The 1880 Robbins & Appleton Buildling -- No. 1-5 Bond Street

photo by Alice Lum

Henry A. Robbins and Daniel Fuller Appleton had hired architect Stephen Decatur Hatch to design cast iron clad building in 1871 to house their American Waltham Watch Company.  The firm manufactured watch cases and both the factory and a store were established here, at 1-5 Bond Street.

Then on the night of March 6, 1877 a devastating fire destroyed the building.   Undeterred, Robbins and Appleton called on Hatch again and set out to rebuild their business.    Hatch again turned to cast iron as his medium.  The material was relatively inexpensive, highly-ornate designs could be cast to be repeated throughout the façade (whereas hand-carved details were costly in both time and money), and the precast sections could be rapidly assembled.

Construction began on June 4, 1879 and was completed just under a year later, on April 30.   Hatch’s new design was a celebration of the French Second Empire style.  Six stories high with a tall mansard roof, it was dignified and up-to-date.  The pattern of arched window openings separated by slim Corinthian columns was repeated on the second through fifth floors; each story separated by a slightly projecting cornice.   The mansard roof featured three pavilions with handsome dormers, giving it a more distinctive air.

Hatch's repeating pattern of arched windows and separating columns flooded the interiors with daylight -- photo by Alice Lum

Not only would the American Waltham Watch Company have its factory here, the prominent publishing firm, D. Appleton & Co., would lease offices as well.  The June 1880 issue of The Publishers Weekly reported on the publisher’s new offices, saying it would occupy “the first, second, basement and sub-basement floors of the new Waltham Building.”

The Publishers Weekly printed a sketch of the new building in June 1880.  The original iron cresting on the roof has sadly been lost. (copyright expired).

Appleton established its retail store and shipping department on the first floor.  The Publishers Weekly said “The ground floor, entered directly from the street [is] high in ceiling and splendidly lighted on three sides.”

The publisher’s offices were on the second floor where W. H. Appleton’s private office was “handsomely furnished.”  A full day’s labor was necessary to move the book company into the new building with over 1200 cases required to transport the stock.

The burning torch ornaments at the entrance symbolized learning, a nod to the Appleton Publishing Company inside -- photo by Alice Lum

By 1880 the end of the year, American Waltham was producing around $2 million worth of watch cases from its new home.  In the years before the invention of the wristwatch, every gentleman had at least one pocket watch, very often fashioned of gold.

photo by Alice Lum

Although the 1893 Annual Report of the Committee on Fire Patrol lists only D. Appleton & Co., as tenants in the Waltham Building; four years later offices were being leased to other firms.  In 1897 A. Friedlander & Co., cloak manufacturers, was here.

By the later part of the 20^th century the Robbins & Appleton Building had housed a variety of small businesses and manufacturers.  In 1988 it was converted to residential use with four apartments on the second through fourth floors, two on the fifth and four on the sixth floor and in the mansard.

A later building next door (to the left) attempted to mimic Hatch's design, with limited success -- photo by Alice Lum

More recently the interiors have been remodeled into sleek, modern apartments; quite unlike the “handsomely furnished” Victorian offices and the manufacturing spaces the original owners knew so well.  In 2011 a duplex penthouse in the magnificent mansard roof sold for just over $2 million.

The Robbins & Appleton Building, despite losing its cast iron roof cresting, is a remarkable example of French Second Empire.  Looking as though it belongs more on Main Street in Walt Disney World than on Bond Street, Manhattan, it was designed a landmark in 1979.

The Lost 1884 Murray Hill Hotel -- Park Avenue and 40th St.

Horses are almost gone from Park Avenue in this picture.  A pedestrian bridge spans the submerged train tracks in the middle of the avenue and the new Public Library on Fifth Avenue can be seen in the distance.  -- photo Library of Congress

In October 1871 the massive Grand Central Depot was opened, conveniently consolidating into one station the lines of the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad, the New York and New Haven Railroad, and the New York and Harlem Railroad.    Coaches and carriages now lined 42^nd Street waiting to convey hundreds of businessmen and other travelers to the Broadway hotels.

Recognizing the need for a more convenient hotel, Hugh Smith began plans for the Murray Hill Hotel.  Smith was a part owner of the city stage coaches and a son of real estate developer Peter Smith.  He acquired the entire block front on Park Avenue between 40^th and 41^stStreets where an old car barn stood, just a block south of Grand Central.    “New York’s Great Industries” in 1884 praised choice of location saying “The site has been wisely chosen upon the brow of ‘Murray Hill,’ directly central to all the fashionable residential sections of the city, and what is of as great advantage, within a few steps only of New York’s Railroad Depot, the sole point of arrival and departure in the city proper for trains to all points on the continent.”

