O'Nieal's

174 Grand Street | Little Italy | built 1910

Open on the map4 entries

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. 1860

    The Grand Street corner is a polling place in the 1860s and a church in the 1870s

    Ephemeral New York lists a long run of uses at 174 Grand Street, at the corner of Centre Market Place. It was a polling place in the 1860s and a church in the 1870s, and it later had a brothel, a saloon that became a speakeasy, and a jewelry store where a deadly robbery took place in the 1920s. City records date the present building to 1910, so the earliest of these uses were in an earlier structure.

    Source: Ephemeral New York

  2. 1870

    A four-story Italianate brick tenement rises at 174 Grand Street around 1870

    The Chinatown and Little Italy nomination describes 174 Grand Street as a four-story, three-bay brick building of about 1870, with a round-arched pediment, flat window hoods and an elaborate cornice in the Italianate style. It stands on the north side of Grand Street, in the block ending at Centre Market Place.

    Source: National Register nomination

  3. 1920

    A saloon at Grand Street and Centre Market Place serves police officers from headquarters across the street

    The corner of Grand Street and Centre Market Place held a saloon that became a speakeasy once Prohibition began, and officers from the old police headquarters opposite drank there. According to Ephemeral New York, a tunnel was dug from the police building to the bar so they did not need to cross the street. In 2013 the blog reported that the passage still exists as a wine cellar in O'Nieal's, the restaurant that occupied the corner.

    Source: Ephemeral New York

  4. 2013

    October

    O'Nieal's occupies the corner at 174 Grand under a carved mahogany ceiling

    By 2013 the corner of Grand Street and Centre Market Place held O'Nieal's restaurant and bar, whose carved mahogany ceiling spans the whole dining room. Ephemeral New York adds that a brothel once operated on the site. It also says a tunnel was dug from the old police headquarters across the street to the bar, and that the tunnel still exists as a wine cellar.

    Source: Ephemeral New York

Further reading

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