The Marble-Faced 1862 80-82 Leonard Street

The firm of Brown Brothers & Co. was founded in 1818, a branch of a British banking house.  In his 1862 The Old Merchants of New York City, Walter Barrett wrote, "James Brown built for his dwelling-place a magnificent palace in Leonard street.  It was a large double house, with a court, and an entrance for horses and carriage from the street.  It was located at No. 80 Leonard street, half the block from Broadway towards Church street." 

Two years before Barrett's book was published, Henry Young had demolished the old Brown residence and hired architect James H. Giles to replace it with a modern loft and store building.  Completed in 1862, its cast iron storefront was executed by Daniel D. Badger's Architectural Iron Works.  The upper four floors were clad in gleaming white marble.  Gile's commercial take on Italianate architecture featured two double-height sperm candle arcades (so named because the thin columns are similar to the candles manufactured from the oil of sperm whales).  Diamond-shaped quoins ran up the sides, paneled spandrels separated the floors, and an arched corbel table ran below the marble cornice.

Among the first tenants of 80-82 Leonard Street was the "fancy dry goods" firm of Zinn, Dorrance & Co., which became Zinn, Aldrich & Co. around 1866.  That year, according to court papers, the firm sold "goods to the extent of $900,000 or a million of dollars."  That figure would translate to $38.5 million in 2023.

The importing firm of Smith & Beare occupied part of the building by the early 1870s.  It dealt in "silks, satins and laces of all kinds."  The senior partner, William H. Beare, found himself behind bars in May 1871.  The New York Dispatch reported on January 7, 1872 that he had been charged with "smuggling into this port over $60,000 worth of silks and laces.  The articles were of the most costly kind."

Beare had declared the goods at one tenth of the value.  The  day after his court appearance, The New York Dispatch was unforgiving, saying, "The proof against the accused was clear and explicit.  There could be no doubt of the intention to defraud the Government in this case."  To the writer's indignation, the jury acquitted Beare.  In what today would be a basis for a defamation suit by Beare, the newspaper accused, "How much he paid certain officials to secure this favorable ending...is one of those mysteries that only a Congressional Committee...can determine."

The other tenants in the 1870s were Strauss, Lehman & Co.; and Harding, Colby, & Co.  The latter were commission merchants for woolen mills.

Bulletin of the National Association of Wool Manufacturers, 1876 (copyright expired)

Perhaps the first of the manufacturers to occupy space in the building was the pants maker William Eichkerlin.  In 1891 he employed five men, three teenaged boys, fifteen women, and nine girls under 21 years old (two of them younger than 16).  Factory work was grueling, and they worked 59 hours per week and nine hours on the weekend.

The mid-1890s saw the auction house of Field, Chapman & Co. operating from the address.  The firm auctioned off excess stock, or the inventory of merchants that had gone out of business.  On September 10, 1896, for instance, it auctioned 8,500 "pieces of dress silks," according to The New York Times, from the mills of Ashley & Bailey Company in New Jersey; and just over a week later, on September 22, 1896, an auction of "13,000 dozen Japanese silk handkerchiefs" from the firm Lin Fong & Company was held.

The Phoenix Silk Manufacturing Company occupied a loft in 80-82 Leonard Street.  And so, when it decided to auction 15,500 cartons of surplus stock that had built up "through the dull period of the Spring and Summer," according to The New York Times, Field, Chapman & Co. was was the obvious choice.  The auction of silk ribbons was held on September 22, 1898 and drew "buyers from many of the large cities throughout the country."

At the time of the auction, Harding, Colby & Co. was still in the building, reorganized by now as Harding, Whitman & Co.  Its newest member, William Whitman, was born in 1842 in Annapolis, Nova Scotia.  The comfortable lifestyles of merchants like him were reflected in his memberships in the Eastern Yacht Club, the Eastern Country Club (both in Boston), the Union Club, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

In the meantime, 80-82 Leonard Street had been sold in 1885 for $164,000 (just over $5 million today).  In 1900, the Tuckerman Estate hired James C. Hoes Sons to install a new storefront at a cost of $1,500.  It appears, happily, that the Badger ironwork was preserved.

