Benjamin Lord House

423 Broadway | also 301 Canal Street | SoHo | built 1910

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. 1823

    Ship captain Benjamin Lord completes a Federal family house just north of Canal Street

    Lord began the 25-foot-wide house in 1822 and finished it in 1823, in Flemish-bond brick with three and a half stories and stone lintels carved with Greek-key patterns. A captain for John H. Howland and Company, he was also a heavy investor in the firm.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1825

    September

    Captain Lord's new ship Byron is stranded off Scotland, and he buys back its sails and rigging at auction

    The Byron, a 700-ton Liverpool-trade ship co-owned by Lord and John H. Howland, was launched in May 1825. That September she was stranded off Scotland and seized by the British government, which auctioned her rigging. Lord bid on the parts to save her, then had to pay 300 pounds in duty, and Howland's firm asked the State Department to seek reimbursement.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1846

    October 3

    Dr. Banning and his wife sell a 'Body Brace' for drooping children and young ladies at 423 Broadway

    By the 1840s Lord had turned the family house into a business building, with Mary Doughtery's saloon on the ground floor. In October 1846 Dr. Banning and his wife leased space to promote a Body Brace said to prevent and relieve 'Drooping, Distortion and Weakness,' especially in weak children and young ladies. Mrs. Banning received female customers each day.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1853

    February 28

    Daguerreotypist Charles Harrison opens what he calls the nation's largest skylit portrait studio at 423 Broadway

    Around 1850 the Debevoise brothers set up a studio here, and on February 28, 1853 Charles Harrison announced in the New York Herald that he had opened the largest skylight studio in the United States, three doors above Canal. He stayed until 1855.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  5. 1888

    December 20

    Lord's grandchildren sell the old family house at auction after his last child dies

    After Benjamin Lord's death in 1855, his eleven children kept leasing the house. When the last of them died in 1888, the grandchildren moved fast to sell his real estate. The house went on the block on December 20, described only as a three-story brick building.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Further reading

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