Former Tiffany & Co. store

550 Broadway | SoHo | built 1854

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

1. 1854

   Tiffany & Co. takes the new five-story store at 550 Broadway

   Completed in 1854 to a design by R. G. Hatfield for owner Charles F. Moulton, this store was occupied by Tiffany & Co. from the day it opened. Its original stone front stood above an iron storefront cast by Daniel Badger's works, which Badger pictured in his 1865 catalog. In 1901 the stone gave way to an iron front, and a sixth story has since been added.

   Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

2. 1855

   January 11

   A well-dressed thief pockets two diamond breastpins at Tiffany's

   A man calling himself Alphonse Soulard walked in saying he was shopping for his sisters and asked to see breastpins. While a clerk looked away he pocketed two, worth $4,500 and $1,500, then slipped a seal into his pocket too, which made a second clerk suspicious. Handbills offered a $500 reward, and when the thief went back to the jeweler who had bought one pin, police were waiting. His real name was Henry J. Wendle, a sea captain.

   Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

3. 1870

   Tiffany & Co. leaves for Union Square and takes its Atlas clock along

   Tiffany & Co. built a new store facing Union Square in 1870 and left 550 Broadway, moving the nine-foot Atlas figure that Henry Frederick Metzler had carved from fir, painted to look like weathered bronze, to hold a clock over the entrance. J. Simpson bought the Broadway building and repaired it. The Meriden Britannia Company, maker of electroplated silverware, took the space until it too moved to Union Square in January 1878.

   Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

4. 1971

   Choreographer Daniel Nagrin runs a dance space in the building

   By 1971 the dancer and choreographer Daniel Nagrin had a dance space called The Workshop at 550 Broadway, later renamed the Studio Theater. The building had long housed small manufacturers, and from the Great Depression into the 1970s the Dandy Dry Goods Company, a wholesale distributor, was a tenant. A renovation finished in 2012 left one commercial space on each floor.

   Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

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All 736 buildings with stories in SoHo