L. Straus & Sons china warehouse
116 Chambers Street | Tribeca | built 1855
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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.
- 1819
Banker James Boggs leases the Chambers Street lot and lives there until his death in 1834
In 1819 James Boggs, a downtown Manhattan banker, took a lease on the lot at 116 Chambers Street from St. George's Church in Flushing, Queens. He and his family lived in a house on the site until Boggs died in 1834. His estate kept the lease for decades afterward and rented the house out to a series of tenants. This was an earlier building on the site.
“Boggs lived at 116 Chambers Street from 1819 until his death in 1834.”
- 1855
The Boggs estate replaces the old house with a five-story marble store and loft building
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As the streets west and north of City Hall Park filled with new dry goods warehouses in the mid-1850s, the Boggs estate rebuilt the site as a marble-fronted Italianate building of five stories. The land stayed in the ownership of St. George's Church, which still owns it. The estate ran the building as an investment for about thirty years, renting it to dry goods and hardware firms.
- 1870
Lazarus Straus's china importing firm is based here, years before the family takes over Macy's
By 1870 the china-importing firm that Lazarus Straus had bought after moving to New York from Georgia was located at 116 Chambers Street, where it stayed until about 1920. L. Straus & Sons grew quickly and spread into buildings on Warren Street behind this one. In 1874 Straus began running a china department inside R.H. Macy's, and his sons gained full ownership of Macy's in 1896.
- 1893
L. Straus & Sons connects 116 Chambers Street to 46 Warren Street with a bridge
In 1893 the china wholesalers L. Straus & Sons, then leasing this building, had a bridge built between it and the firm's neighboring building at 46 Warren Street. The alteration filing lists John H. Duncan as the architect. In 1900 the lessee, Nathan Straus, added show windows on the second story.
Nearby
- 114 Chambers Street2 entries
- 118 Chambers Street2 entries
- 112 Chambers Street2 entries
- 120 Chambers Street50 Warren Street | 5 entries
- 110 Chambers Street3 entries
- Swift, Seaman & Company Building122 Chambers Street | 4 entries