The 1895 Gibbes Building - 66 West Broadway

 

In the early decades of the 19th century, the neighborhood around West Broadway and Murray Street was home to affluent families.  An advertisement in 1833 gave a telling description of 65 Murray Street, on the northwest corner of West Broadway.  The three-story-and-attic house had "folding doors between front and back parlors" (what today we would call pocket doors), "handsome marble mantle pieces, grates in first and second stories, four finished bed-rooms in the garret."  The garret, or attic, bedrooms would have been reserved for four live-in servants. The ad called 65 Murray Street a "desirable residence for genteel families."

But as the end of the century neared, little hint of the Federal style homes survived as loft and store buildings increasingly replaced them.  On February 2, 1895, the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide reported, "At No. 65 Murray street a new seven-story stone and iron fire-proof store and loft building, 25x125, is to be erected."  Horace S. Ely & Co. had hired architect William E. Bloodgood to design the structure.  

Bloodgood had been active in the district for two decades, often working in partnership with Freeman Bloodgood as Bloodgood & Bloodgood.   Among his handsome designs in the area was 510 Broadway, completed in 1879.

His design for the Gibbes Building would be markedly modern and different, one of the first New York City structures to draw on the Commercial Style, which was still developing in Chicago.  Clad in Roman brick above a two-story cast iron base, its verticality was underscored with five four-story elliptical arches on West Broadway, each separated by Ionic piers.  The deeply overhanging cornice and the exposed rivet heads of the second story lintel were typical of the Commercial Style.  Bloodgood was not willing to completely forego tried-and-true styles, adorning the two-story limestone entrance frame with Beaux Arts decoration, and giving the cast iron piers expected 19th century ornamentation.

The Record & Guide noted the up-to-date amenities.  "The structure will contain elevators, steam-heating equipment, electric wiring and fixtures, structural, architectural and galvanized ironwork, iron shutters, and sanitary plumbing."

The Gibbes Building filled, mostly, with publishing firms.  A notable exception was William Somerville's Sons, which signed a lease in 1895.  "The Messrs. Sommerville have become very extensive dealers in scrap rubber," said The India Rubber World.

More typical tenants were the Industrial Press, publishers of  the monthly periodical Machinery; William E. Wilkins, publisher of the Merchants' Review; and Ashbel R. Elliott, head of A. R. Elliott Advertising and A. R. Elliott Publishing Co., which published medical books.  Also associated with the latter firm were Daniel M. and John M. Elliott.

At around noon on October 29, 1900, John M. Elliott took a lunch break on the roof of the Gibbes Building.  Twenty-five minutes later a massive explosion occurred in the Tarrant Building at Greenwich and Warren Streets, about a block and a half away.   Elliot watched in astonishment, later describing the event to a reporter from The Brooklyn Daily Eagle who reported:

He says the force of the first explosion was directly upward for a matter of thirty feet.  Then the column of debris spread and fell.  The roof of the building went up with the rest and he could hear the cries and screams of injured people.  The third explosion shook the building where he was and debris fell all about him.

Thomas McFarland, a clerk, had also left his desk in the Gibbes Building around noon.  He was standing in front of the Home Made Restaurant when the first blast occurred.  He told a reporter from the New-York Tribune, "I was hurled against a truck and lay there for some time without knowing what had happened.  I was badly bruised, but was not other wise hurt."

Another passerby to be blown off his feet was Harry Rose.  The Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported, "When he picked himself up he said he saw bodies flying through the air and landing in the flames."  The horror of the event sent working girls rushing for safety.  "At the building at 66 West Broadway," said The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, "a large number of girls employed in buildings nearer the explosion took refuge."

Edward F. Sweet was a private insurance broker.  His one-man business did not necessitate an office and around the time of the explosion he was renting desk space from A. R. Elliott.  An advertisement in The Evening Post on January 31, 1902 read in part, "If applied for promptly, I can supply a limited amount of absolutely safe life annuities on exceptionally favorable terms."  

It was common for well-to-do businessmen to move into their clubs or to a high-end boarding house during the summer months when their families went off to resorts.  The practice defrayed the expense and bother of keeping their homes open and full staff of servants employed.  Sweet's wife sailed to Europe in the summer of 1902, and he took rooms in a boarding house on Fifth Avenue at 99th Street.

The 50-year-old Sweet was an avid bicyclist, or "wheelman."  The Evening World said his bicycle was "his almost constant companion."  On September 12, the newspaper reported, "Edward F. Sweet, an insurance broker at No. 66 West Broadway, was found dead to-day on the beach at Fort Hamilton.  His body, naked except for a pair of swimming trunks, was discovered by a policeman."  The New York Times presumed he was the victim of "a fatal swim," saying "Not far away on the beach lay his bicycle and a bicycle suit."

By 1911 the publishers in the Gibbes Building were being supplanted by crockery and glass firms.  Among the tenants that year were the New York offices of Fostoria Glass Company, the French China Company, Central Glass Works, and the Consolidated Lamp & Glass Company.

The Gibbes Building in 1914 looked little different than it does today.  from the collection of the New York Public Library.

