Thaddeus Davids Company Building

95 Vandam Street | Hudson Square | built 1901

Open on the map6 entries

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

  1. 1827

    Seventeen-year-old Thaddeus Davids, namesake of the firm that later builds here, develops steel pen ink

    Thaddeus Davids, born in Bedford, New York, in 1810, moves to the city with his family in 1823 and at 13 is hired by an ink manufacturer who, on retiring, leaves him the business while he is still a teenager. As a minor, he cannot hold the business in his own name, so it carries his father's, William Davids. In 1827, at 17, he develops 'steel pen ink,' billed as being of record quality; in 1856 his son George becomes a partner, and the company later builds the factory at 95-97 Vandam Street.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1850

    Sugar refiner William F. Havemeyer's family lives in a three-story house that stood on this lot

    Before the present building, the lot held a three-story house where, at the middle of the nineteenth century, the sugar refiner William Frederick Havemeyer lived with his family. Next door at 97 Vandam Street, wholesale grocer Charles Burkhalter's family rented its home from the Havemeyers. In December 1904 the Havemeyer estate sold both houses to Mitchell A. C. Levy, as affluent families moved north and commercial buildings replaced the old homes.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1906

    June 9

    Ink maker Thaddeus Davids Company buys the two old houses after its William Street landlord refuses to renew

    After more than fifty years at 127-129 William Street, the Thaddeus Davids Company learns in 1906 that its landlord will not renew the lease. On June 9, The American Stationer reports that the maker of inks and adhesives has bought 95-97 Vandam Street and will tear down the old houses for a modern factory. The firm hires Renwick, Aspinwall & Tucker, whose plans project a cost of $60,000, with the William Street lease ending in May 1908.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1908

    Renwick, Aspinwall & Tucker complete an electrified Renaissance Revival ink factory with Arts and Crafts touches

    Completed in spring 1908, the six-story factory pairs Renaissance Revival design with Arts and Crafts touches. Its loading-bay piers are beige brick with limestone capitals instead of the usual cast iron, the upper floors are faced in rusticated brick, and a bracketed pressed-metal cornice crowns it. To accommodate heavy machinery, the plans call for reinforced cinder-concrete arches, terra cotta partitions and copper-covered skylights, and the building is fully electrified, so machines once worked by hand now run on power.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  5. 1918

    October 24

    Wartime ad calls on women to work at the ink factory: 'Help Win the War'

    On October 24, 1918, a New-York Tribune ad headed 'Girls and Women Wanted' invites women to take jobs with the Thaddeus Davids Ink Company, promising excellent wages, steady work and a bonus, as World War I thins the male workforce. The firm had already turned to women in January 1912, advertising for six young women to sell to offices on salary and commission, at a time when traveling salesmen were assumed to be men.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  6. 1987

    The old ink factory is converted to apartments with retail on the former loading-dock level

    The Thaddeus Davids Company had closed by 1941, when Tiara Products Co. occupied the building; 670 Realty Corporation, newly formed, rented space in 1960 and Samson Management was here by 1968. As Hudson Square's loft buildings were turned into residential, office and retail space, this factory was converted to apartments in 1987, with a retail space at the former loading dock level.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

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