144 5th Avenue

Flatiron | built 1851

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.

1877
March 1
Cottier & Co. opens an art gallery in the converted Fifth Avenue mansion
A Civil War-era Italianate brownstone mansion at 144 Fifth Avenue was converted into commercial space in 1877, its stoop removed and cast-iron pilasters added to frame wide showroom windows. On March 1, 1877, interior decorators Daniel Cottier and James S. Ingles opened their gallery, Cottier & Co., there, showing works by Daubigny, Corot, and Millet that the New York Times praised; a large Corot remained unsold for fifteen years.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
1897
The Guild of St. Barnabas for Nurses sets up headquarters in the building
The Guild of St. Barnabas for Nurses, a charitable organization supporting nursing staff, operated its headquarters at 144 Fifth Avenue beginning in 1897, sharing the building with the Cottier & Co. gallery on the ground floor below.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
1899
Naturalist Ernest Thompson Seton keeps a studio filled with animal specimens
Around 1899, naturalist and author Ernest Thompson Seton kept a studio and residence on the upper floors of 144 Fifth Avenue, filling the space with animal specimens and artifacts he used in his wildlife writing and illustration. The building's third floor still displays its distinctive cast-iron address shields reading "ONE HUNDRED FORTY FOUR" and "FIFTH AVENUE NEW YORK."
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

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