The updated storefront may have been for a new tenant, Stursburg-Shell & Co., the "well-known commission house" of menswear, as described by the American Wool and Cotton Reporter in June 1904.  The firm would remain in the space for years.  One of the partners, Julius A. Stursberg was proud of his roots, and was a member of the Germanistic Society of America.  It was a fidelity that may have caused him problems with the advent of World War I and rampant anti-German sentiments that accompanied it.

In August 1904, commission merchant C. Bahnsen moved into the building.  In reporting the move, The New York Times explained that C. Bahnsen & Co. was "selling agents for the Gera Mills, Passaic, N. J. and other dress goods manufacturers."

The Culebra Hat Co. was perhaps the only tenant not involved in apparel and drygoods in the building in 1909  Life magazine, June 17, 1909 (copyright expired)

Following World War I, Bedford Mills occupied the basement, store, and second floor of 80-82 Leonard Street.  Court documents explained, "The first floor was devoted to its executive, accounting, and sales offices; the basement was used for the storage of sample cases of various kinds of its merchandise; and the second floor was used for a sample room and stock room."

The president of Bedford Mills was Edward Kearns, who lived with his family in a handsome house on West 84th Street and maintained a country home in Cedarhurst, Long Island.  On September 8, 1920, Kearn's wife and two children were in Cedarhurst.  The 55-year-old sat at his desk at 80-82 Leonard Street "talking to friends," according to the New-York Tribune, when he suddenly collapsed and died.  The responding physician attributed his death to apoplexy, known today as a stroke.

The Phoenix Manufacturing Company was still in the building in 1932 when Victor H. Franklin, a son of one of the founders, suffered public humiliation.  The Sun ran a multi-line headline that read: "Franklin Held on Girl's Story / Salesman Put Under $3500 Bail in Nassau County / Maid Tells of Annoyer / Says He Entered Apartment and Wrote Threatening Notes."

Franklin had been arrested on burglary and harassment charges.  He was identified by an 18-year-old maid in the apartment of the Henry Frankels as the man who had entered the apartment "on several occasions" and who had "annoyed her by leaving threatening notes in the mail box and under the door."  A grand jury exonerated Franklin, but the damage to his reputation had been done.  In 1938 he sued The Sun for libel.

The building continued to house apparel and textile-related firms throughout the following decades.  Then, on May 30, 1994, 22-year-old Alberto A. Raposo took out his anger with the supervisor of 80-82 Leonard Street, Hector Ruiz, by setting fire to the building.  He torched another structure Ruiz oversaw at 79 Worth Street a month later.  Thirty-three firefighters were injured and one killed in the two blazes.  The New York Times described 80-82 Leonard Street as being "destroyed."

A year later, on June 18, 1995, Christopher Gray, writing in The New York Times, described 80-82 Leonard Street, as "a cold, burned-out shell."  The fire had destroyed the marble cornice, but, otherwise, the striking facade had survived intact.  "The owner says a restoration of the structure...is near," said the article, as a "projected residential conversion."

The renovation, including a restored cornice, was completed in 1997.  The handsome, marble-faced structure houses ten apartments.   The store and basement, home for decades to textile firms, houses a gym.

photographs by the author

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The Calhoun, Robbins & Co. Building - 895-899 Broadway

Cousins Samuel Lord and George W. Taylor opened their first dry goods store in 1826 on Catherine Street.  By the early 1860's they had moved to Grand Street and Broadway, and in 1869 once again followed the northward movement of the shopping district.  Upscale stores like Tiffany & Co. and Arnold, Constable & Co. had relocated to the Union Square area that same year.

The partners leased property from the Goelet family at Nos. 895 and 899 Broadway and the abutting southwest corner plot of  Broadway and 20th Streets from the Badeau family.  They commissioned James H. Giles to design the new Lord & Taylor emporium.  A Brooklyn architect who was responsible for a few cast iron building in lower Manhattan as well as the earlier Gothic-style Christ Church in Williamsburg (where he even designed the organ cabinet), Giles went all-out for the new store.

