486 Broadway

also 437 Broome Street | SoHo | built 1900

Open on the map4 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. 1879

    April 3

    Fire guts the four-story loft on the corner before William De Forest builds anew

    An earlier four-story loft building stood here in 1879, holding a stationer, a cloth dealer, a window-shade-roller maker and a corset importer. Arthur D. Weeks bought it in foreclosure in late March, said he meant to demolish it, and insured it for $35,000; a fire broke out on its third floor on April 3. He never rebuilt, and by 1882 the corner belonged to William De Forest, who hired Lamb & Rich for the present building.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1885

    July 7

    A quilting-frame company president draws a revolver at a trustees' meeting

    The Davis Quilting Frame Company kept offices on the fifth floor of the new building. At a trustees' meeting, president H. T. Davis, who was being outvoted by two fellow trustees, pulled a revolver in a quarrel, and one of them ran out to find a policeman. Davis was disarmed and arrested, claimed self-defense, and was held for trial after the men gave conflicting accounts at Jefferson Market Police Court.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1898

    October 21

    Depositors rush the Mechanics' and Traders' Bank after its president is asked to resign

    The Mechanics' and Traders' Bank had leased the ground floor in 1888. After its directors asked president Fernando Baltes to resign over his outside business dealings, a crowd of anxious depositors lined up at the tellers. About $370,000 was withdrawn before the doors closed at 3:00, though 126 customers deposited $117,000 during the same hours. The bank survived and stayed at the corner until 1901.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1915

    June 19

    A threat signed "Jack the Ripper, 486 Broadway" turns out to come from a dismissed 14-year-old nanny

    In June 1915, at a time when Black Hand extortion letters frightened the city, a West 24th Street mother received a note threatening to kill her son, with the return address of "Jack the Ripper, 486 Broadway." Detectives did not look for the writer at the Broadway building. They compared handwriting at a Bayonne school and arrested Helen Pelkus, the 14-year-old nanny the family had dismissed, who confessed and said she had not thought it very serious.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Nearby

All 736 buildings with stories in SoHo