P. F. Collier & Son Building

416 West 13th Street | also 19 Little West 12th Street, 17 Little West 12th Street, 33 Little West 12th Street | West Village | built 1902

Open on the map5 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. 1900

    July

    The Astor estate arranges a 20-year lease for P. F. Collier & Son to build a publishing house here

    In July 1900 the Astor Estate's trustee, Douglas Robinson, told the New York Herald that a 20-year lease had been arranged with P. F. Collier & Son for a new publishing house on this site. Peter Fenelon Collier had founded the book and periodical firm in 1875. Its magazine Collier's Weekly was known for muckraking reform articles and for fine illustrations.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  2. 1902

    Trowbridge & Livingston's neo-Classical plant opens with two full facades and a chartered-train open house

    Collier's new printing plant and offices, by Trowbridge & Livingston, had full facades on both West 13th and Little West 12th Streets. The company marked its completion with an open house of department tours and a lunch, bringing out-of-town advertisers in on a specially chartered train. The plant employed about 700 people and could turn out up to 20,000 books a day.

    “The plant employed some 700 people and produced up to 20,000 books a day.”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  3. 1905

    September 13

    Collier's editor Norman Hapgood is arrested in his office on a criminal libel charge

    After Collier's attacked the Town Topics gossip paper, its co-owner Joseph M. Deuel, a magistrate, had editor Norman Hapgood arrested at the Collier building on September 13, 1905. Hapgood's August article accused Deuel of running a scandal sheet while serving as a judge, and Town Topics editor William D'Alton Mann had already filed two $100,000 libel suits against Robert J. Collier. Both Collier and Hapgood won, since what they printed was true.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1912

    October 10

    A bindery foreman is arrested on the way to work over $30,000 in missing gold leaf

    For five years the company had noticed shortages of gold leaf, used to edge the pages of its better books. Investigators hidden inside the bindery were watching for the culprit, and foreman Jerome T. Caffrey, 47, who supervised 95 men, was arrested on West 13th Street before he reached the building. The Daily Standard Union put the value of the gold leaf taken at about $30,000.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  5. 1929

    General Electric takes over the building and keeps it for four decades

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    In 1929 the building was leased to General Electric, which used it as a warehouse for its appliance and contracts companies, and built an annex next door at 414 West 13th Street in 1929 and 1930. In 1941 GE set up a factory distribution branch for its products, with this location as its product service shop and warehouse. It stayed until at least 1970, and textile and handbag firms shared the space.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

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