506 LaGuardia Place

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.

1870
A five-story tenement with a store rises at 506 after Laurens Street is widened
When Laurens Street was widened by 25 feet in 1870 and renamed South Fifth Avenue, owners rebuilt the shortened lots with tenements. Charles Golden had architect Charles Mettam design this Italianate one, five stories of brick with cast-iron piers at the ground-floor shop. The street was later renamed West Broadway and finally LaGuardia Place.
Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission
1870
Charles Mettam, who designed Lincoln's New York funeral car, designs 506 LaGuardia Place
The Dublin-born architect Charles Mettam, who came to New York in 1848, designed the tenement at 506 in 1870. He had proposed an elevated transit system for the city in Scientific American in 1854, and he designed President Lincoln's funeral car for New York. His cast-iron buildings in SoHo include 537-541 Broadway and 500 Broome Street.
“Mettam was the first to propose an elevated transit system for New York in Scientific American in 1854 ... designer of President Lincoln's New York funeral car.”
Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

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