Not every publisher had left the building, though.  As late as 1922 the A. R. Elliott Publishing Co. was still here, publishing the American Druggist, the New York Medical Journal, and the Spanish language Revista Americana, De Farmacia, Medicina y Hospitales.

At some point St. Luke's Hospital acquired the property.  It sold the Gibbes Building in March 1920 to the 416 West 215th Street Corporation.  The transaction prompted the New-York Tribune to mention, "It is occupied by many crockery firms," and The New York Times to call it "by far the finest office building in the neighborhood" and to point out its "graceful lines with perfect light arrangement."

Among the tenants at the time along with A. R. Elliott and the Consolidated Lamp & Glass Co. were the drug firm Meteor Products Co., Inc., the M. C. Liebert Manufacturing Co., the National Rattan & Cane Co., and the exporting firm Pass & Seymour, Inc.  Sharing a floor with Pass & Seymour were the Eagle Safety Razor Company and the Marcelle Hair Net Company.  On the second floor was Stewart's Chrystal & China Shop.

Like scores of companies owned by German Americans, the National Rattan & Cane Co. had been seized by the Government during World War I under the 1917 Trading with the Enemy Act.  It was still being operated by a Government administrator in 1920 when the Gibbes Building changed hands.

On the night of May 11, 1921, burglars broke into the Gibbes Building.  The safe crackers systematically went from one office to another, eventually hitting eleven companies and breaking into seven safes.  Their hard and long work went unrewarded, however.  The following day the New York Herald reported that after forcing open the safes "with bars and chisels" the would-be thieves "were disappointed in their search for loot."  The article said, 'no money or securities were stolen from any of the offices."  The Evening World explained, "downtown business men keep no money in the safes these days."

Gutsy robbers were more successful on August 24, 1934.  Just after George Ferris opened his jewelry shop two men walked in

and overpowered him.  They placed Ferris in handcuffs, then made off with 36 bar pins valued at $300.  The Sun reported, "Ferris was taken to Police Headquarters where the handcuffs were sawed from his wrists."

An unexpected tenant by the mid-1930s was the Aquarium Stock Company of New York.  Founded in 1910, it was the country's largest supplier of aquarium products.  When the Sportsmen's Show opened in the Grand Central Palace in 1938, the company presented a stunning display.  The New York Sun reported on February 19, "Twenty-one stainless steel domestic aquaria, comprising fifty species of tropical fish, are among the features to be seen."  The journalist was especially taken with "a ghost fish from the Amazon, called aternarchus albifrons."

Among the tenants in the 1940s was Harry Ross, who bought and sold "microscopes, telescopes, binoculars; all scientific, chemical laboratory apparatus," according to an ad in Popular Science in 1944.

Little changed today, the Gibbes Building remains, as judged by The New York Times a century ago, one of the finest buildings in the area.

 photographs by the author

many thanks to historian Anthony Bellov for suggesting this post

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The 1856 149 Duane Street

 

Until around 1855 a wooden house and store sat on the northeast corner of Reade Street and West Broadway.  The upper portion was home to three Black families and a grocery store occupied the ground level.  Ralph C. Van Houten demolished that house and the small house-and-store behind it to erect a five-story commercial building.  Almost unquestionably, his builder acted as his architect.  While the brick-faced building clearly drew from the emerging Italianate style, with its molded brownstone lintels and bracketed cornice, at least one architectural historian calls the style "Utilitarian."

The four floors above the commercial space were accessed through a doorway on West Broadway.  In 1856 they were home to three drug manufacturers--William L. Rogers, Robert Robbins, and Robert J. Houghton--and a liquor and wine importer, David M. Hollister.   By 1859 the ground floor housed the Crawford & Davis saloon, operated in part by Alexander J. Davis.

The saloon may very well have obtained at least part of its stock from David M. Hollister upstairs.  That firm also imported cigars--a sensible go-with for Victorian gentlemen who purchased wine or liquor.

On the night of March 7, 1860 two burglars forced the West Broadway door and then broke into the "wholesale liquor and cigar store of David M. Hollister," as reported by The New-York Dispatch.  They were not interested in the liquor, but only in the cigars.  They made off with four boxes of cigars valued at $150 (about $5,000 in 2022).  The New York Times reported on March 10, "Early yesterday morning, two negroes, named Wm. H. Forest [sic] alias Becket, and Thomas Williams were arrested...on a charge of having perpetrated the burglary."  The New-York Dispatch wrote, "After the robbery Forrest took two boxes of the cigars to dispose of, while his confederate was to do the same by the remainder, after which they were to divide the spoils."  

Both men had police records, Forrest having been released from Sing Sing State Prison only a few months earlier, and Williams having been arrested the previous week for burglarizing a grocery store.  The pair had a confederate in the crime.  They confessed to having sold the cigars to John Collins, who ran a cigar store at 71 West Broadway.  The stolen goods were found there, and he, too, was arrested.

