(l. to r.) 827-31, 833, and 835 Broadway. Nos. 827-31 were designed by Griffith Thomas in the Italianate style, with neo-Grec elements and cast-iron piers, and constructed in 1866 by Pierre Lorillard III, grandson of the noted tobacco manufacturer Pierre Lorillard I. The Wheeler & Wilson Company, which revolutionized clothing manufacturing, was headquartered here, and the buildings were later the center of New York’s antique district. Several leading abstract expressionist painters and art world figures including Willem de Kooning established their homes or studios in the buildings. Pop star Cyndi Lauper lived here, and tryouts for Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue also took place here. No. 833 was built by Marc Eidlitz and M. Magrath in 1878, as a five-story cast-iron store and loft building features a neo-Grec design. In the 1880s, the building was owned by Gilded Age barons Robert and Ogden Goelet. Wheeler & Wilson, which revolutionized clothing manufacturing, also made its home here. No. 835 was constructed c. 1850-54 by Abraham Valentine, and housed inventor James Lidgerwood, 19th-century photographer James Henry Wright, and the National Academy of Design, the first institution in the United States established by and under the exclusive control of professional artists, which included among its members many of the greatest American artists of the 19th and 20th centuries.

For more information on the history of these and other buildings South of Union Square, click here.

See all Architecture of South of Union Square photos here.

Photos by Dylan Chandler
Previous
Next