Arthur Rogers Pharmacy Building

193 Spring Street | SoHo | built 1836

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. 1836

    Ellison Scott builds a frame row house on a lot split from the Ludlow land

    The building went up in 1835-36 for the merchant Ellison Scott, a frame row house that probably had a brick facade. Scott, the mason Israel Clark and the carpenter John G. Hadden had bought the land from Thomas and Maria Ludlow in 1833. The investors split it into three lots in 1834, and the Landmarks Preservation Commission notes that the house later received scored stucco and a Neo-Grec metal cornice.

    “No. 193 Spring Street was originally constructed between 1835 and 1836 as a frame row house, likely with a brick facade, for Ellison Scott.”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  2. 1856

    Druggist Arthur Rogers leases the building and opens a pharmacy that lasts for decades

    In 1856 Arthur Rogers, born in 1817 and a druggist for about 15 years, leased the building, set up his pharmacy in the shop and moved his family upstairs. An auction notice that March described the premises as occupied by a drug store. Rogers sold his own remedies, and an 1859 Tribune ad pushed his Citrate of Magnesia, a purgative sold in powder form at 25 cents a large bottle.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1868

    September 28

    Pharmacist Arthur Rogers and his son are arrested after a customer dies from a mixed-up package

    In June 1868 a servant bought Epsom salts mixed with senna at the pharmacy for her employer, James Hamilton of 99 Thompson Street. He took it around September 20 and died a week later. Arthur Rogers and his son Edward were arrested on September 28 and held until October 5, when they were cleared of blame. Hamilton had apparently swallowed oxalic acid after packages were confused.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1993

    January

    Baluchi's opens in the old pharmacy storefront as SoHo's Italian character fades

    The Rogers drugstore remained at least through 1891, by which time newspapers called the area the Italian Colony, and the neighborhood kept its Italian character well into the 20th century. In the 1980s the restaurant Rocco & His Brothers occupied the old drugstore space. As cafes, galleries and boutiques arrived, the Northern Indian restaurant Baluchi's opened there in January 1993. A delicatessen occupies the space today.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Further reading

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