His five-story extravaganza, costing half a million dollars (just under $10 million today), departed from conventional cast iron designs.  Rather than creating a facade pretending to be stone, his was unabashedly cast iron.  Architectural critics of the day praised the innovation; one of the few criticisms being the overall beige color rather than a polychromed paint scheme.  

Thousands of shoppers crowded into the new store on November 28, 1870 through the impressive main entrance on Broadway.  Hand-hoisted elevators carried customers from floor to floor to sample the latest in imported merchandise.

The main entrance and the three bay sections on either side (at left) engulfed the 895-899 plot.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

The northward tide of commerce did not cease and in 1914 Lord & Taylor planned its next move, to Fifth Avenue and 38th Street.  The corner of the building at No. 901 Broadway was detached internally from the sections at Nos. 895-899 and 10 East 20th Street.

That the buildings were no longer associated was made visibly clear by architect John H. Duncan who gave Nos. 895-899 Broadway a new personality.  The cast iron facade was pulled off and replaced by a limestone neo-Renaissance style front.  Its dignified, balanced design of rusticated piers and reserved decoration was a stark departure from Giles's Victorian confection.

Rather than separate the windows of the third through fifth floors with pilasters or columns, Duncan floated simple capitals on flat-faced piers.   Along the frieze below the iron cornice he placed sculpted lions' heads within rondels directly above each of the rusticated four-story piers.

Calhoun, Robbins & Company leased the entire building in 1914 and occupied almost all of it.  Space was subleased to publisher Hurst & Co., which released Adventures in Toyland and A Round Robin children's books that year.

Calhoun, Robbins & Co., an importer of "fancy dry goods," had been organized in 1858.  In its January 1915 issue, Notions and Fancy Goods noted "The removal of the business of Calhoun, Robbins & Co. from 408-410 Broadway, where they have been located for the past forty-seven years, to the building formerly occupied by Lord & Taylor, at Broadway, 19th and 20th streets, marks a noteworthy epoch in New York's commercial development."

The firm owned the Lyon Brand of yarns which it produced in its mills in Pennsylvania.  But the scope of the products it sold went far beyond dry goods.   In the early 1920's they included "hair, tooth, nail and cloth brushes," whisk brooms, pocketbooks, purses, card cases, "tourist cases," beaded bags, soap boxes, thimbles, buckles, and scores of other items.

A gang of burglars had plagued the Broadway neighborhood for some time in the spring of 1922 and on May 17 they set their sights on Calhoun, Robbins & Co.  At 4:30 that afternoon four crooks entered No. 901 (the surviving corner of the old Lord & Taylor building) and hid.  When the employees had all gone home, they went to work breaking through a fifth story wall.

Their plan was upset by an informant.  The New-York Tribune reported "Captain Stapleton of the loft squad received a tip that the safe of the dry goods concern of Calhoun, Robbin & Co., at 895 Broadway, was to be blown in search of a pay roll of $120,000."  According to the tipster, "The plan of the yeggmen was to make a hole in a wall leading from an adjoining building."

An army of police--150 patrolmen and 100 detectives--surrounded the block.  Squads of men with rifles were stationed on the roofs of several buildings.  Once the area was secured, "detectives swarmed into the buildings, most of which are occupied by silk mercers and manufacturers of embroideries."

Investigators with flashlights searched "every nook and corner" of more than a dozen buildings.  And then, on the fifth floor of No. 901, "they found a complete yeggmen's outfit, including drills, jimmies, hammers, wrenches, mallets, four pairs of gloves, soap, and a half stick of dynamite, but no burglars."  A hole had been broken through to Calhoun, Robbins & Co.

When they heard the detectives coming up the stairs, the burglars fled to the roof.  A ten-hour search ended at daybreak with all four being captured, one of them having been shot three times.

Calhoun, Robbins & Co. remained in the building until 1928.  Afterwards it was converted for light manufacturing purposes.  In the 1960's the Grossman Stamp Company, manufacturers of collectors' albums and publishers of stamp-related books and brochures, was in the building.  Sussex Clothes, makers of private label ready-to-wear clothing for upscale retailers like Bergdorf-Goodman, Bloomingdales, and Neiman-Marcus, operated from the address in the 1970's.

