126 Chambers Street

Tribeca | built 1915

Open on the map7 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. 1830

    An earlier house on the lot is home to shipping merchant John Atkinson, then to Samuel Holmes

    An earlier building on this site was a dwelling leased from Trinity Church. John Atkinson, of the shipping firm John & Francis Atkinson and a Bank of New York director, rented it, and his widow lived there until about 1830. Dry goods merchant Samuel Holmes followed her, bought the property from the church in 1851, and in 1856 replaced the house with a five-story Italianate loft building, though he may instead have enlarged it.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1856

    October

    A window installer is found dead in the basement of 126 Chambers Street while it is still being built

    German immigrant Christian Meyer, 32, had been fitting windows in the new building at 126 Chambers Street. In October 1856 he was found dead in the basement. The Morning Courier and New-York Enquirer reported that he had been seen the evening before, partly drunk, so he was thought to have fallen down an open hatchway. Such shafts, used to hoist goods in tall commercial buildings, were dangerous before the floors were enclosed.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1876

    August

    Two clothing partners vanish, leaving a deputy sheriff to find an empty loft at 126 Chambers Street

    In spring 1876 Cohen and Grossfeld leased space at 126 Chambers Street to start a cloaks-and-suits business and ran up an estimated $30,000 to $40,000 in credit around the city. When creditors sent a deputy sheriff, he expected a factory but found an empty loft. The New York Herald reported on August 4 that the partners had absconded.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1886

    David McConnell starts the business that becomes Avon in a small office at 126 Chambers Street

    David H. McConnell, a former door-to-door book seller, decided in September 1886 to sell perfumes instead and, according to Wikipedia, started the business in a small office at 126 Chambers Street. The firm became the California Perfume Company and was renamed Avon Products, Inc. in 1939. Daytonian in Manhattan says McConnell leased third-floor space here in 1890 for a publishing house and his perfume company, and that he was still in the building in 1906.

    “He started the new business in a small office at 126 Chambers Street, Manhattan, New York.”

    Source: Wikipedia

  5. 1895

    March 28

    A dropped bottle of alcohol sets perfume founder David McConnell ablaze; his clerk smothers the flames

    On March 28, 1895, McConnell dropped a bottle of cleaning alcohol in his office and the fumes ignited at a gas jet, engulfing him from the waist up. Clerk Josie Sawyer threw her apron over his head, and employee L. J. Miles helped finish putting him out. The spilled alcohol set the floor timbers burning, and firefighters tore up about 20 square feet of flooring to stop it. McConnell was treated for burns at the Hudson Street House of Relief.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  6. 1898

    April

    Saddlers at 126 Chambers Street win an order for equipment for the New York National Guard's officers' horses

    C. M. Moseman & Brother, saddle and harness dealers, were at 126 Chambers Street by 1898. About three weeks before April 30, 1898, as the Spanish-American War began, they received an order from Major General Roe for sixty saddles, bridles and other trappings. The pigskin saddles and gear went to Roe, his staff, and the brigade commanders and staffs of the state's National Guard. The firm stayed in the building through at least 1924.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  7. 1943

    February 1

    A summons for a Chambers Street cafe ends in a fight with plainclothes officers

    By 1943 the ground floor of 126 Chambers Street held the Colonial Cafe, which remained there through 1955. On the night of February 1, 1943, two plainclothes officers, Thomas Rooney and his partner, tried to serve manager Samuel Siegel with a summons for serving liquor to drunken patrons. Five men attacked the officers, and after the fracas was quelled they were arrested on assault charges.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Further reading

Nearby

All 564 buildings with stories in Tribeca