287 Broadway is a historical building on the corner of

Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street **Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...

at Reade Street in the

Tribeca Tribeca (), originally written as TriBeCa, is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan in New York City. Its name is a syllabic abbreviation of "Triangle Below Canal Street". The "triangle" (more accurately a quadrilateral) is bounded by Canal Stree ...

neighborhood of Lower Manhattan,

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

. Designed by

John B. Snook John Butler Snook (1815–1901) was an American architect who practiced in New York City and was responsible for the design of a number of notable cast-iron buildings, most of which are now in and around the SoHo neighborhood of Manhattan, as ...

in 1871 using cast-iron in mixed

Italianate The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian ...

and

French Second Empire The Second French Empire (; officially the French Empire, ), was the 18-year Imperial Bonapartist regime of Napoleon III from 14 January 1852 to 27 October 1870, between the Second and the Third Republic of France. Historians in the 1930s a ...

style, it was completed in 1872 for the Stephen Storm estate. The landmark, which “graphically illustrates the transformation of lower Broadway in the 19th century from a residential boulevard into the city’s commercial center”, was leaning approximately by 2008.

History

Attorney William Alexander owned the site as early as 1794, when it contained a dwelling and carriage house. The house was purchased by Elbert Anderson in 1816 who demolished it two years later, and built a commercial building in 1819. In 1821, Storm purchased the property. With others, he built the Irving House Hotel in 1848–49. In 1871, Storm's estate hired Snook to design a commercial building to be used for banking and office space. The

Union Pacific Railroad Company The Union Pacific Railroad , legally Union Pacific Railroad Company and often called simply Union Pacific, is a freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Paci ...

was an early tenant, as was Henry Bischoff & Company. The Gindi family purchased the property in 1969. Already tilted , it began to lead an additional in 2007 during excavation work at 57 Reade Street, forcing the city government to vacate it. In 2013, 287 Broadway was purchased for US$8 million by the Laboz family's United American Land company which affirmed the structural stability of the building and began a renovation for ground-floor retail space and residential rental lofts on the higher floors. After years of lobbying led by Margot Gayle and her group Friends of Cast-iron Architecture, 287 Broadway was designated a landmark on August 29, 1989. At the designation hearing it was described as one of the few surviving examples in New York City of a cast-iron building designed in mixed Italianate and French Second Empire architecture styles.

Architecture and fittings

The six-story building is of mixed Italianate and French Second Empire architectural style. The façade is of cast-iron and the slat shingles are original to the building, which also features a mansard roof, dormers, segmented pediments, round-arched windows,

Otis elevator Otis Worldwide Corporation ( branded as the Otis Elevator Company, its former legal name) is an American company that develops, manufactures and markets elevators, escalators, moving walkways, and related equipment. Based in Farmington, Connec ...

, as well as Ionic and Corinthian columns. Steel shoring was added in 2008 against the south facade, replacing timber bracing added in 2007 following excavation work at 57 Reade Street. In December 2020, the shoring/bracing was removed.

References

{{Broadway (Manhattan) 1872 establishments in New York (state) Broadway (Manhattan) Cast-iron architecture in New York City Civic Center, Manhattan Commercial buildings completed in 1872 New York City Designated Landmarks in Manhattan Office buildings in Manhattan Tribeca

History

Architecture and fittings

See also

References