Lower Broadway, Aldrich Court Building

Lower Broadway, north from near Morris Street, showing buildings on the west side. Original title: Aldrich Court, 41 to 45 Broadway, 17 to 21 Trinity Place. Trinity Church is in the distance, facing Wall Street. Photo published in the King’s Handbook of New York City... 1892 by Moses King.

The Aldrich Court Building was erected between 1886 (year is recorded at the top of the building's Broadway façade) and 1887. It was sold at auction in 1905 and renamed Hamburg-American Building.

Below, another photo published in the same book, showing both sides of about the same section of Broadway. Original title: Lower Broadway, looking north, from Morris Street to Trinity Church. The historic 11-story Tower Building at 50 Broadway is on the right. Completed in 1889, it was the first building to use a steel skeleton structure. Demolished in 1914.

This section of Broadway changed almost completely in the next few decades and became known as Canyon of Heroes.

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The text of the King’s Handbook that accompanies the photo at the top is as follows:

«Aldrich Court is the exceedingly handsome and imposing office-building covering 41, 43 and 45 Broadway, and 17, 19 and 21 Trinity Place. It was built in the year 1886, by the estate of Herman D. Aldrich, who was a member of the old and successful dry-goods firm of McCurdy, Aldrich & Spencer. It is ten stories high, and is provided with four rapid elevators, each capable of a speed of 600 feet a minute. One of them can be utilized for carrying safes and other heavy materials weighing 5,000 pounds. The site on which the building is erected is memorable in the history of Manhattan Island as being the spot on which the first habitations of white men were built, Capt. Adriaen Block, commander of the Tiger, having erected several huts there in the year 1613. The Holland Society has placed on the front of this building a handsome tablet commemorating the above fact. A remarkable feature of the building is a large open interior court, fifty feet wide by seventy-five feet long, almost the size of two city lots, apparently a great waste of most valuable space, but affording an abundance of light and ventilation to all interior offices. Particular attention has been given to the principal entrance, which is one of the handsomest in the city. The interior is finished in a substantial and elaborate manner, and provided with electric lights and all modern conveniences.»

More: West Side Broadway, Morris to Rector Streets - 19th Century ►