483 Broadway

also 56 Mercer Street | SoHo | built 1870

Open on the map3 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. 1850

    October 15

    John Brougham opens his own theater, the Brougham Lyceum, on the Broadway lot

    The Irish-born actor and playwright John Brougham built a four-story brick theater at 485 Broadway, between Broome and Grand Streets, and opened it with Esmeralda starring Julia Gould. It was an earlier building on this site. A colonnade across the front sheltered audiences, and seats ran from 25 cents in the family circle to $5 in the orchestra. After the 1851 season the actor James William Wallack bought the house from Brougham.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1852

    February 2

    Edwin Forrest's divorced wife Catharine debuts on stage with 150 police on hand

    At the old Lyceum theater on this site, Wallack hired Catharine Forrest, whose divorce from the actor Edwin Forrest had filled the newspapers, to play Lady Teazle in The School for Scandal under the name Mrs. Catharine Sinclair. About 150 policemen were posted around the house on opening night, and officers removed the noisiest of her opponents in the upper tier. The New-York Daily Tribune reported that she had earned $4,000 by February 20.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1870

    Robert Mook designs a cast-iron store and loft building for Helen Langdon

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    The five-story building at 483-485 Broadway was commissioned by Helen Langdon from Robert Mook as a store-and-loft structure, and went up in the same years as the neighboring 477-479 Broadway, 1869 to 1870. Round columns separate the windows, and urns stand above the cornice over the pilasters. The Landmarks Preservation Commission described its ornament as simple, almost sparse.

    “…it was designed by Robert Mook for Helen Langdon as a store and lofts. ... a whimsical touch is urns above the cornice over the pilasters…”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

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