The 1891 Margaret Louisa Home - No. 14 East 16th Street

The Margaret Louisa Home for Protestant Women shortly after completion -- "King's Photographic Views of New York," author's collection

The idea of hotels and apartment houses expressly for bachelors gained a foothold in New York in the 1880s. As the prospect of employment in the post-Civil War city lured men from the farms and small towns, respectable lodging was necessary.  “Bachelor flats” filled the void.

A decade later, a similar problem was recognized for working females. Women in the 1890’s were no longer tied to the home or to traditional jobs as maids or nurses. Suddenly the city was filled with opportunities as stenographers, clerks, “typewriters,” and teachers. Women flocked to New York hoping for success.

The problem they faced was affordable, respectable housing until they could establish themselves.

In 1889 the situation was brought to the attention of Margaret Louisa Vanderbilt Shepard, the daughter of William Vanderbilt and a fervent supporter of the Y.W.C.A. In response, she donated the funds for the Margaret Louisa Home for Protestant Women; an inexpensive, “home-like” residence where self-supporting women could stay while they searched for work or saved for their own lodgings.

Robert Henderson Robertson was commissioned to design the structure which was completed in 1891. The brawny stone building gave an essence of unintimidating solidity. A century later the AIA Guide to New York would call it “Rock-face brownstone (with some interspersed brick) in Romanesque Revival, with a charming colonnade at the top floor.”

When the hotel opened in June of 1891 it was lauded by The New York Times as “an inspiring evidence of woman’s interest in women.” The six-story facility had 78 sleeping rooms, a restaurant, and common areas where the women could socialize and relax.

“Mrs. Shepard provided everything, from the artistic vases upon the handsome upright piano in the reception room to the new-styled soap dish that can be fastened on to the scrubbing pail,” said The Times.

The rooms were furnished with a white-painted iron bedstead, a “stylish little oak table,” a rocker, and washstand with toilet set. While the rooms had up-to-the-minute touches like an electric light, there was also a gas jet and a candle in each room in case of the expected power failures.

Margaret Louisa Shepard supported the home for the first month of operation to ensure its financial stability. Her stipulation was that it “should not be conducted as a charity, but as a businesslike transient Protestant women’s hotel.” An in-house employment bureau helped those women searching for jobs.

The Margaret Louisa Home did not accept every woman who rapped on the door and there were rules to be followed. Each prospective roomer had to provide references. Household help were not permitted. “If servants seek admittance,” said The Times, “they are sent where they will feel more at home with associates who do the same work as themselves.” Women who were found to have “forfeited their right to enter respectable homes,” were sent elsewhere. Although the doors were locked at 10 pm, pre-arrangements could be made in special circumstances to allow the guest late night access.

Boarders were allowed to stay four weeks, with the possibility of 5 extra days “grace” being added.

Immediately the home was a success. By the Fall applicants were being turned away and 400 women were having lunch in the restaurant daily (where the menu noted “Children are Not Admitted”). Rooms were rented at 60 cents a day with an extra 85 cents for three meals.

In 1894 alone 5,002 women were received and 310,429 meals were served. A year later the numbers had risen to 5,773 guests and 431,124 meals, and by 1896 there were 6.057 roomers.

In 1898 The Times gave a breakdown of the professions represented at the Margaret Louisa Home. “Notwithstanding all that has been said concerning the number of women who are taking up so-called unfeminine employment, it would seem from the list of the Margaret Louisa’s guests that they are in the minority,” the paper said.

1,954 of the guests the previous year were teachers, 630 were milliners, 436 dressmakers, and 171 were “housekeepers.” “Travelers” accounted for 449 of the guests, 246 were stenographers, 70 physicians, 39 librarians, 15 lecturers, 37 missionaries, 11 actresses, and 98 nurses. Various other professions included photographers, umbrella makers, confectioners, hair curlers florists, hatters and merchants.

