Leo Schlesinger toy factory

131 Crosby Street | also 292 Lafayette Street, 1 Jersey Street, 129 Crosby Street | SoHo | built 1884

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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. 1883

    Leo Schlesinger buys five lots from the Stewart estate to build a tin-toy factory

    Toy and tinware maker Leo Schlesinger, then based at 11th Street and Avenue D, paid $205,000 for two Crosby Street lots and three on Jersey Street in 1883. He hired H. J. Schwartzmann & Co. to design the new works, which employed about 160 people. Spare floors were rented to outside tenants, including a printing shop that advertised for a compositor in 1884.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1884

    May

    A school for poor Jewish boys opens on the top floors of the toy factory

    The United Hebrew Charities worried that poor Jewish boys would end up as peddlers, so a technical school was founded for them in 1884. The Hebrew Technical Institute rented the sixth and seventh floors at 129 Crosby Street, with Schlesinger supplying heat and power. Its own anniversary booklet says classes were held here from May 1884 to February 1887.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1897

    The city cuts Lafayette Street through the factory and pays Schlesinger for the 80 feet it takes

    Schlesinger had backed the Elm Street extension in 1889 even though it would take 80 feet of his building. When the city condemned the land in 1897 it paid him $96,000 and demolished that section. He then hired Buchman & Deisler to give the remaining seven stories a new Renaissance Revival front on the wider street. Over a year into the project he led merchants to complain to the mayor that the work was unfinished.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1915

    June

    A hat-machine maker stages a burglary of his own factory to keep a friend's velvet

    That summer Ignatius Buckman, who made hat-making machines in the building, agreed to store $4,000 worth of velvet for his friend John Treubert. Buckman had several of his clerks carry the cloth out, then told Treubert in early June that thieves had taken it along with $2,000 of his own goods. Treubert doubted the story and called detectives, and the employees soon admitted they had followed their boss's orders.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  5. 1922

    November 2

    A fire hose flood sweeps three firefighters down the stairs and out into the street

    Firefighters tackling a blaze in the hat and paper lofts poured thousands of gallons into the building, and the sturdy structure held the water until its walls bulged. When six men from Hook and Ladder 9 chopped through a wall, the released flood carried three of them down the stairs and into the roadway, half conscious. The other three clung to a stair rail. Tenants suffered about $20,000 in damage.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  6. 1986

    April 19

    Keith Haring opens his Pop Shop at 292 Lafayette Street

    Artist Keith Haring opened the Pop Shop here in SoHo to sell his designs on pins, radios, magnets, watches and clothing. He said he did it so people would at least know what authentic versions looked like, since so many copies were circulating. His friend Bobby Breslau managed it until Breslau's death in 1987. The shop stayed until it closed on August 28, 2005, when rent rose faster than sales.

    “On April 19, 1986, Haring opened the Pop Shop at 292 Lafayette Street in Manhattan's SoHo neighborhood.”

    Source: Wikipedia

Further reading

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