Appleton & Co. Building

72 5th Avenue | Greenwich Village | built 1920

Open on the map6 entries

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

  1. 1870

    The Lenox House hotel stands on the corner, an earlier building on the site

    By 1870 the northwest corner of Fifth Avenue and 13th Street held the Lenox House, a brownstone hotel that looked as much like a mansion as an inn. James Slater ran it, and Appleton's Hand-book of American Travel called it a family hotel with a high reputation. It was torn down in 1893 to make room for the Appleton building.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1894

    June

    D. Appleton & Company opens its new headquarters and store at 72 Fifth Avenue

    The brothers Marx and Moses Ottinger and Isidore and Max Korn built the 51-foot-wide Romanesque Revival building to a design by Cleverdon & Putzel. Light stone, buff brick and terra cotta set it apart from the dark brownstones nearby, and a row of women's faces sat under the cornice. The publisher, which had changed addresses repeatedly since 1825, opened its doors in June 1894.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1895

    While Appleton is based here, it publishes Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage

    Appleton was one of the country's leading publishers when it settled at 72 Fifth Avenue, with Edith Wharton, Henry James and Charles Darwin on its list. It had also issued the first American edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. During its years here it brought out Crane's The Red Badge of Courage, which Village Preservation calls one of the most important American novels.

    Source: Village Preservation

  4. 1900

    March 22

    Appleton & Co., 75 years old, goes into receivership because of "too much prosperity"

    The publishing world was surprised when the firm was placed in receivership. The Times blamed the installment book business: Appleton paid for books and agents' commissions long before customers, who had six to thirty-six months to pay, settled their accounts, and borrowed heavily on notes that were now falling due. The company kept publishing and moved to Fifth Avenue and 39th Street in 1902.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  5. 1915

    March

    Cigarette maker Philip Morris & Co. leases the building, which takes its name

    After Appleton left and smaller tenants moved in, Philip Morris & Co. took a long-term lease on the whole building in March 1915. For years it was known as the Philip Morris building. In 1929 the National City Bank leased the old publisher's retail floor for a branch with safe deposit vaults.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  6. 1979

    The Nation moves its offices to 72 Fifth Avenue

    Publisher Hamilton Fish brought the political weekly The Nation, founded in 1865, to the building in 1979. By then Longman and Penguin Books had also moved in, as the building returned to the publishing trade after Ginn & Co. bought it in 1946. Village Preservation notes that the area south of 14th Street was long both a publishing center and a hub of left-wing politics.

    Source: Village Preservation

Further reading

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