In 1984 clothing manufacturer Saint Laurie, Ltd. purchased the building for $2 million for its manufacturing space and headquarters after having been at No. 84 Fifth Avenue for half a century.  

An interior renovation costing between $2- and $3 million was initiated by Beyer Blinder Belle, well-known for its work on vintage structures.  Architect Frederick Bland told The New York Times journalist Shawn G. Kennedy on April 11 "When completed, the layout will reflect the way commercial space was used when buildings like 895 Broadway were built, with retail and manufacturing space sharing the same building."  When Saint Laurie, Ltd. moved in, its staff included nearly 250 garment workers like cutters, sewers and finishers.  

On July 4, 1993 The New York Times announced the Equinox fitness center "just signed a lease for 26,000 square feet in the heart of the Flat-iron district at 897 Broadway, a space now occupied by the wholesale clothing company Saint Laurie."  The lower three floors were converted to the Equinox facilities with offices on the upper floors.  

Above the entrance the name "Equinox Building" has been applied.

Although the limestone is a bit grimy, above the ground level the building looks much as it did when the cast iron Victorian department store received its 1914 transformation.

photographs by the author

James Giles' No. 78 Reade Street

In 1859 the once residential block of Reade Street between Broadway and Church Street was quickly giving way to commerce.  That year George Bradshaw leased the properties at Nos. 74 through 78 Reade Street from Trinity Church with intentions of hastening the process.

The old houses had never been high-end.  In the 1830s and ‘40s John Taylor, a shoemaker, lived here.  But the year before Bradshaw leased the property it had fallen into disrepute.  On March 19, 1858 The New York Times reported “Mary Graham and Louisa Smith, who keep a noted panel crib at No. 78 Reade-street, were arrested, yesterday, for robbing one Michael Fee of his gold watch, and committed.” (A “panel crib” was a brothel with secret, sliding doors by which rooms could be entered and customers robbed while they were otherwise engaged.)

Bradshaw set architect James H. Giles to work designing a modern loft and store structures to replace the old, low buildings.  Completed in 1860 the five-story Italianate buildings were identical, producing a pleasing architectural flow.  (That same year John Martin, Jr. hired Giles to design the abutting, corner building at No. 80-82, which would visually complete the group.)

Bradshaw had also leased a plot on Church Street, No. 177, from St. George’s Episcopal Church.  He used it to make No. 78 Reade an L-shaped structure, larger than his other two, with a similar but less elaborate façade and side entrance on Church Street.   

Like its neighbors, No. 78 Reade Street boasted a handsome cast iron storefront, forged by the Architectural Iron Works and most likely chosen from its catalog.  Fluted columns with ornate Corinthian capitals supported the broad entablature which would announce the store’s name.  Above were four stories of red brick, trimmed in contrasting stone.  The arched openings within carved enframements sat on bracketed sills.  A robust cast iron cornice sat above the round-arched upper fifth floor windows.

In 1864 the entire block had been redeveloped.  No. 78 is second from left, with what appears to be a large sign on the roof.  Stephenson & Co. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Among the first tenants were the dry goods concern Streeter & Potter; M. Heminway & Sons, manufacturers of sewing silk; and S. J. Dennis, “fancy goods.”   Strawgoods merchants Hubbard, Fay & Co. joined them in the 1860s.

On June 17, 1863 Captain O. O. Potter offered a testimonial for his physician; directing readers of The New York Times to No. 78 Reade Street for confirmation.  “Dr. Lighthill has succeeded in restoring to perfect hearing my right ear, which has been deaf for some time—caused by a cold.  As I am obliged to leave for New-Orleans in a few days, those who may wish to make further inquiries may call on my brother, Mr. H. C. Potter, No. 78 Reade-st., firm of Streeter, Fallon & Potter, who will be happy to give any information desired.”

By 1865 business directories showed that William Fielding & Bro., importers of hosiery and gloves, had moved in; and S. J. Dennis was acting as agent for the United Worsted Co., a braid manufacturer, in addition to its own merchandise.