Not everyone agreed with the idea of “self-supporting” women. That same year Dr. Charles Cuthbert Hall, President of the Faculty of the Union Theological Seminary addressed the board of the YWCA deploring the “increasing migration of young women from the village to the city.”

“Here come these hordes of bright young women to seek success in art,” he said, “led on by the iridescent dream that they will accomplish something great in a great city.”

By providing the girls with an easy source of housing through the Margaret Louisa Home, Dr. Hall complained that “you have not said to them: ‘Go back to your homes, you are wrong,’ but you have met them in a cordial and no superficial way.”

“What a pity that these girls are infected with the idea that to be married and to settle down in a small village is below them!” he lamented.

The girls continued to stream in, however. In 1900 The Times described the working girls earning $6 and $7 a week who could afford very little for housing.  The Margaret Louisa Home offered hope to those who would find little elsewhere.  “These are the girls who work in the flower and feather factories and are employed in the shirt-waist shops.” On the whole, the newspaper said, “The girl who can pay but a small sum for her board can get but a very unsatisfactory return for her money in New York.”

As World War I came to a close, the Margaret Louisa Home was still charging only 60 cents a night and the facility remained operating throughout the first half of the 20th Century.

Today the ground floor of the building is home to the Sidney Hillman Health Center while the New York University-run New York City Free Clinic operates on the upper floors. While the bulk of the exterior remains remarkably unaltered, the entire first floor has been obliterated, replaced by an sleek and unsympathetic pseudo-modern façade.

non-credited photographs taken by the author

The 1898 New Era Building - 495 Broadway

photo by Hubert J. Steed

As the 19th Century wound to a close, Jeremiah C. Lyons had become one of the most prominent real estate developers in the city, owning and managing the J. C. Lyons Building and Operating Company. Many of the firm’s holdings were located along 5th Avenue; however Lyons developed rows of upscale residences in high-end neighborhoods, such as the eight limestone mansions on East 74th Street designed by Buchman & Deisler in 1898, one of which, at No. 55, Eleanor Roosevelt would later occupy.

Lyons had earlier commissioned the same architects to design an eye-catching commercial building that was completed that year at No. 495 Broadway—The New Era Building.

While Italianate palazzo-inspired buildings were rising along Broadway at the time, Buchman & Deisler stepped out of the box with their design.  Drawing on the modern Art Nouveau sub-style popularized by designers and architects like the Scottish Charles Rennie Mackintosh, they produced a no-nonsense behemoth unlike any of its neighbors.

Decades later the AIA Guide to New York City would call it an “Art Nouveau marvel: from the squat street-level Doric columns, fairly bulging from the weight of the masonry walls above, to the colossal multistory copper mansard, six floors up.”

The solid-looking structure was originally intended for a printing firm; however it soon became the headquarters for Butler Brothers, one of the first mail-order catalogue companies in the United States. In the 1870’s the three Butler Brothers – Edward, George and Charles – started their business selling wholesale merchandise to retail stores across the country.  Expanding to New York in 1880, the firm was selling to about 100,000 customers when it moved into The New Era Building.

In the final days of World War I, Butler Brothers made headlines when it refused to accept shipment of German-made toys and china shipped through Holland without notice; even though the goods had been paid for prior to the declaration of war years earlier.

“America does not need German-made goods and Butler Brother will in no way encourage the German propaganda designed to place German-made goods back in the American market,” said company vice-president Walter Scott. Speaking in October of 1918 he added “Butler Brothers feel that the American children should have American-made toys. They are therefore willing to accept any loss which may be occasioned by their refusal of this shipment, because they feel it will help to keep German-made goods out of this market.”

photograph by the author

In 1927 the firm launched a string of franchised variety stores under the name Ben Franklin Stores. That same year fire raged through the New Era Building. On December 20 The New York Times reported that “Damage of $1,000,000 was wrought by the fire which early yesterday morning swept through the building at 495-497 Broadway, occupied by Butler Brothers, wholesale dealers in general merchandise, and came perilously close to injuring several companies of firemen.”

