Schermerhorn Building

380 Lafayette Street | also 6 Great Jones Street | NoHo | built 1889

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

  1. 1843

    Peter Schermerhorn completes a brick and brownstone mansion at Great Jones Street and Lafayette Place

    Peter Schermerhorn, a ship-chandlery merchant from one of the city's oldest families, began building a freestanding house at this corner in 1842 and finished it the next year. It had a rusticated base, a short stoop and a shallow portico with a swan's-head pediment. This was an earlier building on the site; the family later replaced it with the present loft building.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1854

    February 27

    Ann Schermerhorn hosts a Versailles costume ball in the family mansion on this corner

    On February 27, 1854, Ann Schermerhorn held a costume ball, sending out six hundred invitations and requiring guests to dress as the court of Louis XV. She even had the servants outfitted in period uniforms and asked the gentlemen to shave off their whiskers. The New York Times mocked the evening as a fresh outbreak of folly. This was the earlier Schermerhorn house on the site, not the present building.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1874

    July 4

    Fireworks set the roof of the old Schermerhorn mansion on fire on the Fourth of July

    By the 1870s the Schermerhorns had left the Great Jones Street mansion, and it served as a rooming house before becoming the Columbia Law School. On July 4, 1874, fireworks landed on its roof and started a blaze that nearly destroyed it. The house survived that fire, and this earlier building on the site stood until William Schermerhorn replaced it with a commercial building.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1888

    The Real Estate Record judges the new loft a creditable work, and Schermerhorn hires Hardenbergh again

    A few months after the building was finished, the Real Estate Record & Guide called it a creditable work and said it was very good indeed, as things go. Its tenants included a boys' clothing manufacturer. William Schermerhorn was evidently satisfied with the result: four years later he pulled down his brother Edmund's mansion and hired the same architect, Henry Hardenbergh, to put up a mercantile building there.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  5. 1889

    Henry Hardenbergh designs the Schermerhorn Building on the site of the family mansion

    William C. Schermerhorn built the loft building in 1888 and 1889 on the site of his family's mansion at Lafayette and Great Jones Streets. The architect was Henry Hardenbergh, who also designed the Plaza Hotel and the Dakota. The Romanesque Revival design uses brownstone, sandstone, and terra cotta, with dwarf marble columns, and Schermerhorn rented the building to a boys' clothing manufacturer.

    Source: Wikipedia

  6. 1893

    William C. Schermerhorn, who built the Lafayette Street loft, becomes chairman of Columbia's trustees

    William Colford Schermerhorn, the lawyer who managed the family estate and put up this building on his old home site, was elected chairman of Columbia University's board of trustees in 1893. In 1895 he helped oversee the college's move from 49th Street to Morningside Heights and gave $300,000 toward the new campus. Schermerhorn Hall there carries the family name.

    “In 1893, he was elected chairman of the Board of Trustees of Columbia University... Schermerhorn followed with a $300,000 donation.”

    Source: Wikipedia

  7. 1916

    August 1

    Bishop-Babcock-Becker opens a soda-fountain showroom in the store and basement

    The Cleveland firm Bishop-Babcock-Becker leased the store and basement in 1915, and its new showroom was finished on August 1, 1916. It claimed over 20,000 square feet of floor space, about 12,000 of it for displaying Red Cross soda fountains, Eureka carbonators and beer pumps. The company stayed for years and became the tenant most closely linked with the building.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  8. 1918

    The Standard Appliance Co. sells the Privaphone, a horn for private phone calls, from the building

    In 1918 the Standard Appliance Co. of America, a tenant here, put two telephone gadgets on the market at $10 each. The Privaphone was a horn that fit over the mouthpiece so a caller could talk privately without a booth, while the Weilaphone amplified incoming calls through rubber tubes to both ears. The company was still selling the Privaphone in 1923.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  9. 1934

    Summer

    City welfare offices in the building hand out cards to steer New Yorkers away from giving to panhandlers

    After the Depression began, the building housed the Department of Public Welfare, which included the Mendicancy Service of the Emergency Relief Bureau. The bureau estimated in 1934 that police in the city had arrested 6,500 panhandlers. That summer the department set up 20 places where needy people could apply for help and printed cards listing them, urging New Yorkers to hand out the cards rather than money.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  10. 1966

    May 17

    The city designates the building a landmark

    The Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the Schermerhorn Building a New York City landmark on May 17, 1966. The National Register of Historic Places listed it on December 28, 1979, and the state register followed in June 1980.

    Source: Wikipedia

  11. 2013

    Lafayette, a 150-seat restaurant by Roman and Williams, opens in the old soda-fountain showroom

    After a neglected stretch in the 1960s and 1970s, the building housed the Jazz Center of New York in the mid-1980s. In 2013 the ground-floor space where Bishop-Babcock-Becker once showed soda fountains became Lafayette, a two-level restaurant with 150 seats designed by the firm Roman and Williams.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Further reading

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