Knickerbocker Building

79 5th Avenue | also 8 East 16th Street, 6 East 16th Street | Union Square | built 1906

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. 1863

    A mob heads for Mayor George Opdyke's house at 79 Fifth Avenue during the Draft Riots

    George Opdyke, elected mayor of New York in 1862, was living at 79 Fifth Avenue, near 15th Street, when the Draft Riots broke out in 1863. A mob set out for his house intending to loot and burn it, but Judge George G. Barnard climbed the front steps and talked the crowd out of it. The house stood on the lot now occupied by the Knickerbocker Building.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1906

    Albert Gottlieb's Knickerbocker Building grows from eleven to sixteen stories while being built for Jacob Rothschild Jr.

    Albert S. Gottlieb designed the Knickerbocker for Jacob Rothschild Jr., and construction ran from 1904 to 1906, making it among the first of the many large loft buildings that rose in the area. It was planned at eleven stories, then raised to fifteen and finally to sixteen as prospects improved, the last story squeezed in above the twelfth floor without changing the design. It replaced four four-story residences and was built fireproof, with a steel skeleton.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  3. 1907

    November

    Edison Records cuts the first recording of The Teddy Bears' Picnic at its studio at 79 Fifth Avenue

    In November 1907 the Edison Symphony Orchestra made the earliest known recording of The Teddy Bears' Picnic at the Edison Records recording studio at 79 Fifth Avenue. It was released as two-minute cylinder 9777 in March 1908. That address is the Knickerbocker Building, which had been completed about a year earlier.

    “The first recording of the piece was by the Edison Symphony Orchestra, made at Edison Records' "New York Recording Department" studio, 79 Fifth Avenue, New York City, in November 1907…”

    Source: Wikipedia

  4. 1911

    Jacob Rothschild Jr., who built the Knickerbocker Building, dies a wealthy merchant and hotel man

    Jacob Rothschild Jr. came from Germany as a child and began in the millinery business. When he died in 1911, the New York Times ranked him among the city's richest merchants, real-estate operators and hotel men. He bet on creating a national wholesale center for dry goods and ready-to-wear clothing here, and he put up the Stuyvesant Building at 98-100 Fifth Avenue as well as the Knickerbocker for that purpose.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

Nearby

All 28 buildings with stories in Union Square