The fire had burned for two hours before smoke was detected and an alarm set off. Sections of floors fell through and no fewer than seventy firemen were necessary to fight the blaze.

After more than a century since its construction, The New Era Building looks remarkably as it did in 1898 and, as it did then, commands the attention of the most casual passer-by. The thick street-level columns, the bold, confident stone arches at the sixth floor, and the outstanding copper mansard make the New Era Building a one-of-a-kind treasure.

Griffith Thomas' 1860 No. 443-445 Broadway

When merchant Nicholas Ludlum purchased the property on Broadway between Grand and Howard Streets in 1841, the neighborhood was still mostly residential. Within twenty years the sophisticated commercial buildings appearing on Canal Street, one block to the south, would begin replacing the old homes here as well.

In 1860 Ludlum commissioned architect Griffith Thomas to design an office building and store. Thomas, who had just completed the Astor Library a year earlier, would be deemed “the most fashionable architect of his generation” by the American Institute of Architects years later in 1908.

The result was a stone, Italianate beauty topped by a deep pediment; a style that would be copied in cast iron throughout the area for decades. In his “Access New York City,” Richard Saul Wurman wrote “In a neighborhood of iron buildings pretending to be stone, this five-story building…is the real thing, and it’s a real beauty…”

Gerald R. Wolfe, in his 1994 “New York, A Guide to the Metropolis,” agreed. “No. 443-445 gives a very aesthetic appearance. Rows of pleasing round-arch windows are topped by individual projecting cornice slabs supported by brackets. A projecting balustrade runs along the second floor, with decorative urns at each end. Ornate scrolled brackets support the main cornice, above which a pediment adds the final touch.”

Three years after completion, the business and editorial offices of D. Appleton & Co. moved in. The firm had published Darwin’s Origin of the Species in London in 1857 and would go on to print the memoirs of William Tecumseh Sherman and William H. Seward.

It was the demand for the latter types of publications after the Civil War and the subsequent need for more space that pressed Appleton & Co. to leave 443-445 Broadway after only three years.

Broadway in 1899 from Mail & Express -- NYPL Collection

For many years around the turn of the century, Einstein, Wolff & Co. leased the entire building. The firm dealt in “fancy lace wearing apparel” and the “embroidery trade,” importing and manufacturing laces and embroideries and holding the controlling interest in several other manufacturers of handkerchiefs, neckwear, laces and embroideries.

Einstein, Wolff & Co. moved out in February 1913 leaving the building vacant. In June of that year the heirs of Nicholas Ludlum sold the property for $260,000 after 72 years of ownership. The New York Times reported that “Plans are being prepared for remodeling the present structure.”

Indeed the old pre-Civil War building was updated and in 1918 an ad was placed announcing that the commercial space on the street level was for rent with all the latest amenities. “Store and basement 50x200 through to Mercer Street. All glass front, large private elevator—sprinkler system—heat furnished. Modern and most desirable store in this section.”

The Broadway-Canal neighborhood changed drastically as the 20th Century progressed and prestigious retail stores and offices were replaced by warehouses and cheap discount outlets. No. 443-445 managed to survive intact above street level although the ground floor was heavily altered and modernized.

As the Canal Street / SoHo district continues to experience its revitalization, No. 443-445 Broadway was recently restored. The street level once again looks as it did in 1860 and the upper floors have been renovated into condominiums.

non-credited photographs taken by the author

The 1868 Irwin Building - No. 316 Bowery

photo by Preserv

By the time the Civil War ended, the Bowery had drastically changed from rows of brick Federal-style homes to a busy commercial area. The houses that still survived now had stores or saloons in their street levels. Others were being replaced by commercial structures.

