Poster House

119 West 23rd Street | also 114 West 24th Street | Chelsea | built 1901

Open on the map8 entries

The lot about 1940
About 1940. Via 1940s.nyc
The lot about 1985
About 1985. Via 80s.nyc

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.

  1. 1894

    September

    A workman, Charles Miller, is killed during construction of the National Cloak Company building

    In September 1894, while the ten-story National Cloak Company building was going up at Nos. 119 and 121 West 23rd Street, a workman named Charles Miller was killed on the site. Laborers were often hired casually then and few records were kept. The Evening World of September 15 noted that Miller had been buried in Potter's Field that morning; his wife, reported to live somewhere in Yorkville, had not been found.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1897

    March

    The ten-story National Cloak Company building is completed at 119-121 West 23rd Street

    The National Cloak Company, a leading ladies' tailor making women's suits and skirts to order, finished its ten-story loft and retail building in March 1897. A two-story rusticated limestone base carries eight floors of brick and terra cotta that mix Italian Renaissance with Romanesque, with two cast-iron balconies and a central three-story arch. Publishers George Routledge & Sons, Pott & Company and G. W. Dillingham were among its tenants alongside the apparel firms.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1921

    Steiner & Co. moves into the building with a department for coarse paper and twine

    In 1921 the long-established stationery firm Steiner & Co. took space here. Its new line in high-grade coarse paper and twine needed a headquarters that the Paper Trade Journal described as much larger and better equipped. By then the garment and millinery trades had shifted north to the blocks between 35th and 40th Streets, and apparel firms were leaving the building.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1923

    Small mail-order firms selling radio sets and gadgets set up in the building

    As the apparel firms left, small mail-order companies set up here to sell cheap gadgets promoted at the back of popular magazines. In 1923 the Perfection Radio Corporation of America had an address here, offering ear phones and crystal sets. The Monroe Specialty Co. sold a device that used a magnet to sharpen used razor blades, and the Berny Novelty Company carried the trend on through the 1950s.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  5. 2002

    June

    Tekserve moves its Apple repair store into a 25,000-square-foot storefront at 119 West 23rd Street

    In June 2002 the Apple repair shop Tekserve moved into a 25,000-square-foot storefront at 119 West 23rd Street, taking all of the ground floor of the Printing Arts Building, a structure that runs through to 24th Street. It had previously occupied four spaces on the same side of the block, among them a loft at 115 West 23rd Street. Tekserve had become Apple-authorized for Mac repair in 1993.

    Source: Wikipedia

  6. 2016

    August 15

    Tekserve announces it will close its 23rd Street store

    The New York Times reported on June 29, 2016 that Tekserve's retail store and service center would close while parts of the business stayed open. Tekserve said on August 15, 2016 that it would close, and it shut a few weeks before its lease ended, citing changes in shopping habits, multiple Apple stores nearby and higher rent. The space later became Poster House.

    Source: Wikipedia

  7. 2019

    June 20

    Poster House opens as the first U.S. museum devoted solely to posters, with a Mucha show

    Poster House opened to the public on June 20, 2019, billed as the nation's first museum given over entirely to posters. LTL Architects and Lumen Architecture redesigned the former Tekserve space, and Paula Scher of Pentagram designed the museum's logo. The first exhibition showed more than 80 posters by the Czech designer Alphonse Mucha.

    “…the museum opened to the public on June 20, 2019…”

    Source: Wikipedia

  8. 2020

    April

    Poster House and Print launch the #CombatCOVID public-safety poster campaign

    Poster House teamed up with Print in April 2020 on a public-safety campaign, #CombatCOVID. Designers such as Jessica Hische, Maira Kalman and Edel Rodriguez created posters communicating safety guidelines and encouraging messages for New Yorkers. Around 1,700 digital advertising spaces in all five boroughs carried the posters.

    Source: Wikipedia

Further reading

Nearby

All 72 buildings with stories in Chelsea