In 1871 Heminway & Sons won first prize at the American Institute’s exhibition for “the best sewing silk and twist.”  The firm would remain in the building for about two more decades; yet the arrival of Benedict & Burnham, dealers in brass and German silver, and Steele & Johnson, button makers, in the 1870s signaled a change in tenants.

The 1880s saw No. 78 Reade Street filling with book and shoe makers.  In December 1887 P. Cox Shoe Mfg. Co. was looking for additional help.  An ad in The Sun sought “First-class cutters on ladies’, misses’, children’s, boys’ and youths’ shoes; good wages and steady employment.”

Cox was traveling during the first months of 1888 when money went missing in the office.  The cashier, Andrew J. Kelly was arrested and jailed at Police Headquarters.  A friend of Kelly’s played down the incident to reporters saying “the amount involved was not large,” and that when a $128 discrepancy was found, “a Mr. McMahon, who assumed authority in the absence of Mr. Cox, had him arrested, but that on Mr. Cox’s return matters would be righted”

Another footwear firm in the building at the time was John Long & Son, “boot and shoe fitters,” and later the Metropolitan Shoe Company would find its home here.

One merchant in the building that year, C. B. Kennedy, found that talking politics in a bar was rarely a good idea.  On Saturday afternoon, September 2, 1888, he entered Daniel Malchow’s saloon at No. 58 Varick Street with a friend. Thomas S. Wells.  The two settled into a conversation about the upcoming Presidential election.

“Here’s to the election of Cleveland,” toasted Kennedy, tossing back his drink.

Another patron, John Brennan, took umbrage at the remark and said so.  Malchow was bartending and pointed out to Brennan that no one had been talking to him, and he ordered him out of the saloon.  Brennan left—but only momentarily.

The Sun reported the following day “Brennan picked up a beer keg outside, and returning threw it at Malchow, who was behind the bar.  Malchow had Brennan arrested, and Brennan gave $100 bail for good behavior.”   John Brennan was no doubt pleased when his candidate, Benjamin Harrison, lost the popular vote but nevertheless gained the Presidency two months later.

The 1890s saw publishing firms moving into the Reade Street building, as well.  By 1892 Kittredge Company, publishers of Business magazine, was here, as was D. T. Mallett, publisher of the Hardware Dealers’ Magazine.

The well-known pencil manufacturer, A. W. Faber & Co. was in the building by the turn of the century.  If the embezzlement of $128 by an employee of P. Cox Shoe Mfg. in 1888 caused the firm concern; then the discovery of around $30,000 stolen by Faber’s “confidential bookkeeper” in 1901 was staggering.

William Hopeppner was 37-years old and had been employed by Faber for seven years.  He had a wife and two children, and lived well beyond his means.  He earned $2,500 a year; but his apartment at No. 200 West 111^th Street cost $1,500.  He managed to live well by changing the amounts on his pay checks—carefully altering $347 to $847—and then manipulating the books to hide the discrepancies.

On June 18 he failed to report to work and two days later, when his cancelled paycheck was returned to the office, manager W. F. G. Geisse noticed the altered amount and notified police.  When detectives arrived at the Hoeppner apartment, “they found Mrs. Hoeppner and her children making preparations to move.  She told them that he had sailed for Europe on the Lahn,” reported The New York Times.

The police staked out the apartment.  A few days later two vans drove up and Mrs. Hoeppner supervised the loading of her furniture.  Apparently aware that she was being watched, she did not leave the city immediately.  Instead she went with the children to No. 423 West 17^th Street for two days; then took an apartment at No. 17 Abingdon Place for two months.

On August 19 Mrs. Hoeppner and the children climbed into a carriage and headed to the North German Lloyd Steamship Company’s pier in Hoboken.  The long trip was more subterfuge in case anyone was following.  And they were.

After standing around a while, in the pretense of waiting for a passenger, she hailed another carriage which took the family to the Lamport and Holt Line pier in Brooklyn.  They boarded the steamship Coleridge which was headed for Rio de Janeiro.   Mrs. Hoeppner most likely felt she could now relax; having slipped away from the grasp of United States law enforcement.

