261 Canal Street
also 265 Canal Street, 263A Canal Street, 267 Canal Street | SoHo | built 1857
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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.
- 1857
Daniel Devlin completes a white marble Italianate store on the site of a former church complex on Canal Street
Daniel Devlin bought the Canal Street properties of the St. Vincent de Paul church complex after its last services in late 1855 and spent two years building here. The five-story marble building, finished in 1857, stood on a cast iron base with fluted Corinthian columns and was divided into four retail stores. Devlin died in 1868, and his will barred any sale of his real estate for five years.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1866
An office boy steals silk from a storeroom at 261-267 Canal Street and a tailor blackmails him into more thefts
Silk merchant Edward A. Nichols kept a back storeroom on the second floor, where a clerk spotted attorney's office boy William Trues leaving with something under his coat. Two bundles worth $165 turned up, and Trues admitted taking at least ten other pieces. He had sold the first to tailor Wolff Holzmann of Walker Street, who then threatened to report him unless he kept supplying silk. Both were held on $1,000 bail.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1870
Thieves loot a dry goods and millinery store at 261-263 Canal Street on Christmas night
The firm Andrews, Sanford & Smith made ladies' hats upstairs and sold dry goods at street level. After thieves emptied the shop of velvets, satins, silks, ribbon, thread and lace on December 25, 1870, the firm ran an ad on January 7, 1871 in The New York Herald offering a $1,500 reward and promising no questions asked. That sum would be roughly $30,000 in 2016 dollars.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1878
A fire that began in a notions store guts the interior and roof of 261-267 Canal Street
Fire broke out around 4:30 a.m. on March 26, 1878 in B. L. Coffin's store and reached the upper floors before it was noticed. Fire Chief Bates feared the whole block would burn, and firefighters battled the blaze until noon. Investigators blamed flimsy lath-and-plaster partitions, installed when the floors were subdivided for tenants. The interior and roof were destroyed but the front and side walls survived, and a sixth floor was probably added during repairs.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1892
Studebaker Bros. Manufacturing Company, the carriage maker, moves into 263-265 Canal Street
On New Year's Day 1892 the Studebaker brothers' firm became the building's best-known tenant, taking the central portion at Nos. 263 and 265. A Sun advertisement that October listed carriages, victorias, broughams, buggies, farm wagons and a patented street sprinkler for settling the dust. The firm had moved north to Broadway and Prince Street by August 1900.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1922
A leather-bag maker is jailed for raising a $100 note to $900 at D. Galewski & Co. on Canal Street
Samuel Bercowitz, a leather bag manufacturer, asked Sigmund Galewski of D. Galewski & Co., which leased two floors here, to cash a $900 note on October 7, 1922. Galewski later noticed that Bercowitz had altered the numeral 1, turning a $100 note into $900. Bercowitz was jailed on a grand larceny charge, and two months later his bail dropped from $15,000 to $10,000 when his lawyer said he wanted to make restitution.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
Further reading
- The 1857 Nos. 261-267 Canal StreetDaytonian in Manhattan
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