THERE’S a tiny triangle at Gold and Frankfort Streets west of the Seaport at the Brooklyn Bridge off-ramps that remembers one of the most powerful stock brokerage and investment banking services firms in the country, founded in 1892 by Julius S. Bache. It’s got a forlorn green strip of earth in which are planted two trees.
In 1892, Jules S. Bache, an employee and nephew of Leopold Cahn, reorganized Leopold Cahn & Co. as J.S. Bache & Co. Jules Bache was the grandson of an officer who fought under Napoleon and collected art treasures for The Louvre. Over a fifty-year career, he built the company into one of the most successful and innovative brokerage houses in the United States.
In 1890, the firm expanded to open a second office in New York City and a branch office in Albany, the first branch established by any brokerage firm with a direct wire link to headquarters. Among the early clients of J.S. Bache & Co. were such renowned financial leaders as John D. Rockefeller Sr., Edward H. Harriman, and Jay Gould. [wikipedia]
In 1981, Bache was acquired by Prudential Financial. The Bache name was revived in 2003 when Prudential merged with Wachovia until 2011 when Prudential was acquired by the Jeffries Group, which called it Jefferies Bache until the Bache name was retired for good in 2015. Remember the cartoon with the fishes eating successively smaller fish? That’s what happens with financial firms.
Today, Jules Bache is remembered by a little triangle plaza with two trees and a sun-bleached street sign.
Sick transit, Gloria!
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2/22/22
2 comments
First photo is right out of “Julius Knipl,real estate photographer” by Ben Katchor.
He loves places like that.
Or as Chris Rush used to call them, Bache Halsey Stuart Shields Kuhn Loeb Rhodes Sacco and Vanzetti.