Caledonian Insurance Building

50 Pine Street | Financial District | built 1902

Open on the map5 entries

Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.

  1. 1901

    March

    Caledonian Insurance trustees buy the old Mercantile Exchange Building at auction for $175,000

    The lot held the old Mercantile Exchange Building, home of the Down Town Club since around 1877. The Scottish insurer had announced a tall office building here in 1899, but that deal fell through. In March 1901 three of its trustees bid at auction and paid $175,000 for the old building, and plans for a 15-story replacement followed within weeks.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1902

    The fifteen-story Caledonian Building, designed by James B. Baker, is nearly full when it opens

    James B. Baker's fifteen-story design had a two-story Beaux-Arts base with Corinthian columns, buff brick above and a deep cornice. By May 1902 the Record & Guide reported that all but seven small rooms among its roughly 130 offices were rented, to insurance companies, brokers and lawyers. In 1914 the city made the owners trim the columns back from the sidewalk, and Nast & Springsteen redesigned the lower floors.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1905

    October 24

    Yacht designer Henry Barbey of Tams, Lemoine & Crane is fined $5 for speeding by a friend on the bench

    The yacht brokers Tams, Lemoine & Crane, who sold vessels to millionaires, were an unusual tenant for an insurance building and stayed into the 1920s. Their partner Henry Barbey was arrested for speeding along Central Park's West Drive during the fall of 1905. On October 24 the magistrate, his long-time friend Barlow, fined him $5.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1910

    July

    A cashier at the Russo-Chinese Bank's New York office steals $70,000 in bonds while his boss is on vacation

    The Russo-Chinese Bank opened a branch on the second floor in 1907. In July 1910, two weeks after agent Gustav Gertz left for Europe, a strongbox was found looted of bonds worth $70,000. Cashier Erwin Wider, who earned $25 a week, was the culprit; detectives spotted him downtown with his mustache shaved off. He confessed and was sentenced in February 1911 to 14 years.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  5. 1939

    February 3

    Mining promoter Charles V. Bob, a Byrd expedition backer, is convicted of fraud over boiler rooms here

    Charles V. Bob, an office tenant, had paid $108,000 toward Richard Byrd's 1928 Antarctic expedition, and a mountain range there was named for him. Three trials over the failed stock sales of his mining companies ended in hung juries in 1931, 1932 and 1935. On February 3, 1939 he was found guilty of mail fraud and conspiracy, and the indictment said his 'boiler rooms' operated at 50 Pine Street.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

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