G. Schirmer Building
108 East 16th Street | Gramercy | built 1920
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The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.
Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.
- 1891
William Kuhles designs the G. Schirmer Publishing building
Music publisher Gustav Schirmer commissions German architect William Kuhles to design a new six-story headquarters at 108 East 16th Street. Kuhles blends Romanesque Revival and German Renaissance styles, carving lyres into the piers and musical instruments into the arch spandrels to reflect the firm's trade. It is one of Kuhles's last designs before his death the following year.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1909
Rudolph Schirmer sells the headquarters as the firm outgrows it
With G. Schirmer publishing some 18,000 titles and its business having outgrown the building, Rudolph Schirmer sells 108 East 16th Street to George Leerburger and Zade Metzler. The building continues to house manufacturers as loft tenants for decades afterward.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1998
A restoration removes a mid-century metal facade cover
Alfredo De Vido Architects reverses a 1950s modernization that had hidden the building's carved Romanesque facade behind metal panels. The firm restores the stonework and installs a new entrance, bringing the Schirmer building's ornate ground floor back into view after decades hidden from sight.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 2001
The Talwar Gallery opens in the Schirmer building
The Talwar Gallery opens at 108 East 16th Street, exhibiting contemporary artists from the Indian subcontinent and artists of Indian origin born elsewhere. The building's former retail space, where G. Schirmer once sold sheet music, later becomes home to Italian Wine Merchants, which displays only one bottle of each wine.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
Further reading
- The 1892 G. Schirmer Publishing Bldg. -- No. 108 East 16th StreetDaytonian in Manhattan
- The musical motifs on a 16th Street buildingEphemeral New York
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