In 1868 banker Robert Irwin commissioned architect Nicholas Whyte to design a four-story brick “store and dwelling” at Nos. 316-318 Bowery, on the corner of Bleecker Street. Known as the Irwin Building, this would be one of Whyte’s first commissions.  He produced a strikingly handsome brick and sandstone building in the very latest Italianate style. A corner tower nestles within the steep mansard roof with its slightly-projecting arched dormers. Two paneled chimneys on the Bleecker Street side are banded with sandstone. Originally, ornate cast iron cresting would have finished the roofline. Elegant arched limestone lentils accentuate the tall windows .

The Bowery area at this time was part of  Kleindeutschland, or Little Germany. Between 1864 and 1874 a million and a half German immigrants settled in New York, most on the streets and avenues east of the Bowery. Although the Bowery had already earned a reputation as a center of vice and crime, the Germans opened many respectable music halls and beer gardens.

“The larger German music halls have the only respectable audiences to be found in the Bowery,” said James M. McCabe, Jr. in 1882. Nevertheless, as he continued in his “New York by Gaslight,” “Men and women in all stages of intoxication stagger along the pavements, and here and there is a sturdy policeman with some offender in his grasp, hastening on to the station-house. Vice offers every inducement to its votaries, and the devil’s work is done nightly upon a grand scale in the Bowery.”

Amid the mixed flavor of the neighborhood, the Irwin Building retained its respectability.  During the period McCabe described, the upper floors were being rented by both the Atlas Lodge #316 and the Neptune Lodge #317.

Troubles came for Irwin when in 1878 his Bond Street Savings Bank failed and he was personally sued by the receiver for $89,500. By 1880 John Boyd had briefly taken ownership of the building, selling it in 1883 to Abraham Ettinger.

Ettinger was leasing the building to Frank B. McCracken in 1893 when architects Kurtzer & Rohl were called in to renovate the ground-floor store. McCraken used the upper stories as a warehouse above the new store front until 1894.  Then, that year, he looked to take advantage of the financial potential of the space, hiring architect Walter H. C. Harnum to renovate the upper floors into a hotel.

The declining quality of the neighborhood around the turn of the century was reflected in the rapid-fire turnover in commercial tenants. Max Ungar leased the building in 1897, followed by Joseph Emrich and Louis Stajer in quick succession in 1900, David Mayer Brewing Co. and James J. Brown one after another in 1902, and Jaretsky Brothers in 1905.

Ettinger lost the property to foreclosure in 1913 when Eugene H. Paul took over. Paul quickly sold the building to millionaire banker Jacob H. Schiff who added a new storefront on Bleecker Street, designed by E. H. Janes & A. W. Cordes. The former hotel areas upstairs were now being used as a factory.

Throughout the first three decades of the 20th Century the building was sold and resold until Marpearl Realty Corp. purchased it in 1934. When important photographer Berenice Abbot shot the ground floor of the Irwin Building in 1938, it housed a hardware store that flawlessly portrayed the surrounding Bowery area.

No. 316 Bowery in 1938 -- NYPL Collection

Marpearl held on to the Irwin Building until 1977. Having suffered through decades of grime, derelicts, and neglect, the Bowery was experiencing a slow rebirth. Artists now lived in the upper floors and one-by-one music clubs and theaters cropped up along the thoroughfare.

In the Spring of 2004 architects Preserv completed a restoration initiated by the Taub family, owners, that including reinstalling the natural slate on the mansard, rebuilding of the decorative brick chimneys, cleaning and restoring the brickwork façade, and fabricating and installing fiberglass replications of the original cast iron ornamentation that had been lost.

photo by Preserv

Today the space where the 1938 hardware store spilled bins of nails and screws onto the street is occupied by the trendy Double Crown restaurant and upstairs 2-bedroom apartments are selling for $2.6 million.

The Irwin Building has survived a century and a half of change to emerge a striking presence on the Bowery.

