S. A. Beekman & Co. Building
537 Broadway | also 110 Mercer Street | SoHo | built 1869
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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.
- 1869
Peter Gilsey and Benjamin Beekman complete paired cast-iron stores, and the Beekmans take 537-539
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Gilsey and Beekman bought the Broadway plot north of Spring Street at auction on June 10, 1868, and hired Charles Mettam to design two cast-iron buildings that read as one. They were finished on April 30, 1869. Gilsey, the hotelier behind the Gilsey House, held No. 541 as an investment, while the Beekman family took Nos. 537-539 for S. A. Beekman & Co., a millinery and fancy-goods importer that Benjamin Beekman had founded in 1848.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1883
A basement fire partly destroys 537-539 Broadway, but the iron front holds
Smoke was spotted coming from the basement at about 6:45 on the evening of September 18, 1883. Straw, glue and fabric in the workrooms fed the blaze, which climbed to the fifth floor at the Mercer Street end and burst through the roof. The building was partly destroyed, and its tenants, mostly straw-goods and apparel firms, together lost over $390,000 in damage and stock, while Mettam's cast-iron facade stood through the fire as it was meant to.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1885
Morimura Brothers move their Japanese goods store into 537-539 Broadway
The Morimura Brothers, importers of Japanese goods, took the larger store space at Nos. 537-539 around 1885, after starting out in the 1880s across the street at No. 540. Louis Graner & Co. made cloaks on the floors above. A New York Times item in 1889 remarked that the brothers had blended into the city's best society, and the store stayed until 1904, when the lace importer Neuburger Co. took over the retail space.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1937
The Federal Trade Commission orders a herbal remedy firm at 537-539 Broadway to drop its health claims
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By the 1930s the building held firms such as the Herba Medicinal Laboratory, headed by Giacomo LaGuardia, which sold products including Stomatic Tea and Tonic and Rheumatic Tea. In January 1937 the Federal Trade Commission ordered it to stop claiming that they treated indigestion, headaches, nervous disturbances and skin diseases. It also barred LaGuardia from presenting himself as a great specialist in diagnosing or treating human ailments.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1985
Video artist Shigeko Kubota films her co-op studio at 110 Mercer Street, the rear of this building
Shigeko Kubota, a Japanese video artist and member of the Fluxus group who had moved to New York in 1964, made the 1985 video SoHo Soap/Rain Damage, which runs just over eight minutes and shows her co-op studio at 110 Mercer Street and rain damage during a storm. The Mercer address belongs to this building, which runs through the block from Broadway. She occupied a SoHo live-work space from 1974 until her death in 2015, and the Shigeko Kubota Video Art Foundation is based in her SoHo home.
“Video of Kubota's co-op studio at 110 Mercer Street, New York, and rain damage during a storm.”
Source: Wikipedia
Nearby
- 541 Broadway5 entries
- 543 Broadway1 entry
- 535 Broadway2 entries
- 529 Broadway1 entry
- 545 Broadway2 entries
- 99 Spring Street2 entries