John Vogt & Co. Store (502-504 Broadway)

502 Broadway | also 44 Crosby Street, 504 Broadway | SoHo | built 1862

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

1. 1860

   Kellum & Son finish a 'sperm candle' store for Homer Bostwick

   Kellum & Son designed 502-504 Broadway for Homer Bostwick in 1860. Its five stories use two-story columns around rounded upper windows, a style nicknamed 'sperm candle' after candles made from whale oil. The district report says the storefront was cast iron from Badger's Architectural Iron Works.

   Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

2. 1866

   Furriers and a china dealer move in, and a fire guts the building within months

   C. G. Gunther & Sons, furriers, took the top floor in 1866 and John Vogt & Co., china and fancy-goods dealers, took the lower four. Only months later, a fire the New York Times reported on October 8 reduced the marble building to ashes. The Daytonian in Manhattan blog says sparks also set St. Patrick's Cathedral on Mott Street alight, and puts the two firms' losses near $350,000.

   Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

3. 1868

   C. G. Gunther owns a five-story storage building behind it on Crosby Street

   The district report lists 44-46 Crosby Street, connected to 502-504 Broadway, as a five-story, nine-bay brick, iron and stone building completed in 1868. Its original owner was C. G. Gunther and its original function was storage. The iron came from D. D. Badger's foundry.

   Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

4. 1874

   September

   A would-be burglar pulls a revolver on the night watchman at the fur store

   Early one morning in September 1874, Michael Moreno was seen loitering outside the C. G. Gunther's Sons fur store. When the night watchman drew his club, Moreno pulled a revolver, and Officer Corey rushed in and seized him. Corey struck him on the forehead with his baton, and Moreno later attacked the officer with a knife at the hospital. The Times reported him in a dangerous condition.

   Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

5. 1876

   February 8

   The Great Broadway Fire damages the store and sends the furriers uptown

   The Great Broadway Fire of February 8, 1876 heavily damaged 502-504 Broadway. Three days later the tailor's-trimmings firm Lesher, Whitman & Co. bought the property, then still occupied by C. G. Gunther & Co. as a fur store. A month after that, the furriers moved to a new building at 184 Fifth Avenue, and Lesher, Whitman stayed on until 1900.

   Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

6. 2003

   Bloomingdale's leases the old Canal Jeans space in the Kellum building

   Canal Jeans leased the ground floor of 502-504 Broadway in 1992, as SoHo's revival reached Broadway. In 2003 Bloomingdale's took the same space. The Daytonian in Manhattan notes the irony that the department store had bought a line of gloves at this address 112 years earlier, and that Kellum & Son's 1860 facade had changed little through it all.

   Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

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• 506 Broadway1 entry
• 508 Broadway1 entry
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• 500 Broadway1 entry
• 510 Broadway6 entries
• 512-516 Broadway56 Crosby Street | 2 entries

All 736 buildings with stories in SoHo