154 West 14th Street Building
154 West 14th Street | also 158 West 14th Street | West Village | built 1913
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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.
- 1912
Leslie R. Palmer buys the Adams Express lots and plans a twelve-story loft ahead of the Seventh Avenue subway
The Adams Express Co. had bought the lots in 1908, and in 1912 they pass to a company headed by the lawyer-banker Leslie R. Palmer for about $260,000. He plans a twelve-story, $350,000 loft with a $410,000 loan. Palmer bets that the coming Seventh Avenue subway and its closeness to freight terminals will make the avenue one of the best-placed in the city.
“…the Adams Express Co. purchased six lots ... which were in turn were conveyed in 1912 to the Seventh Avenue & Fourteenth Street Co. (Leslie R. Palmer, president) for about $260,000.”
- 1913
Herman Lee Meader's first completed New York building is a twelve-story showcase for colored terra cotta
This 12-story loft, built in 1912-13, is Meader's first completed New York City design, and he and Palmer go on to work together on five projects. Meader clads the corner loft in glazed terra cotta in green, celadon, cobalt blue, mustard, beige and white, mixing Secessionist, Art Nouveau, Arts & Crafts and Mission Revival motifs. The terra cotta comes from the New York Architectural Terra Cotta Co., where Palmer is a long-time director, so the building works as a showpiece for the firm's product. Much of the top story's ornament is lost in alterations of the 1950s or 1960s.
“…the building is a virtual advertisement for the material's exterior use and, specifically, for the products of the firm.”
- 1918
Jaime V. Lago opens a private bank for Spanish-speaking neighbors as the subway station opens outside
Just as the Seventh Avenue subway station opens at the building's front door, Jaime V. Lago leases the retail space and opens a private bank for the Spanish-speaking residents of the neighborhood known as Little Spain. The Sun calls him a Spanish banker. He started the bank a year earlier while working as a bellboy in a local hotel, and a Spanish-language bookstore follows.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1927
A jeweler's salesman leaves 192 gold watches on the sidewalk, and a passerby returns them
Max Wolf, a salesman for S. Bruner jewelers, sets his sample case on the sidewalk to free his car from a boxed-in spot, then drives off to New Rochelle without it. The case holds 192 gold wristwatches and 149 gold rings worth about $4,000. George Bovens takes it to the Charles Street police station around two in the afternoon and is rewarded with a gold watch.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1928
Banker Jaime Lago is arrested over a $250,000 shortage
Lago, 35, is arrested in July 1928 and held on $5,000 bail, accused of taking deposits when he knew his bank could not pay. Superintendent of Banks Frank H. Warder finds a shortage of $250,000. According to The Times, he spent the money on a bookstore, stock deals and a boarding house for fellow countrymen at 317 West 14th Street.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1937
The Treasury Department's WPA map project takes three floors to make relief maps
In July 1937 the U.S. Treasury Department leases three floors, about 33,000 square feet, for the WPA Cartographic and Map Making Project. The workers produce relief maps of New York City and of foreign countries, along with models of tunnels.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1956
Science-fiction publisher Hugo Gernsback moves his companies in
Hugo Gernsback, whom the landmark report calls the father of modern science fiction, keeps his businesses here from about 1956 to 1959. They include Gernsback Publications, the Popular Book Corp. and the Hudson Specialties Co.
“Hugo Gernsback (1884-1967), had his businesses Gernsback Publications, Inc./ Popular Book Corp./ Hudson Specialties Co. in the building (c. 1956-59).”
- 1959
Vanguard Recording Society runs its offices and shipping from the building
From about 1959 to 1966 the building holds the offices and shipping department of the Vanguard Recording Society and its related companies, Vanguard Record Sales, Vanguard Stereolab and the Bach Guild. The label releases classical, folk and popular music, and in these years it is linked with the Newport Folk Festival.
Further reading
- A Colorful Blending of Styles --154 West 14th StreetDaytonian in Manhattan
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