Haughwout Building, Broadway and Broome Street

The Haughwout Building at 488, 490 and 492 Broadway, northeast corner of Broome Street. Original title: Broadway: The Store of Messrs. E. V. Haughwont [sic] and Co. Engraving published in the Illustrated London News, April 2, 1859.

This historic five-story building, with cast iron façades, and Corinthian columns, was constructed in 1856-1857 by Eder V. Haughwout and design by John P. Gaynor. It still stands on the site and was designated a New York City landmark in 1965.

Here, some text from the magazine: «Broadway, one of the largest, and in many respects one of the finest, streets in the world, and, beyond all comparison, the finest in America, has been described in the Transatlantic Sketches published in this Journal from time to time during the last eighteen months. We this week present an Engraving of one of the largest and handsomest of the many commercial palaces, which are gradually superseding the original and inferior buildings of this noble thoroughfare −the store or warehouse of Messrs. E. V. Haughwont [Haughwout] and Co., manufactures of china, glass, silver ware, cutlery, mirrors, &c. Many of the hotels and stores in Broadway are of white marble, and some freestone; but the store of Messrs. E. V. Haughwont [sic] and Co. is entirely of iron, painted of a dark green, and forms one of the most conspicuous and attractive ornaments of Broadway. All the rooms from the basement to the top, that looks towards the street, are used as showrooms. Behind these are other series of rooms and workshops, where the proprietors employ several hundred people in the manufacture of the goods in which they deal. How different in this respect from unsightly buildings in England serve the purposes of the manufacturer −buildings too often the rudest, roughest, and most unshapely that it is possible to construct and if anything were good enough for men and women to work in! But the workpeople of Messrs. Haughwont [sic] labor in the palace. Their factory is one of the most picturesque buildings in the city; and doubtless they find it answer their purpose to produce and sell under one roof all the elegant articles for which they have established so great a reputation in America. But into this inquiry it is not our province to enter.»

Broadway, City Hall Park to Union Square, 19th Century ►