At the time of the burglary, there was just one apparel manufacturer in the building, Charles Wagner, a skirt maker.  Later that year, on December 7, drygoods merchant and skirt manufacturer S. T. Kellogg moved in.  It was operated by Sylvester T. Kellogg and his partner James K. Spratt.  The scope of their operation was reflected in a help-wanted advertisement four months later.  "Fifty experienced skirt hands wanted--at 149 Duane street."

By 1863, the saloon was being operated by Charles Boerger, who lived across the street at 146 Duane Street.  The upper floors were now filled entirely with apparel and drygoods merchants, including S. T. Kellogg; Julius and Samuel Wilzinski, dealers in cloth; George H. Rand's shirt manufactory; and two commission merchants, Thomas B. Boyd and another named Leahy.  

In October 1864, Thomas B. Boyd developed a scheme to eliminate his competitor.  A fire that broke out in the Leahy offices on Sunday afternoon, October 23, was immediately deemed suspicious.  Fire investigators concluded that it had started after a hole was bored through Leahy's wall, an accelerant poured in, and then ignited.  Two days after the minor fire, The New York Times reported, "A brace and bit, with which the hole was bored through the wooden partition leading from the hallway into the store of Leahy, commission merchant, were found in the room of Thomas B. Boyd, who occupied a room on the same floor."  Boyd was arrested and held in default of bail equaling more than $44,000 in today's money.

In 1866 Charles Baltzell Rouss opened a drygoods and notions business in 149 Duane Street.  He had a major challenge ahead of him.  Born in Winchester, Virginia, at the age of 18 he had first opened a store there.  It prospered until the outbreak of  the Civil War.  Rouss joined the Confederate Army.  Now, with the war over, King's Photographic Views of New York said he arrived in New York "without money or influence, and with $11,000 of ante bellum debts hanging over him."  

Rouss conducted his drygoods business from 149 Reade Street until 1875, when it failed.  Undaunted, according to The American Carpet and Upholstery Journal later, "he began again in a small store on Broadway."  Rouss changed his middle name to Broadway.  By the 1890's Charles Broadway Rouss's annual sales were between $8 million and $10 million, according to The American Carpet and Upholstery Journal.

The saloon changed hands again in 1871.  An advertisement in April offered, "For Sale--Five years' lease of a prominent corner Restaurant, with Bar, and good basement."  The upper floors were still occupied by apparel and drygoods merchants.  A different type of tenant appeared around 1873 in McKune & Sutton, dealers in the woven mats used under dining room tables, and on the floors of carriages.  They were joined in the building around 1876 by another matting dealer, Vandeventer & Horne.

The Hub, April 1, 1873 (copyright expired)

Another non-apparel related firm was that of Alexander F. Reid, who dealt in twine, thread and cord.  He moved into the ground floor space before 1885.   New York 1894 said, "Here an immense stock is carried of twines, cordage, hemp, flax, jute and tow, gilling thread, hammocks, etc. etc."  Born in India, Reid founded the business around 1867 and "the history of his house during the intervening period has been an unbroken record of success," said the article.

The Commercial Register, 1886 (copyright expired)

The last decade of the century saw the neighborhood morphing into the shoe district.  Around 1890 J. Greenberg lease the top three floors for his shoe making establishment.  Greenberg had arrived in New York City at the age of 19 in 1871.  Now, according to the History and Commerce of New York in 1891, his 40 employees produced 700 pairs of boots each week.  The firm manufactured "Gents' fine shoes," said the article, as well as "youths' or boys' shoes."  Greenberg's employees worked 54 hours per week, plus nine hours on Saturdays.

The dignified Alexander F. Reid found himself in jail on Saturday evening, February 20, 1897.  He left the office and got to the train station around 5:30 just before his train to Brooklyn was to depart.  The New York Herald said, "His mind was full of pleasant thoughts.  He had ordered a dozen quail sent over from the market in the morning, and in anticipation he saw them on his dining room table."  He pushed his way through the crowd, not wanting to miss the train.

Another reputable businessman, George Glassner, was also in a hurry.  He inadvertently stepped on Reid's foot, apologized, and proceeded on.  On that foot, however, was an extremely painful corn, and Reid was infuriated.  He caught up with Glassner, caught him by the back of the collar, and landed a "stinging blow" upon his nose.  The New York Herald reported, "in self-defense, Mr. Glassner retaliated with an upper cut on Mr. Reid's jaw.  The train pulled out, leaving the two reputable citizens pummeling each other on the platform."

A policeman tried in vain to separate the two.  "Mr. Glassner stopped to explain that he had apologized, but the pain of Mr. Reid's pet corn was still intense, and even as he spoke, Mr. Glassner received another blow in the eye, and the two men were at it again, hammer and tongs."

Both were arrested, spent their Saturday nights in jail, and faced Magistrate Crane in the morning.  Glassner told him, "I did all I could.  I apologized to this gentleman, after he had struck me, and was willing to let it go at that."  Reid explained, "He stepped on my corn, and I could have killed him."  The New York Herald summed up its recount, saying that Glassner was let go, and Reid was fined $3.  "He paid the fine and went home to eat his quail cold."

