154 Chambers Street

Tribeca | built 1920

Open on the map5 entries

Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.

1. 1852

   A well-kept boarding house stands at 154 Chambers Street before the commercial building

   The Benjamin Stagg Jr. family lived at 154 Chambers Street in the 1830s. As wealthy families moved uptown, the house became a boarding house, and a 1852 New York Herald advertisement offered a furnished room for two gentlemen and a parlor, noting baths and pantries. By 1860 it had been demolished. This was an earlier building on the site.

   Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

2. 1860

   Thomas Suffern replaces the boarding house at 154 Chambers Street with an Italianate store building

   Thomas Suffern, a retired linen merchant turned developer, tore down the old house by 1860 and built a five-story Italianate commercial building. It has a cast iron storefront with fluted Corinthian columns, elliptically arched upper windows with carved eyebrows, and a modillioned cornice. The Suffern estate held the property for about six decades.

   Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

3. 1879

   Candy maker John S. Hawley, inventor of the plunger, works at 154 Chambers Street

   By 1879 John S. Hawley & Co., candy makers, were in the building. Hawley had been a Nevada clerk and lumberman before moving to New York in 1870, and in 1874 he invented the "elastic force cup" now called the plunger. His firm, later Hawley & Hoops, became known for chocolate cigars and licorice, and stayed until the early 1880s.

   Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

4. 1916

   The J. M. Sherwood Co. patents a dish drainer at 154 Chambers Street

   In 1914 the J. M. Sherwood Co. took the upper floors and sold home appliances and ranges. In 1916 it patented a dish drainer, a rack for plates with a basket for silverware, which the New-York Tribune described on October 8. It sold for 75 cents and was marketed in Europe, and similar drainers are still sold.

   Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

5. 1948

   February 16

   Teen safecrackers drop through the skylight at 154 Chambers Street

   On the night of February 16, 1948, burglars forced the skylight at 154 Chambers Street and took $50, several typewriters and eight bottles of rye from the Superior Typewriter Company. The gang then crossed the roof and looted offices next door. A week later police arrested them, and the Times was most interested in the youngest, a 14-year-old described as six feet tall.

   Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Further reading

• Bon-Bons, Butter and Dish Drainers - No. 154 Chambers St.Daytonian in Manhattan

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• 150-152 Chambers Street150 Chambers Street | 7 entries
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• 143 Chambers Street5 entries

All 564 buildings with stories in Tribeca