Two Federal Survivors -- Nos. 190 and 192 Grand Street

photo by Alice Lum

When the wealthy Stephen Van Rensselaer constructed the row of handsome brick Federal-style residences on Grand Street between Mulberry and Mott street between 1832 and 1834, the area was populated by affluent merchant-class citizens. Built as investment properties, the row included Nos. 190 and 192 Grand Street.

Three bays wide they featured Flemish bond brickwork, molded brownstone lintels and elegant dormers with segmental-arched windows. The parlor floors would have been accessed by brownstone stoops, about four or five steps high, with wrought iron railings.

Merchant seamen Philip and Williams Engs, father and son, leased No. 190 while running their business on Front Street. Originally from Newport, Rhode Island, they remained here until around 1850 when they followed the uptown migration of the well-to-do residents; the Engs moving to 14th Street.

In accordance with the changes in the neighborhood, a millinery shop soon occupied the first floor and by the time of the Civil War the upper floors were divided into a rooming house. In 1869 it housed a crockery store.

The house was a “lodging house for men” when Lila Kelsey took over the upper portion in 1876 with hopes of continuing the successful business. She became distressed and worried when several of the roomers left within a few days of her taking over. Her financial worries, coupled with the recent suicide of her father six months earlier were too much. On May 7, when she did not answer the housekeeper’s raps at her door, a policeman was called who found Kelsey had taken a razor to her throat.

It was here in 1890 that Edward Strodel ran his musical instrument shop. By now the brownstone stoop had been removed and the commercial floor lowered to street level.

At this time the nearby Bowery area was known as Kleindeutschland, or “Little Germany” and upstairs the rooming house was filled with renters with German names and German chatter filled the halls.

Eventually Italian immigrants filled the Grand Street area.  Francesco Rosario Stabile purchased the house in February 1901 from Max Ottinger and Max Korn, who had purchased it from the Van Rennselaer estate only a year earlier. Of the four families living upstairs at this time, three were Italian and only one, now, was German; reflecting the heavy influx of Italian immigrants. Within the decade only Italian-named renters would live here.

Not until the 1970’s would a resident with a non-Italian name rent here.

Throughout the 20th Century, from the 1930’s to now, the Piemonte Ravioli Company has occupied the commercial space on the street level.

The history of the twin home next door at No. 192 was remarkably similar. The same renovations and changes occurred, although with some minor changes like the removal of the lintels and eaveboard.  Florio’s Restaurant has occupied the commercial space here since the 1960’s.

As the neighborhood has drastically changed—from an elegant residential area to a commercial neighborhood of German immigrants, to part of Little Italy and now ethnically diverse including a large Chinese population—the two Federal houses at Nos. 190 and 192 Grand Street have survived remarkably intact above the street level.

photo by Alice Lum

“Both of these houses are rare examples of the Federal period that have survived the past 180 years with very few changes, even as their surroundings changed dramatically,” said Robert B. Tierney, chairman of the Landmarks Preservation Commission.

Mostly overlooked, they are amazing survivors.

Stanford White's Lost 1890 Madison Square Garden

Madison Square Garden around 1910 -- postcard from author's collection

In 1874, as the New York entertainment district cropped up along 23rd Street in the post-Civil War years, P. T. Barnum converted a railroad freight warehouse on Madison Square and 26th Street for larger-than-life open air entertainments. In true Barnum fashion, he called the venue the “Monster Classical and Geological Hippodrome.” Not exactly a name that rolled easily off the tongue.

William K. Vanderbilt took over the space in 1879 and rechristened it Madison Square Garden. Vanderbilt used the building primarily for sporting events; but it was “dirty, rickety, even dangerous,” according to The New York Times and by 1888 the idea of a more modern, enclosed arena took shape.

On March 22, 1889 the plans for the new building were announced. McKim, Mead & White would design the “imposing quadrangular structure of the order of architecture known as Italian Renaissance, of yellow pressed brick and white terra-cotta masonry, iron, and glass,” said The New York Times.