She had forgotten about the telegraph.  Brazilian police tracked her movements from the time she landed, to her boarding the steamer Bresil on September 10 and her landing in Buenos Aires.  “A few days later the local police located Mr. Hoeppner at the house of Antonio Navarra, a mica merchant of that place, and placed him under arrest,” reported The New York Times on September 28, 1901.

On October 5 Detectives MCafferty and Price set off to bring the embezzler back to New York for trial.  The amount he had stolen would amount to about $865,000 by today’s standards.

Diamond Rubber was here in 1906; but moved to "Automobile Row" on Broadway the next year.  The Sun, October 7, 1906 (copyright expired)

At the time the Sonora Chine Company was making two-movement chime clocks at No. 5 Cedar Street.  In 1908 the Seth Thomas Company bought the patent rights to the mechanism; forcing the owners to move in another direction.  Founder George Brightson reincorporated the firm as the Sonora Phonograph Company in February 1913 and that same month leased space at No. 78 Reade Street.  The firm would remain in the building for years, becoming a major phonograph producer.

Sonora Phonograph produced a vast array of models here. (copyright expired)

The year that Sonora moved in Lewis Smith, a wholesale druggist operating here, was involved in a horrific incident in the Fort Hamilton area of Brooklyn.  On September 27, 1913 Donato Salsa, an Italian immigrant, had spent most of the afternoon collecting driftwood along the harbor shore.   He was pushing his top heavy wheelbarrow home in the middle of the road.

At the same time Lewis Smith was heading home to his home in the Flatbush area.  As he approached the man from the rear he honked his horn so he would move out of the way.  Tragically, Donato Salsa was deaf.

Smith continued forward, honking his horn; but Salsa was unaware of the approaching automobile.   The Times reported “When almost on top of the man, Smith turned his car sharply to one side, to avoid running him down, but just then Salsa swerved his wheelbarrow in the same direction and the auto ran over him.  He was dead when surgeons summoned from the army post got to him.”

No. 78 Reade Street continued to house a number of footwear firms.  In 1918 C. E. Wethey Shoe Company rented space; and in 1914 M. B. Martine, Inc., was here, joined soon by Firestone Rubber Boot & Shoe Co.    M. B. Martine was on the second floor and produced women’s beaded slippers and shoe trims, such as buckles and bows.  On August 19, 1920 it advertised for “home work beading slippers; price doubled and bonus to quick workers; two dollars deposit required; beginners taught.”  The company also needed an “experienced examiner, teacher and sample maker.”  The latter, it noted, were “inside positions.”

 

Shoe and Leather Facts magazine, August, 1914 (copyright expired)

The American Gas Machine Co. was advertising that year, as well.  It needed a “boy to assist in shipping room; good pay, easy hours, steady job.”

At mid-century importing firms Charles Khouri, Inc., and Paul Spitz & Co. were here.  Both were victims of burglary in July 1950.   But after a police chase and gun battle on July 14, 30-year old Paul Carbonaro and 28-year old Vito Esposito were arrested.  The burglars had made off with loot totaling $171 from Spitz.  Charles Khouri, Inc. was less fortunate—the amount of bonds stolen from its office amounting to $5,000.

In 1992 the upper floors were converted to a non-profit residence for the elderly.   Today the cast iron columns survive in front of a modernized storefront; while the upper floors are virtually unchanged.

photographs by the author

James H. Giles' 1861 Nos. 80-82 Reade Street

In 1860 dry goods merchant John Martin, Jr. diversified into real estate.  That year he acquired three old structures-including Kohler & Brunjes’ grocery store at No. 82 Reade Street-- at the northeast corner of Church Street, and laid plans for a rental building.  It would appear that he chose James H. Giles, who was active in the area at the time, as his architect.

The design of the Italianate-style five-story loft and store building, completed in 1861, was handsome and up-to-date.  The red brick façade was trimmed in contrasting stone.  Especially eye-catching were the second floor openings, copied at ground level on the Church Street side.  The round-headed windows here were capped by carved eyebrows with paneled keystones.

The tall cast iron storefront featured fluted Corinthian columns supporting its entablature and cast cornice.  Among the architect’s details--like delicate sill courses—was his delightful attention to the structure’s corner, which turned in rather than pointing out.