Smith commissioned architect Stephen Decatur Hatch to design his hotel.   Among other New York structures, he had designed the impressive French Second Empire-style Gilsey House Hotel on Broadway a decade earlier.   For the Murray Hill Hotel he would turn to the latest Eastlake and Queen Anne styles.    His resulting combination of brownstone, granite, cast iron and red brick was a reflection of late Victorian taste.

A side view from 40th Street looks north towards Grand Central Depot.  Little other development has yet occurred in the neighborhood.  -- postcard NYPL Collection

The symmetry of the eight-floor hotel was offset by corner towers of different heights capped with tiled pyramidal roofs.  A wide portico with Corinthian columns on Park Avenue served as the main entrance within the brownstone base.  A Ladies’ Entrance on 40^th Street provided a less public entry for unescorted females.

Wealthy stockbroker Nathan S. Hunting partnered with the manager of the Hotel Bristol, David I. Hammond, to lease the Murray Hill Hotel from Hugh Smith as its proprietors.   The 600-room hotel opened on October 19, 1884 and drew immediate praise.  The New York Times called it “the very beau ideal of what an American hotel should be” and “New York’s Great Industries” said it “is the leading type of perfection in its field of enterprise.”   Hunting and Hammond had the furniture and carpeting custom made.   Ceilings of the public rooms were frescoed and the floors were inlaid in various colors of marble.  The Times quickly clarified that the floors were “not the hideous black and white inset diagonal.  The ‘sienna’ is set against the slate in a perfect carpet pattern, and the effect is most pleasing to the eye.”

The New York Times deemed the pattern of the marble floor "not hideous."  The ornate brass chandelier was electrically lit.  -- photo Library of Congress

A massive stairway of gray-mottled marble rose from the entrance hall which was illuminated by “splendid electric chandeliers,” as described in The Times.  “The chandeliers themselves are of polished brass, and are studded with crystals, which flash and glitter like real gems.”  Here an enormous stone fireplace warmed guests finding refuge from a snowy Park Avenue in winter months.

Two large dining rooms were on the main floor.   The Murray Hill was the only first-class hotel in the city that offered guests a choice of American or European service.  “Both a table d’hote and a restaurant a la carte have been provided,” said “New York’s Great Industries, “so that the wealthy residents of Murray Hill can forego all the inconvenience and care of keeping up an elaborate kitchen service, and dine regularly in comfort almost at their own doors.”

Ornately-stenciled ceilings and Winton carpeting adorned one of the two main dining rooms -- photo Library of Congress

The New York Times reported on the décor of the dining rooms.  “They are most elegantly furnished with carved oak chairs, upholstered in stamped leather, with Wilton carpets, silk velvet hangings in old gold on the walls, and the most exquisite frescoings.”

There were eight public parlors on the second floor, “charmingly furnished,” for either ladies or gentlemen.    The private rooms were designed so they could be opened into large suites with private halls and baths.  “Most of them are furnished with open grate fireplaces, marble mantels, wardrobes, and other conveniences,” said The Times.

These three connected rooms--a writing room, reading room and library--were for ladies only -- photograph Library of Congress

“New York’s Great Industries” reported that “Comfort as well as luxury have been secured in all cases, and the most refined and wealthy families of New York and the other great centres are agreeably surprised to enter upon the possession of such luxurious apartments, fitting up as they are with the latest triumphs of art and science.”

One of the elegant private suites.  Through the doorway hung with portieres are several more rooms. -- photo Library of Congress

The “latest triumphs of art and science” included an ice making machine in the cellar capable of producing 10 tons of ice every 24 hours.  The same machine refrigerated five large meat rooms, fish, milk, wine, and poultry, and froze 2,000 carafes of water daily.

Although the proprietors intended to make the Murray Hill a fashionable hotel, they enticed patrons with reasonable room rates.  “The lessees intend to make the Murray Hill Hotel one of the finest in the world and at the same time not to beggar their guests by exorbitant rates.  A man can live at this house for $4 per day,” reported The Times (about $85.00 today).

