The Marbridge Building is an office building at 1328

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 ...

, on the east side of

Sixth Avenue Sixth Avenue – also known as Avenue of the Americas, although this name is seldom used by New Yorkers, p.24 – is a major thoroughfare in New York City's borough of Manhattan, on which traffic runs northbound, or "uptown". It is commercial ...

between 34th and 35th Streets in

Herald Square Herald Square is a major commercial intersection in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, formed by the intersection of Broadway, Sixth Avenue (officially Avenue of the Americas), and 34th Street. Named for the now-defunct ''New ...

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. It opened in 1909, an 11-story structure, utilized in part by men's clothier

Rogers Peet Rogers Peet was a men's clothing company founded on November 6, 1874. Rogers Peet introduced several innovations into the men's wear business: they attached tags to garments giving fabric composition, they marked garments with price tags (the estab ...

.''$2,000,000 Loan Made On Marbridge Building'', New York Times, June 24, 1951, pg. 187. Until October 1910 it stood opposite the Alpine apartment house, which was at the northeast corner of Broadway and 33rd Street. The Alpine and old stores between 33rd and 34th Streets were demolished to make room for the $5,000,000

Hotel McAlpin Herald Towers, formerly the Hotel McAlpin, is a residential condominium building on Herald Square, along Broadway between 33rd and 34th Streets, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Constructed from 1910 to 1912 by the Greel ...

near the end of 1910. On the other side of Broadway were located the

Macy's Herald Square Macy's Herald Square (originally named the R. H. Macy and Company Store) is the flagship of Macy's department store, as well as the Macy's, Inc. corporate headquarters, on Herald Square in Manhattan, New York City. The building's , which incl ...

and

Saks Incorporated Saks, Inc. (originally Proffitt's, Inc.) was an American holding company founded in 1919. Before acquisition by the Canadian-founded Hudson's Bay Company in 2013, it held ownership of department store chains including New York City-based Saks Fi ...

stores, with the

Gimbels Gimbel Brothers (known simply as Gimbels) was an American department store corporation that operated for over a century, from 1842 until 1987. Gimbel patriarch Adam Gimbel opened his first store in Vincennes, Indiana, in 1842. In 1887, the com ...

store just below. Initially,

John McGraw John Joseph McGraw (April 7, 1873 – February 25, 1934) was an American Major League Baseball (MLB) player and manager who was for almost thirty years manager of the New York Giants. He was also the third baseman of the pennant-winning 189 ...

, then the manager of the

New York Giants The New York Giants are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Giants compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East divisio ...

baseball team, ran a billiards parlor in the newly opened building. He was associated in this venture with

Mike Donlin Michael Joseph Donlin (May 30, 1878 – September 24, 1933) was an American Major League Baseball (MLB) outfielder and actor. As a professional baseball player, his MLB career spanned from 1899 to 1914 in which he played mainly in the National L ...

, one of the Giants' outfielders.

Pool Pool may refer to: Water pool * Swimming pool, usually an artificial structure containing a large body of water intended for swimming * Reflecting pool, a shallow pool designed to reflect a structure and its surroundings * Tide pool, a rocky po ...

playing phenomenon Willy Hoppe took over this business in January 1912 when McGraw and Donlin moved to the Studebaker Building, 48th Street and Broadway. They started a new billiard and pool room there.

History

As a business building

Marbridge Building tenants included Ashley M. Herron, who moved his offices from the St. James Building to the Marbridge Building in February 1908.''In The Real Estate Field'', New York Times, February 28, 1908, pg. 12. The Lincoln Stock & Bond Company maintained offices there in 1910. as did S. Andrew Hartman.''Display Ad 12--No Title'',

Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

, July 14, 1910, pg. 7. The Emerson Motor Company leased space at the Marbridge Building in 1916. Members of the committee on course rules and regulations for a

-to-

San Diego San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the eighth most populous city in the United States ...