The newspaper foretold of an arcade extending over the sidewalk around the building, an amphitheater 310 by 195 feet with a track one-tenth of a mile and an arena 122 by 226 feet. “The seating capacity will be 5,060, or double the capacity of the present garden,” said the article, and the amphitheater “will hold 12,000 people without discomfort or crowding.”

In addition, the vast venue would house a grand concert hall seating 3046 people, a café and a restaurant. On the roof would be a Summer garden for evening concerts.

The architects explained “The plan of this hall has been very carefully studied upon the actual construction of Wagner’s theatre at Bayreuth, and is in accord with the most advanced theories of acoustics.”

By August the old structure was being torn down as New Yorkers were promised “a mammoth place of amusement.” The floor of the amphitheater could be floored over for conventions, accommodating 12,000 persons. Below the sidewalk, a hall for stabling horses during horse shows and circuses was planned.  Dining rooms, rooms for supper parties, galleries and concert halls would be reached by stairways and elevators

A 300-foot tower inspired by the Giralda of Seville would rise at the corner of 26th Street, topped by a controversial 18-foot gilded statue of a nude Diana by Augustus Saint-Gaudens.  It would have not only an observation tower, but a private apartment for Stanford White that would be the source of his undoing.

On June 7, 1890 the amphitheater–the first section of the building completed–was opened to “a few privileged spectators.” Four thousand electric lights bedazzled the invited guests at what was called the largest hall of public entertainment in the world. Stretching from 26th Street to 27th Street and two-thirds of the block from Madison to 4th Avenue, The New York Times reported, “It is provided with seats for about 9,000 persons, and will easily hold 14,000.” A sliding skylight covering about half of the roof opened mechanically to improve the ventilation.

The interior was lush. Polished granite pillars supported the entrance, the staircases throughout were marble and stone and the floors were mosaics. The building was, according to The New York Times, “one of the great institutions of the town, to be mentioned along with Central Park, the bridge to Brooklyn, and the new aqueduct.”

The rarely-seen 4th Avenue facade -- postcard from author's collection

The Garden was the site of great entertainments as well as annual shows: the dog show, the cat show, the “mammoth flower show,” the sportsmen’s exposition and the bicycle show. Buffalo Bill’s Wild West and Congress of Rough Riders of the World was here in 1900, entertaining thousands with bucking broncos, Annie Oakley and marksman Johnny Baker.

Upstairs, in his private apartments, Stanford White was hosting entertainment of his own. The married architect was a notorious playboy and womanizer who frequently dated showgirls and models.

In 1900 the 47-year old architect had met 16-year old showgirl Evelyn Nesbitt who became the wife of Pennsylvania millionaire Harry Kendall Thaw.  As with so many girls, she and White entered into a sexual relationship. When Thaw found out about the affair, he simmered with jealous rage.

On the evening of June 25, 1906 Stanford White sat in evening clothes in the Roof Garden to enjoy the premiere of the musical Mam’zelle Champagne. While the chorus sang “I Could Love a Million Girls,” Harry Thaw walked to White’s table and fired a gun three times into White’s temple. According to one witness Thaw uttered, “You’ll never go out with that woman again.”

Stanford White died on the floor of what some considered his masterpiece.

On June 10, 1911 the Garden was sold for $3.5 million, just about the original cost of construction, to the F. & D. Company.  The firm immediately announced plans to demolish the building.  Madison Square Garden, despite its popularity, was a financial failure from its opening. In its place, the public was told, would rise a 25-story office building, the largest commercial structure in the world.

Financial problems saved the grand building and in December 1916 the New York Life Insurance Company purchased it for $2 million when F. & D. Company defaulted on interest on the mortgages.

A year later Helen Henderson, in her A Loiterer in New York, lamented the fate of the Garden.  "The building has an unforgivable fault--it never 'paid.'  And for that 'they' say it has got to come down."

