CENTRE STREET

EARLY December 2023 was mild, in the 50s and 60s, foretelling a winter that was milder than usual…again. In the era of climate change, no winter has been below normal as far as temperatures since 2014-2015. February 2015, in particular, was an icebox around here. Since Progressive Insurance’s Dr. Rick doesn’t like people talking about the weather, I’ll talk about what I usually talk about, which is searching the streets for old and unusual items. My plan was to walk the length of Centre Street in Chinatown and Little Italy, since I had never done that in one day, and I also covered parts of Mott and Spring Streets, which I’ll discuss on a different FNY page.

A good place to start is the Woolworth Building, Broadway and Park Place, near the IRT station I took here. This Gothic, 792-foot, one inch tower was the world’s tallest building from 1913 until 1930, taking over from the Metropolitan Life Tower–and is called ”possibly the most beautiful commercial building in the world” by architecture writer Gerard Wolfe. It was designed by Cass Gilbert as headquarters for the five & dime chain. Called the ”Cathedral of Commerce” by famed clergyman S. Parkes Cadman (who has Brooklyn mall downtown named for him) largely because of its splendid lobby.

During opening ceremonies President Woodrow Wilson pressed a button in Washington, turning on 80,000 lightbulbs on the 60-story structure. New high speed elevators whisked passengers to the 55^th floor observation deck.

Frank Woolworth paid for the building himself with $15,500,000 in cash. Both the interior and exterior contain Gothic elements such as gargoyles, buttresses, arches, spires; the lobby presents one of the most striking interior spaces in the city, with a vaulted, mosaic ceiling, delicate bronzework, walls of veined marble, an imposing grand staircase, wrought-iron cornices painted with gold leaf, polished terrazzo floors. Lest his palace be thought of as too self-aggrandizing, Woolworth had caricatures of himself counting his money and architect Cass Gilbert playfully placed in the stonework, as well as others who helped build the “cathedral.”

There’s also a hidden swimming pool in the basement, which has been incorporated into health clubs in the past.

Unfortunately since 9/11 the building has been pretty restricted about who gets to hang out in the gorgeous lobby area; you just can’t come in toting a camera bold as brass and start shooting away. However, other NYC websites such as Untapped Cities have been able to arrange a look inside.

I was fascinated by the building’s “busy” exterior, which displays architectural elements such as depictions of the races of the Earth.

City Hall Park usually has an art installation but today, the previous one, Prank, by Phyllida Barlow, was being disassembled.

A sidewalk entablature marks the former route of Mail Street, a short connector between Broadway and Park Row that was absorbed into the park several decades ago. Why Mail Street? It faced NYC’s main Post Office, Morgan Post Office/Farley Building/Moynihan Train Hall predecessor. It was maligned by critics, but I’ll take Beaux Arts over Glass Boxes any day. It was in use from 1869-1937 and was so stoutly built it took two years to demolish; unlike Penn Station, it was unlamented.

I didn’t dwell for long in City Hall Park today but I can’t get away without mentioning City Hall itself. In 1803 the cornerstone was laid for the current City Hall, which was designed by Joseph Mangin and John McComb.  When the building opened in 1812 many felt that it was too far north of the center of the City and in fact bare bricks were allowed to remain on the building’s north side. Since 9/11/01 most of the north side of the park, including City Hall, has been closed off to skulkers with cameras, and the rest of the general public. Nevertheless, City Councilman James E. Davis was shot dead by an assassin at City Hall in 2003.

Where Centre begins. Though its street signs are first seen at Chambers Street to the north, Centre Street (always spelled in the British method, since the street predates Noah Webster) actually starts where the Brooklyn Bridge ramps meet Park Row; Centre Street angles north here on the east side of City Hall Park with the Municipal Building in view.

According to Sanna Feirstein in Naming New York, Centre Street was called Collect Street when laid out, since it skirted the former Collect Pond. It was renamed in 1828 because its northern end was at Centre Market, which still has a street named for it. In 1978’s The Street Book, Henry Moscow merely says it’s geographically central between the Hudson and East Rivers.

If you’re looking for infrastructural artifacts, City Hall Park is the place. Its original 1910s Bishop Crook lamps still light the pathways, though they were given pendant ornamentations when the park was renovated in the early 2000s. This elevator to the Brooklyn Bridge IRT station was constructed to appear similar to the original IRT entrance kiosks of 1904. A similar elevator can be found on Court and Montague Streets in Brooklyn.