As the turn of the century approached, the tenant list became more varied.  By 1898 the Emergency Horse Shoe and Supply Co. was here.  The firm's single product was intended to solve a serious problem--what to do between the time a horse threw a shoe and its owner could get to a blacksmith.  Designed to be slipped over the horse's hoof, the temporary shoes were intended to be carried in one's carriage or wagon, and used immediately.

The Blacksmith and Wheelwright, February 1899 (copyright expired)

Other tenants at the time included Professor Loberger, maker of "Prof. Loberger's Germ Destroying Tablets."  An advertisement in 1898 said "Simply pull open [the] lid and hang the box on the wall.  It will destroy bacteria, prevent disease, purifies atmosphere."  Jonathan H. Lyon & Co. occupied space at the turn of the century, dealing in "rags for shoddy."  (Shoddy was cheap fabric made from shredded rags.)  And by 1905 Montanez & Rodriguez, cigar makers, was here.

After being in the building for two decades, Alexander F. Reid moved to 137 Duane Street in the spring of 1907.  The Brockton Ideal Shoe Co. soon moved in.

Boot and Shoe Recorder, August 9, 1911 (copyright expired)

In 1919 the owners emptied the building of tenants, apparently to make renovations.  An advertisement on April 28, 1920 offered, "Shoe Center:  149 Duane Street, corner West Broadway, store and four lofts to let, will divide to suit tenant."

Among the new occupants was the Huntington Shoe & Leather Co., based in Huntington, Indiana.  In 1931 it was joined by the Duane Shoe Company on the ground floor, and M. Grubman wholesale shoes.  Another new tenant that year was unrelated to shoes.  F. Couzza's wholesale pistachio business would remain here until 1938, when he moved to 111 Reade Street.

In 1941 the block was lined with shoe businesses.  149 Duane Street is at the left.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The building continued to house shoe companies and other small businesses until a conversion, completed in 2001, resulted in six apartments above the ground floor.  Considering the original tenant of the commercial space, the current tenant is appropriately named Balloon Saloon.

photographs by the author

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The Eliza Payne House - 499 Broome Street

photo by Beyond My Ken

Sometime after 1767 an east-west road was laid out in the district which two centuries later would be known as Soho.  It underwent a string of names--Bayard's Lane, Bullock Street, Hevins Street and "Orchard Street West of Broadway"--until finally, in 1806 it was permanently christened Broome Street in honor of the current Lieutenant Governor John Broome.

Around 1825 Alfred S. Pell began construction on similar, upscale houses at Nos. 497 and 499 Broome Street.   Because No. 499 sat on the corner of Laurens Street (renamed West Broadway in 1897) it was the more desirable, with extra light and ventilation.

The three-and-a-half story dwelling was faced in brick and featured incised brownstone lintels and a single centered dormer at the high peaked attic level.  The doorway would, most likely, have been flanked by twin Ionic columns, narrow sidelights and a leaded overlight. 

It is doubtful that Pell ever lived in either house.  An advertisement in the New York Morning Courier in 1829 offered No. 499 for sale.  It became home to the family of Hannah C. Payne.  Known to her friends as Eliza, she was the widow of William Payne.  She had three children, Walter, Cecelia and Hannah.

Tragedy struck in January 1834.  Walter joined a group of "sixty or seventy boys skating," according to the New York Journal, on a nearby pond.  The newspaper estimated the thickness of the ice at about 1-1/2 inches.  A boy on the bank noticed Walter and five other boys standing together about 30 feet from shore.  "While thus engaged, a coloured boy came so swiftly towards them as not to be able to stop himself, but ran against them, and they were all precipitated into fifteen feet of water."

The ice was too thin for onlookers to attempt rushing out to rescue them, so a board was pried from a fence.  One boy was saved by that method.  By the time a boat was pulled from dry dock, all the others were dead.  "Five were taken out of the water soon afterwards, and another next morning two of them brothers, being clasped in each other's arms."  Among the dead was Walter Payne.

Sometime after 1837 Eliza married Jacob Haughwout.  By the early 1840's she had opened the Broome Street Saloon in the ground floor.  It was listed as a "porter house"--a tavern where malt liquor such as porter and food were served.  For several years she had leased the cellar to Andrew W. Twist and his wife, who made their home there.  

Twist, who testified in court in 1845 that he rented the basement from "Hannah E. Paine [sic]," described the house by saying that "the upper part was occupied as a porter house, called the Broome Street Saloon, and kept by Mrs. Haughwout and her two daughters."

At around 3:00 on the morning of June 25, 1845 Twist and his wife were awakened by a banging on the basement door.  The saloon watchman told him the house was on fire.  "I saw the flames and smoke through the roof and third story windows," said Twist.  After the fire was extinguished Twist went to the second floor where it had begun.  On the way up he noticed a suspicious detail.  "I saw shavings on the stair case, spread on the steps," he told investigators later.  He added another possibly disturbing item, "I saw things taken out of the house about 3 or 4 weeks before the fire."

Investigators quickly suspected that the Haughwout family had set the fire.  On July 3 the New York Herald ran the headline "Important Arrest--Arson" and reported "Jacob Haughwout, Eliza Haughwout, alias Hannah C. Payne, Hannah F. Payne and Cecelia Payne" had been "charged with setting fire to the dwelling house."  The newspaper called the alleged crime "this atrocious outrage."  The New-York Tribune paused to describe Hannah and Cecelia as "smart, black-eyed looking girls about 15 and 17 years of age."