Beautiful and ingenious cast iron fire escapes encircle the 40th Street circular bay in 1935 -- photo by Berenice Abbott, NYPL Collection

The hotel would not go long before tragedy struck.  Around 4:00 on the afternoon of Valentine’s Day in 1886 two of the workers in the butcher shop, 25-year old George Stratford and Andrew J. Donnelly, got playful.   In the midst of what The New York Times called their “skylarking,” Stratford was stabbed.  A physician was immediately called, but the butcher died at 9:30 and Donnelly was arrested.

In November 1887 P. T. Barnum was staying at the Murray Hill Hotel when he got word that his Bridgeport, Connecticut museum burned to the ground.   Not only was his large collection of curiosities destroyed, but so too was his zoo.   The showman sent a telegram on November 21 from the hotel to Tom Bradford, his “favorite boy hunter,” who was in India at the time.

“Every single animal, except 21 elephants, a rhinoceros, and a few other animals, destroyed by fire last night in Bridgeport.  Employ a full band of experienced hunters, and ship the rarest and wildest beats to be found in India as soon as captured.”

Potted palms, leaded glass fixtures and a grand stone fireplace grace the foyer lounge -- photo Library of Congress

Barnum was just one of the well-known guests to patronize the Murray Hill Hotel.  Decades later the Works Progress Administration’s “New York City Guide” would recall “This hostelry was patronized by such diverse celebrities as Mark Twain, Senator George Hearst, Jay Gould, ‘Diamond Jim’ Brady, and Presidents Cleveland and McKinley.”

The well-heeled guests were shaken on January 27, 1902.  That day, just before noon, workers constructing the subway tunnel under Park Avenue set a small fire in the dynamite shed directly in front of the hotel to thaw out the explosives then walked away.  A few minutes later master mechanic William Tubbs noticed that the fire had spread and rushed with a hose.    It was too late.

An enormous explosion followed.  “Tubbs’s head was blown off and he died instantly,” reported The Evening World.   There were 250 guests inside the hotel at the time.  Every window on the Park Avenue and 40^thStreet sides was blown out and a 30-foot pit, 10 feet deep, opened up on the street in front of the building.  Timbers were sent into the air higher than the top of the hotel, smashing to the pavement two of three blocks away.  Pandemonium reigned in the streets.

Damage to the hotel was significant, accompanied by loss of lives.  “Ceilings had fallen in in many rooms,” said The New York Tribune.  “A piece of timber, hurled as if it were a javelin, went partly through the cornice at the eighth story, and remained sticking fast there.”

One guest from British Columbia, J. Roderick Robertson, was asleep in his room.  The ceiling crashed down, crushing his skull and killing him.   The old man who ran the cigar store in the basement, Cyrus Adams, was crushed to death by a piece of timber that crashed through a window.  One of the waiters, James Carr, died on the way to the hospital.   

 

Rubble fills Park Avenue in front of the Murray Hill Hotel following the explosion -- (top photo The Evening World, January 27, 1902; bottom The New York Tribune January 28, 1902, copyrights expired)

“Terror and excitement reigned supreme in the hotel for a time,” said The Tribune.  “Many women, some of them bleeding from cuts, ran from their rooms, calling for aid in getting out of the building.  Many men in the hotel seemed to lose their heads in the panic.”   

Most of the injuries in the hotel were caused by flying glass and other debris.   Edward C. Fiedler was at the hotel recuperating from a long illness in his suite on the third floor.  The 56-year old died a week later from what Dr. E. P. Fowler called “shock.”

The day following the explosion, the hotel’s treasurer W. L. Jaques described the damage.  “The walls and ceiling of the main hallway have been cut up to a considerable extent; the front doors were blown open.  The kitchen, billiard room, café, and front rooms of the basement and first floor have been wrecked.  Practically every window in the building is broken.  We are lucky to get off with so few of our guests killed and wounded.”

Jaques estimated the extent of damage at between $100,000 and $200,000.  It would be the beginning of years of law suits between the Murray Hill Hotel and the IRT Subway. The hotel was quickly restored.  But it would not remain that way for long.

Jaques’ son, Leclair Jaques,  lived in the hotel, in an apartment on the 6^thfloor with his wife and their 4-year old son, Channing.   A well-known golfer, he was away from the hotel two years later when fire started in the apartment on New Year’s Day 1904.  Thick black smoke filled the baby’s room and when Mrs. Jacques tried to rescue him, she was overcome by smoke.  The grandmother,  Mrs. W. L. Jaques, rushed into the apartment with blankets and saved them.

