311 Broadway Building
311 Broadway | Tribeca | built 1857
Open on the map12 entries
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.
- 1798
A building stands on the 311 Broadway site by 1798
A building is recorded on this lot as early as 1798. By 1808 it had a ground-floor store housing a porter-house, with residences above. This was an earlier building on the site, replaced in the 1850s by the stone store and loft that stands there today.
“There was a building on this site as early as 1798 and by 1808 it contained a commercial ground story housing a porter-house and residences…”
- 1856
Three milliners and a fancy goods shop lose their building to demolition
Before the present building, the small structure at 311 Broadway was home to three milliners, Madame Rogers, Elizabeth Gordon and Elizabeth McLean, along with George W. Tuttle's fancy goods shop. In 1856 the brothers John and Daniel Jackson Steward demolished this building and its neighbor to put up a high-end commercial building as a speculative investment. All four businesses had to find new quarters. This was an earlier building on the site.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1857
The Steward brothers complete a five-story marble store at 311 Broadway
John Steward Jr. and Daniel Jackson Steward, sons of a prominent merchant, bought the site in 1856 and built the Italian Renaissance store and loft as a speculative investment. It replaced two four-story buildings. The Landmarks Preservation Commission could not determine the architect, and notes that the building is a rare survivor on Broadway south of Franklin Street.
- 1869
Thieves in a stolen wagon grab a crate of fabric outside 311 Broadway
As crates of costly cloth were being carried into the Lindeman, Wehry & Co. store, three men jumped from a wagon, threw a $2,000 case of satinets into it and raced off. A carman named John Riddle and two policemen chased them to Duane Street, where one thief fired two shots. The wagon later broke down in a collision on Chatham Street, and the thieves ran away, leaving the fabric behind, intact.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1872
Fairbanks & Co., the scale makers, moves into 311 Broadway
Fairbanks & Co., founded in 1830 with a large factory in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, moved its New York business from 252 Broadway to 311 Broadway. Growing sales meant it needed more room to display its scales. The firm stayed until the end of the century.
- 1882
Fairbanks chief Henry L. Clapp vanishes from his Broadway office for two weeks
Henry L. Clapp, head of Fairbanks & Co., left home on October 21 with a large sum of money and was not heard from. His company hinted at foul play before a cable reached New York on November 4. Clapp had seen a friend off on a steamship and been carried across the Atlantic when the pilot boat left without him, with only the suit he wore. Two years later he fell ill in London and was reported dying, but he recovered.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1887
William Waldorf Astor buys 311 Broadway for $220,000
Daniel Jackson Steward and his wife sold the building to William Waldorf Astor in 1887, with Fairbanks & Co. still renting it for $18,000 a year. Astor moved his family to England in 1890 and later became a British subject and a viscount. The Astor estate kept the building until 1948, a total of 61 years.
“Daniel Jackson Steward and his wife Mary Anna Steward sold the building to William Waldorf Astor in 1887. ... sold for $220,000…”
- 1908
A red-whiskered job seeker proposes marriage to the typewriter employment bureau's manager
L. C. Smith & Bros. Typewriter Co. had its New York offices upstairs and ran an employment bureau for typists. In January 1908 Robert MacGregor, who said he was charged with electricity, came looking for work and later returned with a poem and a plan to buy Edinburgh Castle and marry the bureau's head, Mary Stroker. She quietly sent a student to fetch a policeman. After his third visit he was arrested and sent to Bellevue.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1909
David T. Abercrombie, tent maker for Dr. Frederick Cook, defends the explorer's North Pole claim
David T. Abercrombie's sporting goods firm was based at 311 Broadway. Having already supplied tents and gear to Dr. Frederick A. Cook's expeditions, he said in a statement reported by The New York Times on September 8, 1909 that anyone who knew the Brooklyn explorer well would not doubt his claim to have reached the North Pole. According to the account, Cook carried a custom tent from Abercrombie on the polar trip.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1920
A 16-year-old messenger carrying $11,000 in Liberty Bonds disappears
Ralph Sasson, 16, a messenger for the export firm M. & J. Btesh, was sent to deposit $11,000 in Liberty Bonds at the Foreign Banking Corporation and never returned. He cashed the bonds one at a time in different cities and settled in Montreal. In November Canadian customs officers arrested him for trying to bring an automobile across the border without paying duty. His father made the trip to Montreal to fetch him home to New York and face prosecution.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1948
Mapmaker Andrew Hagstrom buys 311 Broadway for his company
Andrew G. Hagstrom, a Swedish immigrant, bought the building for his mapmaking, art and photographic company in August 1948. The New York Times noted that it was the first change of ownership for the parcel in 61 years, and that Hagstrom paid all cash. The company was bought by Macmillan in 1968, and the Hagstrom store moved to 43rd Street and Fifth Avenue.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 2010
The 311 Broadway Building is designated a New York City landmark
The Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the 311 Broadway Building on January 12, 2010, after a hearing in June 2009 and an earlier one in December 1989. The commission cited it as a rare survivor of the mid-19th-century commercial palaces that once lined Broadway. The upper floors were converted to residential use in 1999, leaving retail and a restaurant at street level.
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