The architect indented the corner of the building--a subtle touch.

Among Martin’s first tenants were Giles Brothers, wholesale dealers in hosiery and woolen goods; George M. Richmond & Co., “domestic dry goods;” The French Self-Fastening Button Co.; and William B. Watkins’ store.

In 1865 a 23-year old German immigrant, William B. Gerslenberg, worked for William Watkins as a bookkeeper.  Perhaps because Gerslenberg had access to the company safe, another employee, Charles Smart, gave him $284 of his own money for safekeeping.  Problems for both men started when Watkins fired Gerslenberg.

The New York Times reported on December 10, 1865, “Soon after the book-keeper was discharged by Mr. Watkins, and on leaving the store carried with him Mr. Smart’s money.”  Gerslenberg was tracked down at his boarding house on North Moore Street where he was arrested.  He confessed to the theft but said he spent the money “in concert saloons and upon fast horses, &c.”

A far different type of business—the rubber goods industry—was represented in the building by the 1890s.  Although the Mack Drug Company, “dealers in patent medicines,” was still in the building in 1890 after several years here; it was also home to the Boston Rubber Shoe Co., Ford Brothers “rubber goods,” and the Home Rubber Company.

Another rubber shoe firm, United States Rubber, was here in 1897 -- New-York Tribune, January 30, 1897 (copyright expired)

The Ford Brothers firm consisted of wealthy “india rubber merchants,” James B., John R. and J. Howard Ford.  The brothers lived together at No. 507 Fifth Avenue.  And the Home Rubber Co. would remain in the building at least until the end of World War I.

Following the death of Robert Campbell, a respected and well-liked rubber merchant, a “meeting of the boot and shoe trade” was held in the offices of the Boston Rubber Shoe Company here.  Among the motions was to “have engrossed and bound a set of appropriate resolutions to be presented to Mrs. Campbell.”

At the turn of the century the rubber goods firms were joined by a variety of businesses.  The Diebold Safe Company sold both new and second-hand safes on “easy terms” during the first years of the 1900s; W. J. Anderson & Co. dealt in “calendars and calendar pads,” and Robert J. Pierce, Inc. was described by The Sun as “a large concern dealing in drug sundries.”

In 1911 the building was joined internally with No. 78, the L-shaped structure next door that wrapped around to Church Street.

It was about this time that Robert J. Pierce’s son, Clifford A. Pierce, had taken over control of the business after he had his father declared insane.  In the 19^th and early 20^th century, insane asylums were not only a means of dealing with the mentally ill; they were a convenient method of getting rid of cumbersome relatives.  The problem was such that in 1891 the Lunacy Law Reform League was established.

Clifford Pierce repeatedly had his father committed, but Robert Pierce was always released.  In 1917 the elder Pierce was confined again, this time in the Bloomingdale Hospital for the Insane.   On July 21 that year, he saw his chance and slipped a note to a little girl, the daughter of Dr. and Mrs. A. I. Bernstein of Mt. Vernon.  The note pleaded for his attorney, Jacob S. Ruskin, to obtain a review of his case.
 

The Sun later reported that “The note was forwarded to the lawyer, a review was obtained and four physicians testified that he was sane.”  Pierce was released.  But his freedom would be short-lived.

Clifford Pierce told authorities that his father “underwent another nervous breakdown and created a disturbance.”  The elderly man was returned to Belleview, but released two weeks later on August 22, 1917.  The next day, according to Clifford, “his father came to his place of business and grew troublesome.”  The wealthy and respected old man who had established the drug firm was sent to a sanitarium in Flushing, New York, for treatment.

Also in the building about this time, along with the Home Rubber Co., were the C.P.N. Chemical Co., dealers in in 1918; and the Abrams-Radner Shoe Co., Inc. “wholesale shoes.”  Later in the century the railroad supply firm, John W. Miller Company, would be here, as well as the Good Neighbor Textile Company and the Bailey Chair & Supply Co., Inc.

In 1993 the upper floors were converted to apartments and today the ground floor is home to a trendy restaurant.   John Martin Jr.’s venture into real estate development is astonishingly little changed after a century and a half.

photographs by the author