The family members were tried separately.  The outcome of the proceedings could not have been more dire.  As the New-York Tribune pointed out, arson was a crime "the penalty of which, on conviction, is death."

Eliza's trial was first, beginning on October 15.  Things did not look good when a fire investigator testified that when fire fighters arrived, "the Haughwouts were all there, the house was fired in six or eight places, the beds were untumbled [i.e., not slept in]" and a claim for the insurance had been immediately filed.  Cornelius V. Anderson of the fire department testified that one of the fires had been set in "shavings in the bed quilt" and insisted "the fire could not have originated in any way except by design."

The hope for the family's attorney was that the all-male jury would not be able to sentence three females, two of them teenagers, to death.  Indeed, the Tribune reported "There was an almost general sentiment expressed by persons examined as Jurors against the taking of life as a punishment."

Despite the overwhelming evidence against them, the Haughwouts walked free.  

In 1848 Cecelia Payne was listed as the proprietor of the saloon.  The family was renting upstairs rooms by the early 1850's, with E. J. Perry, a "colorist," living here in 1852.  That year Eliza rented the entire house.  Her ad in The New York Herald on March 23 offered "A three story house, consisting of twelve rooms, with croton water on each floor."  It was leased by Timothy Kendall and Jesse M. Carter, both of whom moved in and listed the building as a hotel.  The Broome Street Saloon was renamed Carter & Kendall Porter House.

Eliza Haughwout, once again widowed, was back by 1856 when she reappeared in the city directories here.   In 1864, despite having a saloon in her home, she threw herself into the work of the Educational Institute for the Benefit of Colored Adults.  On Christmas Eve 1867 the first Sunday school service for non-white adults was held in the house.  On January 4, 1868 The New York Times praised Eliza, saying "The institution of this school is the praiseworthy result of the labors of a widow lady during the past four years."  The article noted that the neighborhood now had a "population of 2,000 colored people."

Among Eliza's tenants in 1870 were the family of Joseph Melfi, a musician, and Peter Muske, "segarmaker."  The saloon was run by Cornelius Murphy.  One of Melfi's young students went missing in 1870.  He placed an advertisement in The New York Herald on June 8 that read:

$50 reward--Lost, an Italian boy answering to the name Francesco de Rago; he is thirteen years old and plays on the harp.  Any person that can give any information that will lead to his apprehension will receive the above reward by applying at Melfli Bros.

The reward would be equal to $1,000 today.

The following year Murphy was, apparently, eager to get out of the saloon business.  His ad on November 21, 1871 announced "For Sale--The First Class corner liquor store...If not sold by Tuesday will be sold on that day, at 10 1/2 o'clock by William Abbott, Auctioneer."

It was purchased by Andrew Hopke.  But he would not remain for long.  In an article entitled "Foul Food" on April 18, 1872 the New York Daily Tribune reported he was guilty of serving ""unhealthy puddings; and very young veal, too small to be eaten."  The following year the saloon was on the market again.  "For Sale Cheap--The lease, stock and fixtures of a first class corner liquor store."

By now Cecelia had inherited the property.  In 1874 she protested the assessment she was charged for the paving of Broome Street.  Surprisingly, she won that petition.

James J. Rafferty took over the saloon and around the same time the upper floors were converted for business purposes and a three-story extension was added behind.  

Arps combined the house with the three story building at the rear, dating from 1874, in 1921.  A row of windows was punched into the second floor facade at the time.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

Morris Mehesy ran his fur business here in 1875.  To increase the visibility of his operation, he placed a showcase on the sidewalk.  But displaying furs outdoors was a risky proposition.  On December 2, 1875 The New York Herald reported "the showcase in front of the store of Morris Mehes[y], at No. 499 Broome street, was robbed yesterday of a sealskin sacque and muff valued at $35."  It was a significant loss, equal to about $840 today.

Mehesy and Rafferty both remained through 1877.  But the following year both were gone, replaced by L. Schwartz & Co., printers upstairs, and Edward Gross who listed himself as "beer."

Having been owned by the Payne family for nearly half a century, the house and its three story rear extension was sold in March 1879 for $8,460--or about $225,000 today.

Louis Schwartz & Co. continued to operate here for several more years, and in 1883 John Carmody took over the saloon, paying his $75 excise license fee each year through 1897.  The following year John J. Dougan took over its operation.  In the meantime, in 1895 Samuel Cashman's hat and cap factory opened upstairs.  That year he employed four men and one woman.  He remained at least through 1899.

In 1906 Otto L. Arps took over the saloon.  Ten years later he purchased the building, described by the Department of Buildings at the time as a "cafe" on the first floor and "lofts (factory) existing" upstairs.  Arps leased the upper floors to various businesses over the years, including J. Spaulding & Sons, Co., the Square Leather Goods Co., and the U. S. Steel Stamping Company.