In the meantime, the dense smoke continued to spread through the “fireproof” structure.  Two sevants, Kate Carney and Mary O’Brien panicked when their rooms filled with smoke and rushed out onto the roof.   Although a crowd that had gathered on the street below shouted for them to stay where they were, they dropped from the roof to a sixth floor balcony—about 12 feet.  From here they were dragged to safety through an open window by police.

The fire grew to three alarms and firemen chopped away flooring to get at the flames.   Long lengths of fire house were dragged up the circular fire escape to the 6^thfloor.    Some guests panicked.  The Times reported that some “became panicstricken and began to rush about in all directions, carrying with them bundles and valuables.”  Others were not so concerned.

“While these scenes were enacted in some parts of the hotel many guests remained calmly either in the café or in their apartments coolly watching the firemen at work,” the article said.

Four hours later, at around 7:00 p.m., the fire was finally extinguished.  In light of the still-recent explosion, Jaques attempted to downplay the incident, saying that “the damage done by the fire was trifling.”  Firemen, however, estimated the damage at $15,000 and The Times noted that “The amount of water necessary to extinguish the blaze drenched every apartment situated directly underneath the burning space on the sixth floor, and even trickled in great streams through the ceiling of the magnificent north dining room on the ground floor.”  Firemen reported that between 16 and 20 apartments were wrecked by fire or water.

At the turn of the century, horse-drawn vehicles still traveled Park Avenue (right) and brownstone mansions replaced empty lots.  The circular cast iron fire escape has not yet been installed.  -- photo Library of Congress

In December 1905 delegates from 58 colleges and universities gathered at the Murray Hill to reform college football.    The new organization, the Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States would later be renamed the National Collegiate Athletic Association.  It set out to revamp the rules of the game.  Captain Palmer E. Pierce, the West Point delegate called the old rules committee “a self-constituted, self perpetuating and irresponsible body, which, in order to make the rules more favorable to the playing talent available at particular institution, had degraded a once noble sport to the plan of a brutal gladiatorial contest.”

The series of meetings of the IAAUS would change the game of college football forever.  The minutes noted that “The game of football as practiced under existing rules…has developed undesirable features” and the group sought “to remove these objectionable phrases of the sport.”  Along with rewriting the rules, the conference recommended that the authorities of the colleges and universities “hold themselves as ultimately responsible for the conduct of athletics within their respective institutions.”

Throughout the hotel’s existence its builder’s sister, Catherine T. Smith, lived here.  The last survivor of the Smith family, she died in the hotel on April 11, 1906.   A devout Catholic, she left the majority of her sizable estate to the Church.     As part of the settlement of the Smith Estate, it was announced on October 5, 1909 that the hotel would be later sold at auction.  On the day of the sale, May 1, 1910, The New York Times reminisced about the old hotel, saying it “may in some respects be referred to as historical.”   The article said that since its opening in 1884 “until now has always been a quiet, refined, homelike house with an all-year-around clientele.”

Benjamin L. M. Bates purchased the hotel that day for $1,796,500.  He was a familiar face to hotel residents.  Bates had started out in the Murray Hill Hotel as assistant night clerk.  He was promoted to manager and then leased the hotel as its proprietor.

Amazingly, the Victorian furniture and decor survived through the Great Depression -- photo Library of Congress

On Christmas Eve 1920 retired coal dealer Robert L. Ireland and his wife were living here.   Despite the hotel’s high-end guests, security was less than might have been desired.  Three months earlier a burglar had entered the Ireland’s suite and since that time Mary Esther Wood Ireland stored her jewelry in the hotel vault.  One thief, however, did not know this.

Around 5:45 in the morning on December 24 Mrs. Ireland heard a noise in the drawing room and wakened her husband.   He listened carefully.   Later he told investigators “I looked at the clock and sitting on the edge of the bed for a few seconds I decided Mrs. Ireland must have been aroused by mice.”

The noise was not mice.

When Ireland then heard footsteps, he pulled a pistol from the dresser and tip-toed barefoot to doorway and saw that someone had brazenly turned on the electric light.

“That convinced me a burglar was in the suite.   I decided to shoot him on sight,” he told detectives.  “When I peered into the drawing room my eyes fairly bulged.  A boyish-looking fellow was sitting in the centre of the floor, his back turned on me.  He was busily trying to pry open Mrs. Ireland’s jewel case with a screwdriver.”

Ireland could not bring himself to shoot a boy and, brandishing his pistol, ordered the would-be thief to put his hands in the air.   As Ireland told his wife to call the police, the teen picked up a small chair and hurled it at the man.   In an instant the two were fighting and Mrs. Ireland was landing blow after blow on the boy from behind.

