54 Franklin Street

Civic Center | built 1892

Open on the map4 entries

The lot about 1940
About 1940. Via 1940s.nyc
The lot about 1985
About 1985. Via 80s.nyc

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.

  1. 1892

    John T. Williams builds a six-story loft at 54-56 Franklin Street

    In September 1891 developer John Townsend Williams paid $90,000 to the Metropolitan Telephone and Telegraph Co. for two vacant lots on Franklin Street. He hired Charles R. Behrens, who completed a six-story loft in 1892, with a rough-cut stone base, cast-iron garlands on the second-floor arches and an arcade across the top story. Early tenants included a soap company, a gun and cutlery dealer, and a maker of valentines.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1899

    January 22

    A fire breaks out at Herman Boker & Co. while it shows bicycles at Madison Square Garden

    Herman Boker & Co., a hardware and gun dealer, had shown firearms at the 1896 Sportsmen's Exposition at Madison Square Garden. In January 1899 it exhibited bicycles there instead. On the night of January 22, the day the Tribune previewed the show, a fire broke out in its Franklin Street space. Two days later the Times reported damage equal to more than $300,000 today, and the blaze did not spread to other floors.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1899

    November 9

    A suspender factory manager is locked in the building by a missing key

    On November 9, 1899 a small fire broke out in the Peerless Suspender Company's factory on the fifth floor. The manager of the Home Suspender Company upstairs, R. E. Van Der Veer, helped put it out and then kept working late. His bookkeeper had absent-mindedly pocketed the street-door key, which was normally left behind the radiator. Van Der Veer telephoned Police Headquarters from the top floor, and three policemen came to let him out.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1977

    54 Franklin becomes an early Tribeca factory-to-apartment conversion

    The building was one of the first Tribeca factories to become housing. In 1977 its upper floors were converted, with two apartments on each of the middle floors and a single apartment on the sixth. The street level held the Franklin 54 Gallery in 2004 and later Postmasters Gallery.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Further reading

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