Odd Fellows Hall
165 Grand Street | also 224 Centre Street, 171 Grand Street, 156B Baxter Street | Little Italy | built 1848
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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.
- 1847
About 5,000 people march for the cornerstone of the Odd Fellows' new lodge building
The cornerstone of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows' new lodge building was laid on June 5, 1847, with a procession that the New-York Daily Tribune put at about 5,000 participants. The paper called the ceremony as impressive as any the city had seen, though it garbled the architect's name as "French" for Joseph Trench. Trench's partner John Butler Snook, whom modern historians credit with major input, went unmentioned.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1848
Trench & Snook finish a brownstone hall that is apparently the first built for the Odd Fellows in New York
Payments to Trench & Snook began in March 1847 and ended a year later, when the hall was finished or nearly so. The Landmarks Preservation Commission describes it as apparently the first hall in the city built specifically for the Odd Fellows, replacing National Hall on Canal Street as the Grand Lodge's home. Its brownstone Anglo-Italianate design is also one of the few institutional buildings from the 1840s still standing.
“The building on Grand Street, erected by Trench and Snook, was apparently the first such hall in New York City specifically built for the Odd Fellows…”
- 1849
The Odd Fellows dedicate their $125,000 Grand Street hall with a procession and a ball
The hall was finished in 1849 at a final cost of $125,000 and dedicated on June 4 after a large procession from Hudson Street. That evening exercises were held at Castle Garden, with tickets at 50 cents for members, and the Tribune announced that the floor would be cleared for dancing once the speeches ended.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1857
A gas explosion in the cellar frightens diners at the restaurant in the Odd Fellows' Hall
On December 2, 1857, a lighted candle was carried close to an open gas jet in the basement, and the blast badly scared patrons of the restaurant in the building. The New York Times reported rumors in the neighborhood that several people had been killed, but no one was hurt; plaster fell and fixtures were damaged. In October 1862 a kerosene fire started in the same cellar when the restaurant operator's lamp was struck by a stick, causing $2,500 in damage to the hall.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1881
A stockholder's injunction briefly stops the auction of the Odd Fellows' Hall
By 1881 the Odd Fellows were ready to leave the changing neighborhood, and the building was set for auction on March 15. Stockholder Robert E. Dunham obtained an injunction, complaining that the directors had not heeded the stockholders' advice before deciding to sell. He was eventually outvoted, and the hall passed to Robert Hoe of the printing-press firm R. Hoe & Company.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1881
R. Hoe & Company turns the lodge hall into a printing-press works and caps it with a mansard roof
The printing-press maker R. Hoe & Company bought the hall in the early 1880s, because the Odd Fellows' lodges were shifting uptown, and had architect John Buckingham convert it for manufacturing. Two Queen Anne floors went on in 1881-82, replacing the dome and the pediments. Hoe was by then among the country's most innovative press makers; its founder, Robert Hoe, had brought the cylinder press to America in the late 1820s.
- 1997
An antiques dealer buys the landmark hall but cannot meet preservation requirements for his plans
Through the 20th century the hall housed small businesses while the neighborhood turned first Italian and then Chinese, and its facade somehow avoided drastic change. Antiques dealer Bijan Nassi bought the property in 1997 hoping to create restaurant and office space, but landmark status, granted in 1982, stopped his planned alterations. He could not satisfy the Landmarks Preservation Commission's requirements.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
Further reading
- Odd Fellows Hall (New York City)Wikipedia
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