The Volstead Act went into effect on January 17, 1920, kicking off Prohibition.  Otto L. Arps ignored the law until he was finally discovered by Prohibition Agents in 1925.  The New York Times reported that the bar had been padlocked and that Arps was forced to close the business for two months as penalty.

In the meantime, in 1921 Otto Arps connected 499 Broome Street internally with the building behind, at 361 West Broadway.  The third floor of that building became the offices of the St. George Society, described by The Evening World as "one of the biggest British charitable organizations in the country."  Leonard D. Langley, its almoner, was at his desk at 2:15 on the afternoon of December 19, 1921 when three young men entered the office, shut the door, and pointed a gun at his head.  The crooks took Langley's watch, stickpin, and money, then stole $185 from the safe.  "I told them that they were dirty, damned scoundrels to rob a charitable institution that helps the hungry and down-and-outs," Langley told a reporter.  In an unexpected twist, a few days later, on Christmas Eve, one of the bandits returned and asked Langley for his forgiveness.  He was locked up.

Three months later Langley's office was visited by four gunmen again.  The New York Herald reported on March 15, 1922 that they "became angry when they found that he had nothing more valuable than a $2 watch.  One fired at him, the bullet grazing Langley's abdomen on the left side and inflicting a slight flesh wound."  The four men fled with the watch.  That was enough for Langley.  On November 18 that year the New York Herald reported that he was relocating his office downtown.

Following the repeal of Prohibition, the long standing tradition of a bar on the ground floor of No. 499 was renewed.  On October 29, 1938 The Advocate reported that the Rocco J. Angelo and Michael R. Libonati had received their liquor license for the Gotham Bar & Grill.

In 1946 Joseph and Lillian Lata purchased the property.  They leased the tavern to proprietors, while operating Lil's Cafe on Hudson Street.  Their upstairs tenant in the 1970s and '80s was filmmaker, producer and artist Hart Perry.

Following Joseph Lata's death in 1965, Lillian continued managing the property.  A disturbing incident occurred in 1970 when, according to local reports, a man, convinced that the bartender was having an affair with his wife, strode in and fatally shot him.  According to a relative of Lillian Lata, police forced her to close the bar.  It remained shuttered until February 1972, when brothers Kenn and Bob Reisdorff leased the ground floor and opened Kenn's Broome Street Bar.

Kenn soon bought out his partner. and ran the bar--now in a neighborhood filled with art galleries and shops--until his death in 2014.  Two patrons signed a new lease and continue running Kenn's Broome Street Bar today.  The property is still owned by descendants of the Latas after more than three-quarters of a century.

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Meats, Radios and Dance - 228 West Broadway

In the 1850's respected citizen Walter J. Oughton lived in 24-foot wide house at No. 118 West Broadway.  But by the end of the 1860's the quiet residential tone of the neighborhood would be mostly gone as commercial loft buildings began to rise. 

Developer Myron W. Dow  purchased the building at No. 118 West Broadway (renumbered 228 in 1897) from Thomas Hagan in January 1892; and simultaneously the property around the corner at No. 8 North More Street from Heilner & Wolf.  His one-year mortgage on the combined properties was $48,000; a considerable $1.37 million in today's money.

Dow hired the architectural firm of Maynard & Wistairr to design a six-story, bluntly L-shaped loft and store building on the site.  Construction began in February and proceeded quickly.  Six months later, on August 13, when Dow sold the property to John Heyzer the Record & Guide commented that the building "is now being finished."  

The architects had created carbon copy Renaissance Revival facades.  A cast iron storefront supported five floors of red brick trimmed in terra cotta and stone.  Cast iron framing of the upper floor openings allowed for expanses of glass.  Especially eye-catching were the arched windows of the third and sixth floors with foliate decorations cast into the sprandrels.  The modillioned cornice was flanked by beefy brackets.

The building sat within a district occupied by produce and wholesale grocery merchants.  Thomas & Davis, "provisions," operated from the fifth floor here and in 1916 the Puritan Food Company took the store and basement levels.  The major occupant of No. 228 West Broadway at the time was meat plant of Oxo Limited, Inc.  That firm renewed its lease in 1920, but change in the tenant list would soon arrive.

Meats and produce firms were gone from the building before the onset of the Great Depression.  In 1924, when the Austen Cologne Company took space, the Manufacturers' and Inventor's Electric Co. had been in the building for some time.

Founded in 1897, the Manufacturers' and Inventor's Electric Co. offered help to electrical designers.  An ad in The New York Times on December 6, 1925 offered consultation on "experimental work," light manufacturing and instruments and development of inventions.  The Radio Dealer commented that the firm "operates a general shop for the production of radio equipment" and that "they have a most complete plant" for the manufacturing of scientific and precision instrument parts.  The firm would remain at the address at least through 1929.

Among the tenants at mid-century was Bookkeeping Machines, Inc.  The firm shipped office machines by various manufacturers to customers around the world. 

Buffalo Courier-Express, March 2, 1955

Change was again on the horizon for the Tribeca neighborhood at the time.  In 1971 artist Michael Economos listed his address here when he participated in the Ten Downtown exhibition.  The annual show had been launched in 1968 by a coalition of ten artists.  He was typical of the young artists who were moving into loft spaces despite no city sanction for residential usage.

