Cable Building
18 West Houston Street | also 611 Broadway | NoHo | built 1894
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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.
- 1848
John Jacob Astor is interred in his son's vault at St. Thomas Church, where the Cable Building now stands
Before the Cable Building, this corner at Broadway and Houston Street held St. Thomas Church, whose churchyard had 58 burial vaults, each 9 by 11 feet, sold for $250 apiece. William B. Astor bought a family vault there, and when his father, John Jacob Astor, died in 1848, he was placed in William's private vault. The Astor remains were later moved to Trinity Cemetery.
Source: nycemetery.wordpress.com
- 1868
St. Thomas settles with vault owners for $48,550 so the church can leave Broadway and Houston
St. Thomas Church wanted to move uptown, but its sale of the Broadway and Houston Street property was complicated by vault owners' rights. After years of legal wrangling, a settlement in 1868 compelled the vestry to pay $48,550 to those holding the 28 vaults that still had burials, and the remains were then removed. The cornerstone of the new church on Fifth Avenue was laid on October 14, 1868. The Cable Building later rose on the cleared lot.
Source: nycemetery.wordpress.com
- 1893
Cable cars begin running on Broadway, powered from the Cable Building's basement
The Metropolitan Traction Company spent $12 million on a cable railway that moved cars along Broadway from Bowling Green to 36th Street, and it began operating in 1893. The Cable Building was its central power station. The basement, dug 46 feet below the street, held four 32-foot winding wheels driven by four 1,200-horsepower Corliss steam engines, fed by 18 coal-fired boilers.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1893
McKim, Mead & White design the Cable Building
The Broadway Cable Railroad Co. hires McKim, Mead & White to design its eight-story headquarters at Broadway and Houston Street, finished in September 1893 after nearly three years of work. Beige brick with terra-cotta decoration rises above a limestone base, and sculptor J. Massey Rhind makes the 11-foot-high reliefs of two women beside the entrance. The huge cable wheels below sit on foundations separate from the offices above, so no vibration reaches the upper floors.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1895
The Cable Building's owner becomes the Metropolitan Traction Company, then goes into receivership
The Broadway and Seventh Avenue Railroad Company, which built the Cable Building, was renamed the Metropolitan Traction Company in 1895, a year after construction ended. The company went into receivership in 1911 and was reorganized the following year as the New York Railways Company.
- 1896
A fire breaks out and a janitor's wife rescues trapped tenants
A fire starts on the third floor around 6 p.m. on April 22, 1896, and causes about $5,000 in damage. In the panic, men crowd toward the elevators ahead of the women. The janitor's wife, Mrs. Charles Kammerer, runs a freight elevator and goes back to the upper floors after bringing down the first group.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1901
The last Broadway cable car departs
The cable system the building was built to power breaks down often, with fraying cables and runaway cars, and it is replaced by electric traction in 1901. The last Broadway cable car leaves the Battery station at 8:27 p.m. on May 21, 1901. The system had run between Bowling Green and 36th Street since 1893.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1925
New York Railways sells the Cable Building and small manufacturers move in
The New York Railways Company sold the Cable Building in 1925. By the 1930s small businesses and manufacturers occupied it, reflecting a trend toward such uses across the district. Garment makers were its main tenants from the 1940s through the 1970s.
- 1982
Keith Haring opens a studio in the Cable Building
Artist Keith Haring has a studio at 611 Broadway from 1982 to 1985, and Andy Warhol notes his rent at $1,000 in 1983. That year the upper floors, mostly home to garment makers since the 1940s, are converted back to offices, and new storefronts are added at street level.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1989
The Angelika Film Center opens in the old machine rooms
The building's cavernous former machine rooms below ground are converted into the Angelika Film Center in 1989. The theater screens independent and foreign films.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 2002
Crate & Barrel announces a 40,217-square-foot store in the Cable Building
In January 2002 Crate & Barrel said it would open its second Manhattan store in the Cable Building, taking 40,217 square feet that covered the whole second floor and a portion of the ground floor. About 16 office tenants were relocated to make room, and a representative of landlord M. D. Carlisle Real Estate said the company had worked more than four years to assemble the space. The Angelika theater, a tenant since 1989, would stay in its present space.
Source: The New York Times
Further reading
- Cable Building (New York City)Wikipedia
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