Former Fifth Precinct Station House

19 Leonard Street | also 19 1/2 Leonard Street, 21 Leonard Street | Tribeca | built 1868

Open on the map5 entries

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

  1. 1868

    June

    The Fifth Precinct moves into a new station house and jail on Leonard Street

    The Fifth Precinct had been at 49 Leonard Street, and its station was outdated and inadequate. Two older buildings on the lot were torn down for a new station house and jail, finished in June 1868. A police history of 1885 said the precinct took in nearly all of the dry goods district, the Hudson River Railroad depot, grocery houses, Chambers Street Hospital and bonded warehouses. Ninety-seven officers were assigned to it.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1868

    Police Department architect Nathaniel D. Bush designs the Italianate station house at 19-21 Leonard Street

    The Landmarks Preservation Commission describes the four-story brick station as an early example of civic architecture in Tribeca. Nathaniel D. Bush, then the Police Department's full-time architect, gave it a symmetrical Italianate front, with a gabled central section flanked by side wings and a bracketed, pedimented cornice over the main door. It still has its historic iron fire escape. Bush also designed the 30th Precinct station house at 1854 Amsterdam Avenue, now a city landmark.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  3. 1894

    August 30

    Captain John Thomas Stephenson goes on trial for taking bribes from his Leonard Street precinct

    Neighboring businessmen revolted in 1891 against the extortion practiced by Captain Stephenson, and on August 30, 1894 he went before the Police Commissioners on bribery charges. The Evening World reported that Martin N. Edwards, a Duane Street fruit dealer, had paid $38 in cash plus $12 of fruit for a year's immunity from arrest over sidewalk violations. The trial dragged on until December 15, when Officer Augustus Thorne confessed and named eight captains or acting captains of the precinct as bribe-takers.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1900

    October 29

    Police investigators gather accounts at the station house after the Tarrant & Co. explosion

    The station, renumbered the Eighth Precinct in 1898, was where police set up a bureau of investigation on October 29, 1900, the day of the Tarrant & Co. disaster. A fire began at 12:18 p.m. on the third floor of the wholesale druggists' building at Warren and Greenwich Streets and reached stored chemicals within four minutes. Explosions wrecked the building and its neighbors, and more than 400 people were killed or hurt. The bureau pulled together witness accounts of the disaster at the Leonard Street station.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  5. 1918

    The city sells the old station house and it becomes a storage building for Standard Rice Company

    The police had left by 1918, and the city sold the building that June for $45,000 to Robert E. Paine, owner of the Standard Rice Company. Architect Charles Schaefer, Jr. converted it for storage and loft use, adding a loading platform at a cost of $2,000. Later tenants included the Ronald Paper Company, the Hailer Elevator Company, which used it to store and assemble elevators, and the Empire Elevator Corporation. It became five apartments in 1999.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Further reading

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All 564 buildings with stories in Tribeca