The cornice was intact as late as the 1940's.  photo via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

No. 228 quickly transformed from manufacturing to artistic.  In 1973 Meredith Monk used a loft as a performance space.  On May 12 that year The New York Times columnist Don McDonagh reported on her program "Paris," performed by herself and Ping Chong.  "It also concentrated on simple walking or circling steps but was broken into dramatic vignettes," he said.

Additional performance spaces opened.  Maugaret Beau and Lee Nagrin's dance space was in the building by 1978; and in 1980 James Staley and his partner David Weinstein (both composers) created Roulette in their loft.  On October 10, 1982 Times journalist Tim Page wrote "James Staley has found a novel way to make use of the living room of his downtown loft:  he puts on concerts.  Fifty or 60 evenings every season, Mr. Staley tidies up his cluttered, comfortable dwelling, puts out some folding chairs and creates Roulette, a makeshift performance space."  Roulette still operates from the second floor today.

The Loft Theater was in the building by 1985.  It was the scene of innovative performances like the "choreographic chamber music" that summer during which Margaret Beals danced as pianist Thomas Hrynkiv played Chopin on the piano.

The ground floor became home to Bubble Lounge in the mid-1990's, described by Monique P. Yazigi in The Times as "stressless chic."  The name referred to the lounge's focus on Champagne.  The broad variety of the bubbly wine was offered by the bottle, glass, or half-glass.

It was not until 2002 that a conversion officially resulted in "living/work quarters for artists" above the restaurant level--just one per floor.

The handsome facades on both streets have suffered abuse, including the loss of the cornices and various decorative elements.  But overall they are intact, including the 19th century iron storefronts.

photographs by the author

The Erlich Co. Cigar Factory - 241-243 West Broadway

In March 1885 architect John C. Burne filed plans for a six-story loft and store building at Nos. 123 and 125 West Broadway (later renumbered 241-243) for Ella V. A. Dayton and her husband, Abram H. Dayton.  Ella was the owner of record.  The cost of the project was set at $19,000--or about $521,000 today.

The completed building was faced in red brick above the cast iron base.  Although Burne gave the sixth story a decided Romanesque Revival flavor with foliate terra cotta capitals, arched openings and a fortress-ready corbel table; the bulk of the decorations were in the Queen Anne style.  Geometric tiles, pyramidal bosses which ran up the four-story piers, and checkerboard brick panels were all elements of the up-to-date style.

The building was initially home to garment factories.  In 1888 George Schoen was making jerseys, or blouses, here; and by 1892 the Metropolitan Cloak and Novelty Company was operating from the building.  And advertisement that year looked for operators "on reefers and waists" (jackets and tailored blouses in modern terminology).

Ella and Abram Dayton transferred title to the property to Isabella T. Newell and Sarah A. Tucker on February 17, 1898.  The sisters soon resold the building to cigar maker Erlich Manufacturing Co.

United States Tobacco Journal, September 28, 1907

The West Broadway factory was one of two in New York City, the other being on East 68th Street.  A third was located in Tampa, Florida.   A reduction in production in 1908 resulted in the 68th Street factory being discontinued.  The Tobacco World explained in industry-specific terms that "The Erlich Manufacturing Co. has decided to withdraw from the seed and Havana cigar manufacturing business and devote all their time and energy to the further exploitation of their clear Havana lines."

The Erlich factory was a significant operation, employing 100 male and 107 female workers in the West Broadway building.  Rather than being paid by the hour, they were paid by the number of cigars they produced.  In the fall of 1911 representatives met with managers requesting a $2 increase per every 1,000 cigars each employee made (about $55 today).  Their request was denied.

On October 10 The New York Call reported "Not a man returned to his bench when the whistle blew at the shop of the Erlich Manufacturing Company, cigar manufacturers, 241 West Broadway, yesterday morning."  The employees had deliberated for about a week before deciding not to report to work.

The dispute was soon settled and the firm remained here until 1918 when it leased the building to F. J. Smith Co., Inc.

Then in 1922 the Wisner Dairy Manufacturing Company purchased the property and converted it for storage.  The firm, whose president was Harley C. Albee, manufactured "creamery machinery." Journalist Thomas Webster, writing in Milk Plant Monthly in 1918 had called Albee "a practical dairyman" who had "evolved a great many innovations in the creamery equipment field, from the Peerless continuous pasteurizer down to the latest and best, the 'Peerless Regenerative Heater-Cooler.'"  The company's factory was on Greenwich Street.

The building was the random target of vandals in the summer of 1933.  On Sunday, June 25, when the industrial neighborhood was essentially vacant, police noticed the front window of the Chase National Bank at Church and Worth Streets had been "perforated" with small, round holes.  The New York Sun reported "Later the police found that similar damage had been done to a window of the Wisner Dairy Manufacturing Company at 241 West Broadway and to several windows in an empty loft building at 6-8 White street, close to the Wisner office." 

