70 Thomas Street

Tribeca | built 1870

Open on the map3 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. 1870

    Liquor merchant Michael Purcell adds a second store at 70 Thomas Street

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    Michael Purcell, a liquor dealer who began on Bleecker Street in the 1850s and moved to West Broadway in 1863, leased this lot from real estate speculator Amos R. Eno. In 1870 he had architect John J. O'Neil design a five-story store here as an addition to the one he had commissioned the year before at 147 West Broadway, and the two share a fire escape today.

    “No. 70 Thomas Street was constructed as an addition to that building in 1870.”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  2. 1870

    Cast-iron storefront and painted yarn-and-rope signs survive at 70 Thomas Street

    The ground floor keeps its original cast-iron frame of banded piers under an entablature, cast by Boyce & McEntyre of 706 East 12th Street, whose foundry mark is on the center piers. Painted on the glass transoms are the words yarns, cordage, twines and ropes, left from the tenancy of the Empire Twine & Yarn Co. The brick upper facade carries Italianate and neo-Grec details.

    “Foundry marks at the base of the center piers read "Boyce & McEntyre/706 E. 12th St. N.Y.”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  3. 1878

    Purcell goes bankrupt and his landlord Amos Eno is his largest creditor

    Michael Purcell kept his West Broadway and Thomas Street stores until 1878, when business setbacks pushed him into bankruptcy. A newspaper account of the time, headlined "Rushing into Bankruptcy" in the New York Times of August 31, 1878, shows that his landlord Amos R. Eno, a dry goods merchant, was owed more than anyone else. The building later housed commission merchants and the Empire Twine & Yarn Co.

    “…business reverses forced him into bankruptcy. A contemporary newspaper account indicates that his landlord, Amos R. Eno, was his largest creditor.”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

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