In early 2017 I was temp-ing at the Bloomingdale’s offices, looking over catalogs and mailings. During lunch or after work, being the Forgotten NY webmaster, I wandered around to see if there was anything interesting. On the block of East 56th between Lexington and 3rd Avenue, a stretch dominated by solid but stolid high rise brick buildings and a couple of 1970s modern glass and metal buildings as equally yawn-inducing, there’s this little 3-story brick building currently home to a hair salon.
Very interesting narrow windows flanking the central wider ones, and some porthole windows at the roofline. Some faded type above the second floor I can’t quite make out.
There’s not much online about it but I did find out it was built in 1905 by architect Charles Alling Gifford as the stables for investor/railroad executive Edwin Gould Senior (1866-1933), son of railroad financier Jay Gould. In NY Songlines, Jim Naureckas reports that 146 also sheltered a speakeasy, the Dizzy Club, during Prohibition, and Chase Manhattan chief David Rockefeller (1915- ) lived at this address once.
“Comment as you see fit.” kevinjudewalsh@gmail.com
2/2/17