At one point Mary Ireland pinned the boy down, but he broke her hold by stabbing her arm with the screwdriver.  Ireland responded by knocking the thief across the room with a fist to the face.   As he repeatedly hit the boy over the head with a broken chair leg, to no avail, Mrs. Ireland tackled him.

For 15 minutes the trio struggled, knocking furniture over and tumbling in a snarled ball.   Mary Ireland repeated screamed for help.  No one came.  Finally the intruder broke free and ran down the hallway.  Just before he got free, Ireland gave him one last blow with the chair leg.  “I put all the strength at my command into the blow.  The fellow didn’t fall,” he reported.  “I said to him, ‘You’ve got the hardest head I ever struck.’”

The Irelands were furious with the other guests who did nothing to help.  “During all this tumult not a soul came to our aid.  I saw more than twenty men guests poke their heads out their doors, and quickly pull them in again and slam the doors shut when they learned I was pursuing a burglar,” complained Ireland.

Even as the Great Depression darkened New York City the Murray Hill Hotel retained its status and eminent clientele.  Early in 1933 author Pearl S. Buck moved into a suite of rooms here.  Walking into the hotel then was like walking into a time capsule of the Gilded Age.  The WPA’s “New York City Guide” said of it “The hotel with its red and white marble floors, carmine plush, gilt-framed mirrors, and rococo walls and ceilings, has been little changed…The lobby, entered from Park Avenue by a double stairway, is decorated in red and gold in the best Victorian tradition.”  The guide noted that of its 600 rooms, many “retain the original furniture.”

But that was all about to change.

On December 13, 1935 Benjamin Bates died in his apartment in the hotel.  The 71-year old bachelor had succumbed to pneumonia after three weeks illness.  Although the bulk of his nearly $4 million estate went to his sister Adelaide Roberts who also lived in the hotel, there was a somewhat surprising codicil to the will.   An agreement provided Helen M. Bates with $300 a month for the rest of her life.  Helen claimed to be Bates’s wife.  The New York Times said “The agreement explained that Mr. Bates disputed the marital claim, but was anxious to avoid notoriety.”

Berenice Abbott captured busy New Yorkers rushing past the hotel portico in 1935, the year Benjamin Bates died -- photo NYPL Collection

Within two months Adelaide Roberts had sold the Murray Hill to the Grand Union Hotel Management Corporation which owned a number of New York City hotels.   The corporation quickly announced that the hotel “will be modernized within the next few months to meet the changing needs of the present.”

Later that year Governor Alf Landon took over a 4-room suite during a visit to the city.  “Despite his party leaders, who urged a newer or larger hotel,” reported The Times, “the Governor decided in favor of the Murray Hill, where he had always stopped when in the city.”  More than a dozen other rooms were rented to others of the Governor’s party and the lobby was redecorated in a sunflower motif for the visit.

Despite a devastating explosion and a fire or two, the Murray Hill Hotel lived on.  Then in 1946 the owners announced the building would be razed and that the residents would have to find other accommodations.  The residents refused.

A series of court arguments followed.  The attorneys for the residents argued that they were “tenants” because of long-term occupancy.  The lawyers for the owners insisted they were “guests.”  In the end, it was a lost battle.  By December 1948 when plans for the new office building were announced, the Murray Hill Hotel had already been demolished.

In its place rose a $20 million skyscraper which The Times called “New York’s greatest office building of the post-war era.”  

The Manhattan Savings Institute - 644 Broadway

At around 6:10 on the evening of October 27, 1878 thieves broke into the Manhattan Savings Institution at Broadway and Bleecker Street and made off with $3.5 million in cash and securities – approximately $50 million by today’s standards. It was the most sensational bank robbery in US history.

A decade later the heist was nearly forgotten and the Manhattan Savings Institute was preparing for a new, larger building. They turned to architect Stephen Decatur Hatch who was responsible for several Manhattan buildings, most recently the monumental New York Life Insurance Company Building at 346 Broadway.

The bank moved into temporary offices in 1889 while the old structure at 644 Broadway was razed and construction started on the new one. For the new headquarters, Hatch used a harmonious mix of Queen Anne and Romanesque Revival styles and a medley of materials: carved and rusticated sandstone, terra cotta, brick, copper and cast iron. Hatch took advantage of the corner site, crowning the building with a copper-clad tower visible for blocks from either Broadway or Bleecker.