Although in 1920 the insurance company gave a 10-year lease to the sports promoter G. L. “Tex” Rickard, four years later it revealed plans to demolish the building to be replaced by its 28-story headquarters.

The Roof Garden during demolition, 1925 -- photo NYPL Collection

In 1925, in one of New York City’s greatest acts of architectural vandalism--ranking with the destruction of Pennsylvania Station--Stanford White’s astonishing Madison Square Garden was torn to the ground.

The 1857 James Bogardus "George Bruce Building" No. 254 Canal Street

photo by Dorothy Spears

When George Bruce bought the land at the corner of Canal and Lafayette Streets (then known as Elm Street) in 1832, the area was still mainly industrial. The waterway that had run down the center of Canal Street, giving it its name, had been covered over in 1821 leaving an especially wide thoroughfare.

Here Bruce, who was more well-known as a printer and typographer, erected a lumber mill that operated for over two decades. The inventive and ambitious Scotsman had come to the United States before he was 15 years old. By the time he built his mill he was highly-regarded in the printing industry and deeply involved in the education and training of working-class men and boys.

The tone of Canal Street was changing in 1855, with more refined commercial buildings being constructed, when a raging fire destroyed the mill and adjoining buildings and the fury of the blaze at one point threatened the entire block. Rather than rebuild his mill, Bruce opted to erect a loft building to house his printing concern.

“Having deliberated some time whether to erect an ordinary building on the ruins that should immediately pay an interest on cost, or an edifice suitable for the future trade of the street,” an associate would explain decades later, “he decided on the latter course and placed a costly iron structure on the property.”

Having invented a new form of mechanical type-casting and stereotype methods Bruce had already amassed a fortune. Gambling on Canal Street’s future as a commercial center, he envisioned a large structure with three separate stores on the lower floors and loft space above.

In the meantime, James Bogardus—who had also been involved in the printing industry--had been making his mark on the New York architectural scene. The cast iron facades which he designed, produced and installed, were groundbreaking in affording rapid construction, relatively inexpensive and ornate designs, and incombustible material.

With the fire that wiped out his lumber mill fresh in Bruce’s mind, the concept of a fire-proof building had great appeal.

Bogardus produced a five-story Italianate palazzo structure with expansive windows that allowed sunlight to pour into the building. Completed in 1857, the vast corner building featured fluted Corinthian columns at street level and between the upper windows. A generous cornice caps the structure’s distinguished façade. It was, as the AIA Guide to New York City would later describe it, “breathtaking.”

The building was home to Charles Scott & Co. in the 1860s, importers of embroideries and “white goods” and in the 1880’s wholesale tobacco dealers Wise and Bendheim were here.

In December 1910 the building was auctioned with 22 other properties comprising George Bruce’s estate. Having made what The New York Times reported were “wise investments in real estate,” Bruce left property with an estimated value of between $2 and $3 million.

By the middle of the century 254 Canal Street, along with its surroundings, had declined. When Nathan Wilson purchased the building in 1948 from Moe Levy & Son, it was a manufacturing loft with various shops on the ground floor. In the early 1980’s the ground floor was essentially covered over by slapped-on storefronts and the all but one of the wooden doorways were replaced by modern glass and metal entranceways. Metal flashing covered much of the first floor cornice.

A decade later, new owners CHH Realty Company recognized the importance of the now-landmarked building and partner Michael Salzhauer told authors Margot and Carol Gayle the firm “is committed to the maintenance of this historic structure.”

photo by Americasroof

Indeed, today the largest surviving James Bogardus building in New York City shines again. Like many of the Canal Street structures, it has been restored to its 19th Century appearance, including the once-lost street level.

George Bruce’s 1857 jewel is once again what the Landmarks Preservation Commission called “one of the finest and most distinctive cast-iron buildings in New York.”