Becoming Fifth Avenue: It’s Electric!

“Becoming Fifth Avenue” is a series of posts in celebration of the bicentennial of the avenue, which was first laid out in 1824. The Greenwich Village segment, between Washington Square North and 13th Street, officially opened on November 1st of that year.

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Though you wouldn’t know by looking at it today, the stretch of Fifth Avenue between 13th and 14th Streets, at what might be considered the northern edge of Greenwich Village, was once lined with houses. Fifth Avenue was first laid out in the fall of 1824, though it wasn’t yet a true ‘avenue’ so much as an extended country road. For the most part, Manhattan, north of Washington Square, was still largely farmland.

The first buildings constructed along the thoroughfare were residential, a variety of row houses and free-standing mansions, often custom-built for some of the wealthiest 19th century New Yorkers who had departed the crowded lower city in favor of opportunities for land in a young Greenwich Village. These homes were among the most elaborate, grandiose structures to be built not only in the neighborhood, but in all of New York City. One such building played a critical role in introducing electricity to New York City and the world, reputedly becoming the first fully electrically illuminated building anywhere.

In the mid-1800s, two four-story brownstone mansions were built at the southern half of the Fifth Avenue block between East 13th and 14th Streets. Unlike many of the other houses to the south, which were demolished and replaced with larger apartment buildings in the first quarter of the twentieth century, these two Italianate-style mansions remained remarkably intact for nearly 100 years.

In February of 1881, No. 65 became the headquarters of the Edison Electric Light Company. Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931) had founded the company in 1878 with a vision to introduce his new lightbulb technology to Lower Manhattan and build the world’s first electrical power grid. 

He quickly got to work equipping the Fifth Avenue mansion with electrical wiring. On Saturday, April 16, 1881 the New York Times wrote that “the large residence… was opened to a few invited visitors last evening in order to let persons interested in electric lighting study its application to domestic uses.” The article went on to explain the nuances of Edison’s newfangled light fixtures, and that “within the circle of strongest radiation, the power of one of these lamps is stated to be 21 candles.” Edison installed a total of 65 lamps throughout the house, and it was notable that “any [light] could be turned on or off without disturbing the rest.” This is said to be the first time that an entire building was lit exclusively by electricity.

While operating out of the building, the Edison Electric Light Company crafted their plans to illuminate large swaths of Manhattan, starting with the area bounded by Spruce and Ferry Streets and Peck Slip to the north, Wall Street to the south, Nassau to the west, and extending to the East River. This was one of the city’s most densely populated neighborhoods at the time. By April of 1881, the company had already surveyed the area and introduced the requisite wiring to forty buildings, but hadn’t yet received approval to excavate at the sidewalks for the installation of conductors and breaker panels.

Edison established the first central power station in the world on Pearl Street in two adjoining former warehouses, while continuing to retain 65 Fifth Avenue as his company’s headquarters. On September 4, 1882, the power station switch was flipped, lighting up dozens of buildings. In that first year, Edison’s clientele increased tenfold, from just 59 initial customers to 513. Though electricity had been discovered long before, this was its first commercial, practical application.

By the beginning of the 20th century, Nos. 65 and 63 Fifth Avenue were converted to lofts with commercial ground floors. Around the same time, the five-story No. 67 Fifth Avenue was built on open space that previously served as a rear yard for No. 2 East 14th Street, the row house that occupied the north corner of this block.

All four buildings were demolished to make way for a full-block, three-story department store building in 1946. By 1951, the tenant was Lane’s Department Store, a retail store that focused on women’s fashion.

The department store didn’t last long in this location. In 1967, the building was purchased by The New School for its Graduate Faculty of Political and Social Sciences. After significant alterations to the ground floor storefront infill and new window openings punched into the brick facade at the upper floors, the building reopened to serve this purpose in 1969.

In 2009, the mid-century building and several inner-block loft buildings behind it were demolished and replaced with a much larger 375,000-square-foot metal-and-glass building designed by the architecture firm Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, as The New School’s new University Center.