Photograph Hubert J. Steed



The façade is a visual feast of bays, pseudo-balconies, pilasters, arches and small-bracketed courses. In the pediment of the Broadway side the Institute’s monogram, MSI, stands in bold copper relief. In a drastic diversion from traditional European decorative motifs – gods and goddesses, or allegories of continents or the arts, for instance – Hatch turned to the uniquely American.  Beavers, ears of corn, and Native American faces adorn the keystones and cornices.

Construction was completed in 1891 and that year the History and Commerce of New York wrote that “The banking rooms are handsomely furnished in all respects, and amply provided with improved fire and burglar-proof safes and vaults, which gives the greatest possible security…A valuable and increasing list of patrons is drawn to its counters…”

Depositors were no doubt interested in the burglar-proof sales and vaults given the somewhat recent history of the institution.

The Manhattan Savings Institute eventually became defunct and the Bleecker Street neighborhood became industrial. By the 1970s, after decades of neglect, the building was in severe disrepair. Stonework was disengaging from the façade and pieces falling to the sidewalk below.

In the 1980s the old Manhattan Savings Institute building was converted to luxury loft apartments. The owners had “patch repairs” made to the facade in 1987 and again in 1992; however seven years later it was obvious that a more substantial restoration was necessary for the aging structure.

Walter B. Melvin Architects, LLC, was contracted to stabilize and restore the façade. Specially formulated coatings were applied to unify the façade and prevent water intrusion. The cast iron balconies were removed, stripped and rebuilt with stainless steel joints.

Photograph Hubert J. Steed

Trendy shops line Bleecker Street and Broadway around 644 Broadway now, and Stephen Hatch’s remarkable Queen Anne bank building breathes new life.

Oil Painting by Sharon Florin

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The 1877 Mitchell, Vance & Co. Bldg. Nos. 836-838 Broadway

photo by Beyond My Ken

Despite the drastic changes along Broadway below Union Square following the Civil War, Judge James Roosevelt refused to budge.  Commercial buildings replaced the fine old homes around his as his wealthy neighbors moved northward to Murray Hill and Fifth Avenue, yet the judge stayed on in the house he had built in the 1840s.

Roosevelt was a member of one of the oldest and most prestigious families in New York.    He had further distinguished the name as a Justice of the Supreme Court in 1851, United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York and a member of Congress.  But finally, in 1875, James Roosevelt died in his house at No. 836 Broadway; one of the last surviving residences in the neighborhood.

Within a year the venerable house and its neighbor at No. 838 had been razed and a new commercial building was going up.   Mitchell, Vance & Co., manufacturers and designers of light fixtures, clocks and bronzes, and ornamental metal work, had commissioned esteemed architect Stephen Decatur Hatch to design the new building.  

The firm was established in 1854 and by now was a leader in the industry.  The wide array of items offered by Mitchell, Vance & Co. required extensive showroom and office space.    Over 600 workmen and artisans worked in the factory and foundry on 10^th Avenue between 24^th and 25^thStreet.

To satisfy the needs, Hatch produced a wide, spacious cast iron structure six floors high that terminated in a stylish, steep mansard roof.   Begun in 1876 and completed a year later, the L-shaped building had a side entrance on West 13^th Street.

Despite Mitchell, Vance's own high-end clientele and the exclusive nearby emporiums that also catered to New York’s carriage trade, the architect did not over-embellish.  In fact his understated iron façade has a nearly-industrial feel.   Regimented rows of windows and mostly-unadorned pilasters gave little hint of the elaborate and costly items for sale inside.  Only the fish-scale covered mansard with its attractive dormers gave an aristocratic touch to the design.  And yet the façade, taken as a whole, presents a dignified and upscale presence.

The Mitchell, Vance & Co. Building was the first modern building on the block.

“New York’s Great Industries” remarked that “Their showrooms, salesrooms and offices occupy the entire six-story double building, Nos. 836 and 838 Broadway…The amount of floor space in the establishment is thus enormous, and yet it is none too large for the immense stock here gathered together, and which forms the best exposition of their lines of goods ever presented to a discerning public.  The showrooms make a most magnificent display, and which is a great attraction both to citizens and visitors to the city.

No other house in the world has its equal, while in the qualities of modern adaptability and true art, the firm possesses facilities as regards designing and manufacture admittedly nowhere else to be found.  Artists, native and foreign, are constantly employed in designing and modeling subjects to be produced in both real and imitation bronze.”

