Temple Court
5 Beekman Street | also 3 Beekman Street, 121 Nassau Street, 123 Nassau Street | Financial District | built 1900
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Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.
- 1761
An earlier theater on this corner stages the first Hamlet performed in America
Before Temple Court, an earlier building stood on this corner: a theater that Wikipedia says was built in 1761 and hosted the first presentation of Hamlet in the United States. The New York Mercantile Library put up Clinton Hall on the site in 1830 and stayed there until 1854.
“One theater on the site, built in 1761, hosted the first presentation of the tragedy Hamlet in the United States.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1882
Wind from the unfinished Temple Court is blamed for a fire across Beekman Street
In January 1882 a fire destroyed the old New York World Building on the far side of Beekman Street, where the Potter Building now stands. A draft of wind from the new Temple Court, still under construction, took the blame. Work on Kelly's building had already been held up by a bricklayers' strike in 1881, and it was not finished until May 1883.
“A draft of wind from the building was blamed for a January 1882 fire that destroyed the former New York World Building across Beekman Street…”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1883
Eugene Kelly opens the Temple Court office building
Banker Eugene Kelly commissioned Benjamin Silliman Jr. and James M. Farnsworth to design a law-office building at Beekman and Nassau Streets, completed in 1883 in the Queen Anne and Renaissance Revival styles. Twin pyramidal towers rise from its northwest and northeast corners, and a nine-story atrium runs up to a glass skylight ringed by cast-iron balconies with dragon-shaped brackets.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1890
Kelly adds a limestone-faced annex to Temple Court, designed by James Farnsworth
Eugene Kelly followed his 1883 office building with an annex built in 1889-90 and designed by James Farnsworth. Its main face on Nassau Street is clad in Irish limestone and treated in an arcaded Romanesque Revival manner meant to go with the older building. The Landmarks Preservation Commission later treated the two as connected structures on a single landmark site.
“Annex ... clad in Irish limestone on its principal, Nassau Street facade, was constructed for Kelly in 1889-90 to the design of James Farnsworth…”
- 1893
A fire guts the Temple Court annex
Sparks from a fire at the neighboring World Building drifted onto Temple Court and ignited cotton awnings, touching off a blaze that gutted the western annex's upper floors. The building's ornate cast-iron atrium and pyramidal corner towers survived largely intact, and the annex was soon repaired for its tenants, mostly law firms.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1894
Architect George H. Edbrooke is found shot in his Temple Court office
George H. Edbrooke, an architect behind the Brooklyn Savings Bank and the Brooklyn Real Estate Exchange, had rented offices 300 to 302 for over six years. He lost heavily in speculation in 1893, and business stayed slow into the new year. Two pistol shots rang out on January 25, 1894, and his staff found him slumped at his desk, shot twice in the temple; newspapers reported he had been despondent.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1900
A rat in an elevator pulley sends the car to the roof and then the basement, yet four men survive
In 1900 an elevator carrying four prominent men suddenly shot to the roof and then dropped to the basement. The Tribune traced the accident to a rat drawn by the smell of lubricating oil, whose body was dragged between cable and wheel and knocked the cable out of place. The air cushion and operator Alexander Lundeen's quick work were credited with saving the passengers.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1915
Temple Court's old bank corner is split into seven shops, including a Times office
The Nassau Bank had held the building's corner ground floor for more than thirty years before it merged into the Irving National Bank in 1914. In April 1915 the Times reported that the space was being turned into seven stores, three already rented, with heavy granite piers swapped for structural steel. One of the new tenants was the paper's own downtown office.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1944
A foreclosing bank plans a 23-story tower to replace Temple Court
The Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank took Temple Court in September 1942 after foreclosing on its mortgage. In 1944 it filed plans for a 23-story building on the site, designed by Harrison, Fouilhoux & Abramovitz at a cost of $2 million. The old building stayed: the bank sold it in January 1945 to Wakefield Realty.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1998
The Landmarks Commission designates the Temple Court Building and Annex
After an October 1997 hearing at which seven speakers, three of them for the owner, urged designation, the Landmarks Preservation Commission made the Temple Court Building and Annex a city landmark on February 10, 1998. Its report called Temple Court the earliest essentially unaltered tall fireproof office building left from the years before skyscrapers matured.
- 2010
The empty Temple Court draws urban explorers and film crews
After its last tenant moved out in 2001, Temple Court stood empty for nearly a decade while ownership disputes delayed redevelopment. A 2010 photo shoot for Harper's Bazaar and a viral blog post drew wider attention to the decaying atrium, and crews for television shows, fashion shoots, and a music video rented the space afterward. These uses brought in roughly $1 million before the building's conversion into a hotel began.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2016
The Beekman Hotel opens inside the restored Temple Court
Following a renovation led by GFI Capital Resources, the Temple Court building reopened in August 2016 as the 287-room Beekman Hotel. Restaurants from Keith McNally and Tom Colicchio followed that October, alongside a new 51-story residential tower built next to the historic structure.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2024
The Landmarks Commission designates Temple Court's atrium as an interior landmark
In February 2024 the Landmarks Preservation Commission opened hearings on protecting the central atrium of Temple Court, citing it as one of the few atriums left in a 19th-century commercial building in the city. On June 4, 2024, it designated the atrium as a landmark, extending protection to the interior of a building whose exterior had been landmarked in 1998.
Source: Wikipedia
Further reading
- 5 Beekman StreetWikipedia
- Temple Court -- 5 Beekman StreetDaytonian in Manhattan
- A 1935 crime of passion shocks New YorkersEphemeral New York
Nearby
- Temple Court8 Theater Alley | 1 entry
- Potter Building36 Park Row | 12 entries
- Morse Building140 Nassau Street | 4 entries
- Park Row Building15 Park Row | 11 entries
- New York Times Building (41 Park Row)39 Park Row | 11 entries
- American Tract Society Building150 Nassau Street | 6 entries