889 Broadway, also known as the Gorham Manufacturing Company Building, is a Queen Anne style building located at Broadway and East 19th Street in the Flatiron District of Manhattan in New York City, within the Ladies' Mile Historic District. Built in 1883–1884, it was designed by Edward Hale Kendall.
889 Broadway served as a retail store for the Gorham Manufacturing Company, a major manufacturer of sterling and silverplate, until 1905. The stories above the second floor were originally rented as bachelor apartments until Gorham expanded into the rest of the building. The building was subsequently converted into lofts and offices in 1913. In 1977, the original layout was restored, and in 1984, the building was designated an official city landmark by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission.
History
Context
The site was initially owned by members of the wealthy Goelet family, originally from the Netherlands. The Goelet family had a long tradition of investing in New York City real estate. Peter Goelet, known for "tenaciously" holding on to all real-estate that he owned, was the first to buy land in the area in the 1840s. Peter purchased three lots along Broadway's eastern sidewalk, bounded by 19th Street to the south and 20th Street to the north, where the adjacent 900 Broadway is now located. Another family member, Almy Goelet, purchased the site of the Gorham Building across the street in 1845-1846. During the 1850s, that site contained a hardware store and a marble dealer. Upon Peter's death in 1879, ownership of his land passed to his nephews Robert and Ogden. By the 1880s, the Goelets owned most of the land from 19th to 20th Streets on both sides of Broadway.
While Broadway below 14th Street, at Union Square, was known as an upscale residential district, the section to the north did not see similar development, and the most opulent residence on this stretch would be Peter Goelet's residence on 19th Street, which stood until 1897. However, starting in the 1870s, the section of Broadway from Union Square to 23rd Street was turned into what later became dubbed as the "Ladies Mile", occupied by stores such as Tiffany & Co. (at 15 Union Square West), Lord & Taylor (at 901 Broadway), and Arnold Constable & Company (at 881-887 Broadway). Any residential usages were quickly supplanted by commercial ventures, which at the time were quickly expanding along this section of Broadway.
Use
Upon acquiring their uncles' land, Robert and Ogden Goelet wished to build a new structure, hiring Edward Hale Kendall to design a new building on the northwest corner of 20th Street and Broadway. The Goelet brothers originally intended their new development as a mixed-use building, with the first and second floors used for retail and the rest intended for residential use. Kendall, who had used different architectural styles for his previous buildings, might have picked the Queen Anne style as being more suitable for a structure that contained apartments over retail space. Construction started in June 1883 and the building was completed a year later.
The retail space was rented out by the Gorham Manufacturing Company, a silver-making company of Providence, Rhode Island, which opened its New York City store in 889 Broadway's first and second floors in May 1884. Soon after, 889 Broadway became known as the Gorham Manufacturing Company Building. The upstairs apartments were used as the "bachelor quarters", which lacked kitchens. In 1888, Gorham expanded its commercial space; the third floor was converted to a silver plate-engraving room and the fourth floor became a salesroom. By 1893, Gorham's commercial operation expanded into the rest of the building.
By the first decade of the 20th century, factories and lofts were opening in the area around 889 Broadway. Furthermore, stores on Ladies' Mile began to move further north into larger space. B. Altman and Company moved in 1906 to 355-371 Fifth Avenue, between 34th and 35th Streets, diagonally across from the present Empire State Building. The Gorham Company moved later the same year to 390 Fifth Avenue, a block north at 36th Street, which had opened in September 1905.