117 Mercer Street
SoHo | built 1891
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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
George Provot finishes two brick-and-iron loft buildings at 117-119 Mercer Street
Annie Romel Lecour hired architect George Provot in 1890 to replace two small buildings on the lot, both already used for business. Work began in February 1891 and the five-story pair was done on New Year's Eve, at a cost of $30,000. Provot combined Romanesque and Renaissance Revival styles, with slender cast-iron storefront columns and bearded faces in the spandrels.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1896
Furrier Sigmund Platky vanishes from his Mercer Street office, leaving creditors owed $25,000
Platky made hatters' furs and skins at 117-119 Mercer after heavy losses in 1894 and 1895, selling Brooklyn factory machinery that cost $9,000 for just $800. When a creditors' lawyer, Herman Joseph, called at the office on March 5, 1896, Platky was gone, with debts put at $25,000. His own attorney presumed he had gone to Leipzig to ask a wealthy brother for money, while the Brooklyn Eagle reported him in Europe.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1898
A young woman dies in the building on a Sunday and the engineer who brought her is held as a suspect
On January 2, 1898, building engineer Martin Farrell brought Ellen Ryan, 24, a lodger in his home, into the empty building. He said he heard a scream while tending his engine and found her at the foot of the elevator shaft. Police found her on the cellar floor, and Farrell admitted he had dragged her there; the surgeon noted a crushed abdomen and bruises on her head. A deputy coroner suggested a fall from a ladder, but police held Farrell on suspicion of homicide.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1903
A guard and a secretary plot a robbery, but their hired thug is an undercover detective
According to co-worker Walter Nelson, secretary Ella Egan of the petticoat firm Lewis, Hurwitz & Co. told guard Edward De Veau he could rob her employer, Jerome Lewis, on the dark stairs. Nelson went to the police, and a county detective posing as an ex-convict agreed to do the job for $15. On November 4, 1903, De Veau handed him a lead-filled rubber hose and was arrested; Egan was freed by the district attorney and fired. De Veau was sentenced to ten years.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1906
A fire that starts on the third floor of No. 117 spreads through the pair and into neighboring buildings
Fires struck the two buildings in 1902, 1904 and 1906. The December 28, 1906 blaze began on the third floor of No. 117, reached the roof and moved into No. 119, which held cloak, skirt and pants makers and a restaurant on the second floor. It then jumped to Nos. 113-115 and 121 Mercer. Lewis, Hurwitz & Co. returned after repairs in 1907, and another fire damaged the No. 119 store in 1910.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
Further reading
- Feathers, Furs and Violence -- Nos. 117-119 Mercer StreetDaytonian in Manhattan
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