The mystery of what caused the clean holes which did not shatter the glass puzzled investigators, for there were no projectiles inside the buildings.  Finally it was discovered that an air rifle "from which a metal rod is projected when the trigger is pulled" was the culprits' weapon.

Wisner Dairy Manufacturing Company remained in the building at least through 1937, the year Harley C. Albee died.   In the second half of the 20th century No. 241-243 was home to the electrical supply firm, Turtle & Hughes, Inc.  But change to the Tribeca neighborhood was soon to come.

An egg-and-dart frame surrounds the terra cotta tiles in this spandral panel.

In 1999 a renovation was completed which resulted offices above the store level and loft dwellings on the top floors.  On September 7, 2005 The New York Times food critic Florence Fabricant reported that "David Féau, who was the last chef at Lutèce, will open his own boutique restaurant with a raw bar and a French bistro menu that also offers the chef's interpretation of New England clam chowder and chicken wings." 

Cercle Rouge remained until 2017 when Frenchette restaurant replaced it in October.

photographs by the author

The Cross & Bastine Bldg - 232 West Broadway

On February 26, 1870 the Record & Guide reported that M. A. Marcy had hired New Jersey-based architect M. H. Scott to design a "two-story brick store" on the site of a coal yard at the corner of North Moore Street and West Broadway.   Completed before the end of the year, Scott had wasted no unnecessary money on the building's decorative elements--yet without sacrificing architectural style.   The segmentally-arched window heads, ribbon-like freize and corbel table below the pressed metal cornice were all executed in brick.  They all reflected the modish neo-Grec style.

There were two cast iron storefronts--one which engulfed the entire West Broadway side and another at the rear on North Moore Street.  (The West Broadway address, No. 132, would be renumbered 232 in 1897.)

The building's first occupant was Cross & Bastine's wood graining shop.  Victorian architects and cabinet makers cleverly masqueraded cheaper woods as expensive rosewood or mahogany, for example.  Cross & Bastine also etched or engraved supplied designs on glass or wooden panels.

Real Estate Record & Guide, October 3, 1874 (copyright expired)

In the 1890's Achille Bataille & Co.'s "West Broadway Wire Works" office and showroom were located in the building.  Its factory was located significantly north on Hudson Street, one block south of West 14th Street.  The "wire work" was more substantial that it sounds today.  The firm manufactured the brass and wire railings for "banks, offices, cemeteries," as well as elevator enclosures and folding gates, wire fencing and similar architectural items.

At the turn of the century Italian-born Michael Pascarella operated his wholesale paper operation here.  He shared the building with M. Tortakoff's laundry business, which was most likely located in the rear space.  Pascarella would remain for several years and the large sign erected atop the building in 1907 most likely advertised his business.  It cost $230 to install, or about $6,500 in today's money.

Pascarella lived in Emerson, New Jersey and his successful paper business garnered him a comfortable lifestyle.  In September 1910 he purchased a new automobile and proudly invited three friends to take a test ride.  Joining the party was Pascarella's teen-aged son.

On September 4 New-York Tribune reported that when they were about six miles from home the younger Pascarella "said he knew how to run it and he was allowed to try his hand."  Things did not end well.  "When near the Old Hook Cemetery, between Westwood and Emerson, something went wrong with the steering gear."  The boy ran his father's new car off the road and up a steep embankment where it then "turned turtle."

The newspaper said "The five occupants were made prisoners under the car, but all miraculously escaped injury."  They were rescured by men in a "passing machine."  The Tribune ended saying "The new car is now in a Hackensack garage, a wreck."

In 1911 ex-City Chamberlain Charles H. Hyde was facing a charge of swindling a client.  Israel Tilden, a law student and clerk, applied for a change of venue, claiming that Hyde was so hated locally that he could not receive a fair trial.  To support his application Tilden presented the court with an affidavit alleging that local businessmen had disparaged Hyde, assumed he was guilty, and called him unflattering names. 

The problem for Tilden and his client was that at least a dozen of the men learned of the affidavit and told reporters they had never made the remarks attributed to them.  Among them was Michael Pascarella.  

Tilden had reported that Pascarella had said "My opinion is that he [Hyde] is no better than the rest and ought to be convicted."  But Pascarella told the assistant district attorney that he had never met Tilden nor made the statement.  The Sun added that he "says that he cannot read English and never read anything about Hyde or the 'others' in any newspaper."

The Pascarella paper business was gone by the onset of the Great Depression.  A restaurant moved into both levels in 1931, followed by a fish processing and packing factory in 1942.  At mid-century the building held a single store along with storage space on the first floor, with an office and more storage upstairs.  In 1952 the building next door at No. 230 was demolished and would remain a parking lot for years.

The original configuration of the storefront, as well as the initial cornice, can be seen in this tax photograph taken around 1941.  photo via the NYC Dept. of Records & Information Services.

Much had changed in the Tribeca neighborhood by the last decade of the 20th century.  The little corner building was home to One Dream theater by 1991 and it would remain in the space for years.

Then major change came in 2009 when construction started on a six-story structure next door which incorporated No. 232.  Completed in 2010, the combined buildings now form a sumptuous single family residence.

photographs by the author