the ground floor held a barber shop (far left), a tailor shop, and the Nicolas Restaurant.  from the collection of the New-York Historical Society

That same year Frank A. Munsey, owner of the New York Herald and The Evening Sun purchased the building.  The New York Times reported that he paid $4 million for the property.  In 1919, after significant interior renovations were made, he moved the newspapers' operations in.

The first threat to the marble structure came when Munsey announced in June 1922 his intentions "as soon as the cost of building materials and labor are reduced...to replace the building with a thoroughly modern structure."  Apparently those costs never came down to Munsey's liking and the building, by now known popularly as the Sun Building, survived.

The handsome three-faced clock was attached to the building's corner announcing that "The Sun, It Shines for All"  photo by Vinit Parmar

On June 13, 1927 America's hero, Charles "Lucky Lindy" Lindbergh was honored with a ticker-tape parade on Broadway to celebrate his solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean in the Spirit of St. Louis.  The festivities did not end there, of course.  On June 17 The New York Times reported "A brief interlude in Colonel Lindbergh's morning of automobiling yesterday was spent in the office of The Sun, 280 Broadway.  There he received a silver plaque bearing the editorial 'Lindbergh Flies Alone.'"  It was the headline which The Sun's readers had awoken to on May 21.

Surprisingly, when Frank A. Munsey died, he left the Sun Building to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  On January 2, 1928 the newspaper purchased the it from the museum.  In reporting the sale The Times reminded readers that "The property was largely reconstructed and thoroughly modernized when Mr. Munsey took it over for his newspapers."

With the onslaught of the Great Depression, The Sun management took steps to help the economy.  In September 1933 it announced it had placed a $500,000 order for 24 new printing presses.  The statement explained that the order was made "as a contribution not merely to the improvement of its own plant but also to the success of the re-employment and buy-now campaigns of the National Recovery Administration."

The Sun got an unlikely bedfellow when The Times of London opened its offices on the top floor.  A near riot broke out on June 8, 1939 when when the newspaper printed coverage of "the first visit of a reigning British monarch and his Queen to these former-British colonies," as described by The New York Times.

The 13,000 copies distributed to newsstands sold out by 9:00 in the morning.  The newspaper then sent out the 2,400 copies held back for mail requests, but those too, sold out quickly.  The Times reported "Then near pandemonium set in on the seventh floor of the Sun Building, 280 Broadway, where the London paper has its offices.  Hundreds of would-be customers were turned away."  Copies that normally sold for 5 cents were bringing $1 on the streets, "with plenty of takers."  The Times of London had to disconnect its telephones in order so that the staff could work.

Following the end of World War II Henry Modell, owner of the sporting goods chain, established the Modell Veteran Training Center in a retail space.  Mayor William O'Dwyer officially opened the facility on March 23, 1946.  The dual-purpose establishment both trained wounded and handicapped veterans for private life and sold surplus war supplies.

By 1949 the training center had been phased out, replaced by a Modell's store.  It was at the Broadway location that the mayor cut the cake to celebrate the chain's 60th anniversary.

The following year The Sun merged with The World-Telegram.  Management spokesmen informed the press that the merger "included only The Sun's name, good-will and circulation lists."  In other words, it was essentially the end of the Sun's operation.  And nearly the end of the Sun Building.

The property was purchased by a syndicate headed by Charles F. Noyes.  On January 26, 1951 it announced that a skyscraper would be erected on the site.  The New York Times reported "The new building will be about forty stories tall and will contain 1,000,000 square feet of space."

The New York Times published a rendering of the proposed building on January 27, 1951.

But, once again, the venerable structure survived.   In the fall of 1959 Modell's began a modernization of its storefront which dismayed at least one journalist.  The New York Times reported on October 3 "The facade of the Stewart Building at 280 Broadway, at Chambers Street, a landmark for 112 years will soon become a memory.  Workmen have begun removing the stone colonnades that will be replaced by a wide expanse of contemporary aluminum and glass panels."

In 1966 the city took possession of the building after it and the historic Tweed Courthouse next door were condemned for a 52-story tower designed by Edward Durell Stone.  That project stalled but, as Municipal Services Administrator John T. Carroll explained on April 22, 1975 it "is not legally buried."  Therefore the city decided "not to invest any funds in rehabilitation 280 Broadway" although city offices had been moved in.

The decision led to shameful consequences.  On August 5, 1981 The New York Times columnist Michael Goodwin wrote "The white marble facade still gleams in the sun and the cast-iron columns above the street recall a grand past, but, inside, 280 Broadway is full of the signs of a grim present."

Plaster fell from the ceilings of the halls, window frames were on the verge of falling out, and large cracks appeared in the walls.  After rainfalls, ceiling tiles would be found on the floor.  An administrator in one department pointed out a partitioned-off area in an office.  "The building workers told us not to use this part of the room because it's so dangerous."

Any chance of demolition was squelched in October 1986 when the No. 280 Broadway was designated a New York City landmark.  Protection of the structure did not mean improvement of the interior conditions, however.  In February 1994 the newly-appointed Commissioner of General Services, William J. Diamond, visited the building.  The word he used to described it was "atrocious."

Referring to the landmark designation he told The New York Times architecture journalist David W. Dunlap, it was "saved but saved for what?  You're essentially in an office slum."  He suggested selling the building to a private developer for renovation and restoration, pointing out that the still-intact rotunda "could be turned into a food court."

photograph by Beyond My Ken

Ideas like his were bounced around for three years before a $37.2 million renovation was initiated.  Completed in 1999 it now housed the city offices like the Department of Buildings.  The renovations, designed by the architectural firm of Beyer Blinder Bell, resulted in retail space on the ground floor and offices above.  The rotunda, now called an atrium, included five skylights above the central court.