Suffolk Title and Guarantee Company Building

90-01 160th Street | also 90-02 161st Street, 90-04 161st Street, 90-04 160th Street | Jamaica | built 1929

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. 1928

    Suffolk Title buys a Masonic clubhouse lot for its new Jamaica headquarters

    In 1928 two lots at the north end of the block between Jamaica and 90th Avenues and 160th and 161st Streets were purchased under the name of Jessica Baylis, whose husband was president of the Suffolk Title and Guarantee Company. The seller of one lot was the Jamaica Lodge of Free-Masons, whose clubhouse stood on it. The firm put up its building in 1928-29 yet only took title in May 1930, long after moving in.

    “One of these was obtained from the Jamaica Lodge of Free-Masons which had a clubhouse there.”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  2. 1929

    Dennison & Hirons give a title company an eight-story Art Deco tower with Chambellan terra cotta

    The bank architects Dennison & Hirons designed the headquarters in the Art Deco style, using continuous piers and setbacks near the top to echo the era's Art Deco skyscrapers on an eight-story building. Brightly colored terra-cotta panels by the sculptor Rene Chambellan decorate the second story and the crown. The Long Island firm, organized in 1925, insured real estate titles, guaranteed mortgages and made loans.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  3. 1935

    Suffolk Title goes bankrupt six years after moving in

    The company moved into its new building in the first half of 1929, but by 1935 it was bankrupt. The state insurance department took it over soon after and liquidated its assets, this building included, though the firm stayed listed at the address until 1940.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  4. 1945

    Developer Frederick C. Trump buys the former Suffolk Title building

    Clearing the property after the bankruptcy took years, and only in 1945 was it sold again, to Frederick C. Trump, a major landholder and developer in Queens and Brooklyn. In the 1980s Trump gave the building to the Greater Jamaica Development Corporation, which by 2001 shared its offices with several other nonprofit groups.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

Nearby

All 24 buildings with stories in Jamaica