long-distance yacht race met in the Marbridge Building in March 1912. The race was associated with the San Diego Exposition of 1912, which maintained its offices in the establishment. Sam Kronsky formed a syndicate to buy the Marbridge Building in 1920.''Samuel Kronsky, Realty Man, Dies'', New York Times, March 8, 1966, pg. 39. Dudley Scrymser Macdonald, a real estate broker, was manager of the Marbridge Building for thirty-five years. Maurice Meyer, a past president of Meyer Brothers department store of

Paterson, New Jersey Paterson ( ) is the largest city in and the county seat of Passaic County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. The building was renovated for additional office space and stores in 1951 by C.P. Xenis, engineer. A syndicate of investors headed by Henry Goelet and Morris Furman bought the building in October 1954. In 1955 Sebago-Moc Co. footwear leased a store in the structure as did Kitty Kelly Shoes. The latter was the largest store in a chain, with an area of over . It included a

mezzanine A mezzanine (; or in Italian, a ''mezzanino'') is an intermediate floor in a building which is partly open to the double-height ceilinged floor below, or which does not extend over the whole floorspace of the building, a loft with non-sloped ...

which continued through to 35th Street. In February 1960 the building became the home of the Mercedes Shoe Import Corporation and the Milan Shoe Corporation. Later in the year Gamins, Inc., Matthew Gronfein, and Julius Alderman leased space there. The Marbridge Building was primarily a home to the women's footwear industry in New York City in 1960. The men's shoe industry was centered in the Reade Street and Duane Street area. In April 1969 Harry B. Helmsley and Irving Schneider purchased thirty buildings which comprised the total assets of the Furman-Wolfson Trust, which was valued at $165,000,000. The twenty-two office buildings involved in the sale included half the land under the Marbridge Building.''News Of Realty: Trust Is Bought'', New York Times, April 2, 1969, pg. 76. The

Empire State Building The Empire State Building is a 102-story Art Deco skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The building was designed by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon and built from 1930 to 1931. Its name is derived from " Empire State", the nickname of the ...

and the Marbridge Building were primary lessors to the footwear industry in the 1970s. By late 1984, these businesses began to relocate to an area of

midtown Manhattan Midtown Manhattan is the central portion of the New York City borough of Manhattan and serves as the city's primary central business district. Midtown is home to some of the city's most prominent buildings, including the Empire State Buildi ...

from

Fifth Avenue Fifth Avenue is a major and prominent thoroughfare in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It stretches north from Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village to West 143rd Street in Harlem. It is one of the most expensive shopping ...

between 56th Street, 57th Street, and 58th Street.

21st century

RFR Holding RFR may refer to: * ''Radio Free Roscoe'', a Canadian TV series * Ralph Firman Racing, a British racecar constructor * Recovering from Religion, an organisation * Regional Fast Rail project, Victoria, Australia * ''Reichsforschungsrat'' (RFR, Rei ...

purchased the building in 2000 from the Investment Properties Associates portfolio, formerly controlled by Harry B. Helmsley.

Publicis Publicis Groupe is a French multinational advertising and public relations company. One of the oldest and largest marketing and communications companies in the world by revenue, it is headquartered in Paris. After 1945, the little-known Paris ...

, a marketing firm, moved its

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

offices to the Marbridge Building in 2002. The company leased 114,000 square feet of space across four E-shaped floors. Publicis officials initially opposed moving there, but

Morris Adjmi Architects Morris Adjmi Architects is a New York City-based architecture and interior design firm that provides design services to corporate, commercial and residential clients. Background The company was founded by Morris Adjmi (FAIA), a New Orleans native ...

, then an architect with the firm MAP, encouraged Publicis executives to take a second look. The E-shaped design enabled Publicis to situate many employees on the same floor while avoiding the appearance of an insurance company. Adjmi designed an elliptical staircase from the 8th to the 11th floors, connecting the floors together. Publicis used the north facade to hang a red banner with the company's lion-head logo.

References

External links

Marbridge Building
at Emporis.com {{Broadway (Manhattan) Office buildings in Manhattan Cultural history of New York City 1909 establishments in New York City Broadway (Manhattan) Midtown Manhattan Sixth Avenue 34th Street (Manhattan)