B. Altman and Company Building

365 5th Avenue | also 16 East 35th Street, 355 5th Avenue | Midtown South | built 1913

Open on the map8 entries

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

  1. 1845

    Historian Benson Lossing picks blackberries where B. Altman's store will stand

    Before the Civil War the Fifth Avenue area around 34th Street was farmland. In 1845 the historian Benson J. Lossing wrote that he had passed a morning picking blackberries on the ground where the Altman store would later rise. Between 1870 and 1900 the neighborhood shifted from residential to a business street of tailors, milliners and picture dealers.

    “…historian Benson J. Lossing reported in 1845 that he had spent the morning picking blackberries on the site where B. Altman would eventually stand…”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  2. 1905

    December

    A dynamite blast kills three workers building Altman's Fifth Avenue store

    Construction of the Fifth Avenue store turned deadly in December 1905, when a dynamite explosion killed three workers and injured several others. The same month, someone tried to sabotage the building's hoisting engines. A girder fell from the eighth floor in January 1906, killing another worker and injuring six.

    “Three workers were killed and several were injured in a December 1905 dynamite explosion, and there was an attempt the same month to sabotage the building's hoisting engines.”

    Source: Wikipedia

  3. 1906

    October 15

    Benjamin Altman opens his department store on Fifth Avenue

    Benjamin Altman relocated his department store from the Ladies' Mile district on Sixth Avenue to a new Italian Renaissance-style building at Fifth Avenue and 34th Street, opening it on October 15, 1906. Architects Trowbridge & Livingston clad the store in French limestone, the first commercial building in New York to use the material, positioning it across from the Waldorf-Astoria in what was then a largely residential neighborhood.

    Source: Wikipedia

  4. 1911

    September

    The store's first section wraps around Knoedler's holdout lot, and the corner section opens in 1911

    The art dealer Knoedler leased the row house at Fifth Avenue and 34th Street, and in 1905 talks with Altman had stalled while the lease still had five or six years to run. The store's first section opened in October 1906 wrapped around that lot. Knoedler moved uptown in 1910, and the corner section opened in September 1911.

    Source: Wikipedia

  5. 1913

    October 7

    Benjamin Altman dies before his Madison Avenue expansion is finished

    Benjamin Altman, who had quit school at 12 to help out in his father's store, died on October 7, 1913, at age 72, before construction finished on his store's expansion toward Madison Avenue. His will created the Altman Foundation, which went on to distribute more than $235 million to charity by the time the store closed.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  6. 1985

    March 12

    The Landmarks Commission designates the Altman store though the company's representatives prefer no designation

    The Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the B. Altman building and its site on March 12, 1985, after hearings in February and April 1982. Five witnesses spoke in favor and none against. Three Altman representatives said they would prefer no designation but did not oppose it.

    “Three representatives of B. Altman stated that while their preference was for no designation, they were not opposed to designation.”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  7. 1989

    December 31

    B. Altman & Co. closes its Fifth Avenue store

    B. Altman & Co. closed its flagship Fifth Avenue store on December 31, 1989, following the retailer's bankruptcy, ending 83 years at the Italian palazzo-style building. The closure left the 880,000-square-foot store vacant for several years before a major redevelopment began in the 1990s.

    Source: Wikipedia

  8. 2000

    The CUNY Graduate Center moves into the former Altman building

    After a renovation costing more than $170 million by architects Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer and Gwathmey Siegel & Associates, the City University of New York's Graduate Center opened on the Fifth Avenue side of the former B. Altman building in 2000. The New York Public Library's Science, Industry and Business Library had already opened on the Madison Avenue side of the building in 1996.

    Source: Wikipedia

Further reading

Nearby

All 20 buildings with stories in Midtown South