Within a decade electricity would begin making inroads in the lighting field.  Mitchell, Vance & Co. was the pioneer in the electrical lighting area.   When Thomas Edison was still engaged in his Menlo Park experiments, he turned to Mitchell, Vance & Co. for his first permanent lighting fixtures.  By 1884 electrical lighting fixtures were a major part of the firm’s offerings.

The electric lamps and chandeliers were based on the existing gas fixtures and were outfitted for both—it would be decades before the reliability of electrical service would warrant electric-only fixtures.    “It is the leading house to enter the field of electric lighting, and plan and bring out multifarious and beautiful designs for electric light fixtures of every description,” said “New York’s Great Industries.”

The new technology was a tremendous boon to the company.  By now it had illuminated the first private residence lit by electricity, the J. Hood Wright house; as well as the mansions of J. W. Doane of Chicago and Marshall Field; the Murray Hill Hotel and the Hoffman House; the Minneapolis Opera House and the “Dakota Flats” facing Central Park, among many others.

The company outfitted the steamer Pilgrim with 912 electric lamps “including two beautiful electroliers ornamental in the highest degree, and shedding a radiance through the main saloons, as grateful as it is effective at night.”

On August 21, 1887 The New York Times said of Mitchell, Vance & Co., “It heads the list of concerns manufacturing and dealing in gas fixtures and similar goods, and so great has been its volume of trade that, last night, it was said to have supplied three-fourths of the fine grade goods in its line used in the United States.”

The firm's cast fixtures were well-designed and executed.

The expansion of the firm’s business was such that in 1889 The Electrical World reported that it “[has] devoted the basement of their large salesrooms entirely to electric fixtures.”     Interior designers, architects and homeowners visited the Broadway building.  “On the main floor an elegantly carpeted and decorated room is assigned to handsome electroliers, fixtures and brackets, and furnished with the electric current for exhibiting them to buyers in all their glory of illumination,” said the magazine.   “This reception room alone is worth a visit to the store to inspect.”

Financial problems forced the company to reorganize and cinch in its belts.   In 1890 Samuel B. H. Vance—who had also been Mayor of New York—died.  That same year the company was leasing space to apparel companies as the dry goods and millinery district engulfed what had formerly been solely high-end retail buildings. 

Malcomson & Co., makers of boys’ clothing moved in after its offices were destroyed in a fire at No. 549 Broadway.   In 1898 Hutchinson, Pierce & Co., “shirt and waist manufacturers,” was leasing space, including part of the retail area.  The American Hatter said its “‘Star’ brand is one of the best known in the market, and having been famous since 1840, Hutchinson, Pierce & Company are proud of their record, as they certainly out to be.”

In 1899 Mail & Express published a sketch of Broadway from 12th to 14th Streets.  Only one Federal-style house, now converted, still survives at the corner of 13th Street.  No. 836-838 sits two buildings to the right of it, labeled by Mail & Express as "Hutchinson, Pierce & Co." -- NYPL Collection

The periodical also noted that Louis Auerbach “has redecorated his establishment, and has made it one of the handsomest in the trade.  Mr. Auerbach is showing an extensive line of high-class novelties in neckwear, which should be seen by the trade.”

In 1906 Mitchell, Vance now shared its building with six other firms.   On February 11 catastrophe would strike Nos. 836-838 Broadway.  Early in the morning a fire broke out on the 2^nd story of the 13^th Street side where the Philip Anderson company made hats.  It quickly spread up the elevator shaft, engulfing the building.  An automatic fire alarm brought fire engines and before long 17 fire companies were battling the conflagration.  The Times reported that “The building—an old-fashioned one belonging to the Roosevelt estate—offered little resistance to the flames.  The ceilings crumpled like paper before the scorching blasts, and the partitions furnished fine kindling material.”

Captain Walsh of Engine Company No. 14 and two of his men, firefighters Healy and Kelley, were on the third floor when the floor above collapsed, burying them.  As firemen poured water on the heap others dug frantically to rescue the trapped men.  The newspaper reported that “The buried men were almost drowned” but they were saved.  “Walsh’s eyebrows were gone and his heavy mustache was singed short when he was pulled out.  The hair of all three of the men was burned close to the scalp and all were bruised, scorched, and cut from head to foot.”

Another firefighter, Ladderman George Knecht plunged two stories to the pavement when he was hit by a falling part of the building.  In the freezing temperatures, the water from the fire hoses froze as it hit the building and it took five hours to extinguish the fire.

In the end there was over half a million dollars in damages.  “The building was wrecked and the stocks of seven firms destroyed,” said The New York Times.  Philips, Anderson & Co., where the fire started, was a complete loss.  J. Goldstone & Company, makers of cloaks and suits lost its entire stock as well.  The same was true of Heller & Company.   The Pioneer Suspender Company, the Savoy Shirt Company and the Heath Krises Company who made felt hats were all heavily damaged.

But it was Mitchell Vance Company that was hit the hardest.   An insurance agent on the site estimated the loss at around $200,000—just under $4 million today.  The company was insured for only $125,000.

Despite the devastation, the structure was rebuilt.  Stephen Decatur’s “fireproof” façade was just that.  It survived intact.    Within months even Mitchell Vance Company was back in operation from its old headquarters.

The new tenants continued to come from the garment and millinery industries.  Crown Suspender was here in 1908 and Phillips, Anderson & Co. was back in the building, doing a brisk business in the straw hat trade.   The company would remain here until 1911 when a fire destroyed its factory.

Finally in 1915 the Mitchell, Vance Company left after nearly four decades in the building and 61 years of business.  The Roosevelt estate leased about 20,000 square feet of the building that year to Weiner Brothers, Inc., a major dealer in “cotton, sleeve, mohair, satin, pocketing, silk and converters of cotton goods.”

Early in December 1921 the Roosevelt family sold the building at Nos. 836-838 Broadway to “a cotton merchant” after having owned the property for over three-quarters of a century.   The building continued house garment firms including the Zeeman & Grossman Bros. Company, manufacturers of young men’s clothing, and the Velvet Sample Card Company.

By the 1930s the garment district had moved upward to Broadway and 7^th Avenue and Nos. 836-838 Broadway saw a variety of tenants.  Among these in 1950 was the J. Beeber Company, makers of surgical and medical equipment.   That year the firm donated ten short-wave diathermy machines and other medical equipment to the new state of Israel and to the National Side Fund of Palestine.

Today the building is little changed.   No modern shop fronts have obliterated the street-level iron work; although the original expansive showroom windows have been reduced in height by half and the attractive entrance doors are gone.    Home to, among other concerns, the NYU Press, Stephen Decatur Hatch’s subdued Victorian design has withstood the onslaught of time, fire and change.

135 Watts Street - The Fleming Smith Warehouse

Were it not for his eye-catching warehouse on the corner of Watts and Washington Streets, Fleming Smith's name would have disappeared with time.  Little of his life is documented and what remains revolves around his warehouse.

The neighborhood around Watts and Washington had been, in the first half of the 19th Century,a refined residential enclave anchored by St. John's Church and the fashionable St. John's Park.  Two years after the end of the Civil War, however, Cornelius Vanderbilt purchased the park from Trinity Church and built a railroad station on the site.  And there went the neighborhood.

Fine Federal residences were razed for warehouses and factories and the area soon became entirely commercial.  It was here that Fleming Smith chose to erect a warehouse of his own in 1891.  Smith did not want any run of the mill warehouse and contracted the respected architect Stephen Decatur Hatch to design it.

Hatch, who would go on to design important structures like the Princeton Club and New York Life Building, produced anything but "run of the mill."   Instead his neo-Flemish building looks much more like a decorative 1890s school building than a commercial warehouse.  Using granite, sandstone and brick with copper ornamentation, Hatch created a near-whimsical facade.  His grouped windows and large Romanesque arches allowed light to pour into the building.

In the last decade of the century, Flemish Revival was sweeping the city as builders gave a nod to Manhattan's Dutch roots.  Substantial buildings designing in the style, like the West End Collegiate Church, as well lesser town houses and stables dotted the city.

Five stories of yellow brick rise above the rusticated stone first floor, culminating in fanciful copper-lined stepped gables.  Between the great gables, ornamental copper dormers topped by weather vanes project from the facade.  On the west side enormous copper numerals in the gable proclaim the date, 1891, while Fleming Smith's monogram entwines above them.

photo by epicharmus

At the turn of the century Smith's building housed a shoe manufacturer and a wine storehouse.  Throughout the 20th Century it continued its intended purpose, surviving with no alterations being made to the exterior facade and none of the copper ornamentation being stripped off or lost.

In the late 1970s a complete facade restoration was performed by Scott Henson Architects, LLC. and subsequently 135 Watt Street became the first commercial Tribeca building to be converted to residential use.  Today a restaurant is housed in the space where horse-drawn drays once backed in to receive crates of wine.  A two-bedroom apartment on the floors above will cost you between $2.5 and $3.5 million.