One of two statues of editor/publisher Horace Greeley (1811-1872) in Manhattan, with the other in Greeley Square, 6th Avenue and West 32nd Street.

John Quincy Adams Ward’s imposing sculpture of Horace Greeley shows him squarely seated in a tasseled armchair. Commissioned by the Tribune, and unveiled during a ceremony on September 20, 1890, the statue originally stood in a niche in front of the Tribune Building on Park (also known as Publishers) Row. The massive granite pedestal was designed by Richard Morris Hunt, architect of the Statue of Liberty’s pedestal. When a 1915 Manhattan borough ordinance sought to rid sidewalks of “street appurtenances,” the Tribune Association donated the sculpture to the City. The first proposal to place it in Battery Park met with a storm of protest, and instead it was installed east of City Hall in City Hall Park.

There’s also a bust of Greeley at his gravesite in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.

The New York City Municipal Building, which houses most of NYC’s municipal agencies (including City Comptroller, Public Advocate, and Manhattan Borough President) employing over 2000 people, was constructed from 1909-1914, designed by William M. Kendall, an architect in the offices of McKim, Mead and White. Topping the building is Adolph Weinman‘s gilded 20-foot-tall “Civic Fame” for which he used his usual model, Audrey Munson. In 2015, Mayor Bill DeBlasio named it for his predecessor two mayors before him, David N. Dinkins.

A study of the sculptures and entablatures on the Municipal Building would take some time. I have only been inside once: in October 2006, I promoted Forgotten New York the Book on the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC, which spiked sales temporarily into the Amazon top 500. WNYC has since moved to Tribeca.

The “lyre” lamppost design, which recalls the tops of table lamps, has been used sparingly around town. They show up in 1920s photos of Times Square, and you can see a few retro versions on Centre Street outside the Muni.

Here’s an early example of a Lyre post, along with a very early Twinlamp, from the New York Electrical Society publication “The Street Lighting of The City Of New York: It’s Development And Present Condition”, 1913. Thanks Sanders Saltzman.

I’ll skip past the Surrogates’ Court Building/Hall of Records on Chambers and Centre Streets, only because I discussed it in a post in May 2024. If you ever have a chance to go inside, take it.

The Muni was one of the few buildings bisected by a street; Chambers, whose east end is at Centre, used to proceed through until the 1970s, when a number of streets were eliminated by the new Police Headquarters and other projects. (Here we have a rare Lyre/stoplight combo.)

Inconspicuously hiding on Reade Street just west of Centre is a 1930s-era Type 24-W bishop crook post. These are distinguished by their taller stature and less ornamentation on the shaft and in the scrollwork within the crook.

I never hope to enter any one of the courthouse buildings surrounding Foley Square, since mainly defendants, lawyers, and jurists enter them, and I have no chance of ever being one of the last two. Foley Square was named for “Big Tom” Foley, saloon owner and Tammany Hall capo, in 1925, and encompasses the area where Centre and Lafayette Streets form a V, or a triangle with Worth Street. It sits on the site once occupied by the freshwater Collect Pond, used as a dump so long by colonists that it became fetid and was drained into the Hudson by the canal that Canal Street now sits atop.

The sculpture sitting in the center of Foley Square to me resembles a sword and a hilt, or perhaps a raised middle finger. Then again, I have the eye of a dedicated Philistine and have never ‘gotten’ modern sculpture. In actuality, this is called Triumph of the Human Spirit and was styled after an antelope-inspired headdress worn by Mali, Africa natives. Now, why didn’t I get that? It’s so obvious. It’s 60 feet tall, weighs over 300 tons and was designed by Dr. Lorenzo Pace in 2000. I do find it ironic that a sculpture called Triumph of the Human Spirit is sitting in the very place where the predators of society are dragged before the bench to answer for their crimes.

In 1849, cast-iron building pioneer James Bogardus built the nation’s first all-iron building at the NE corner of Duane and Centre.

Foley Square stands atop the former infamous Five Points district and is where Lafayette Street breaks away from Centre and continues north to Cooper Square. Foley Square is marked by the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse and the octagonal US State Supreme Court, known to TV and movie enthusiasts for exterior shots of “12 Angry Men” and “Law & Order.”

At Leonard and Centre is the relatively new (about a decade in 2023) Collect Pond Park. A large crowd had gathered for a demonstration, a film shoot, or both.

The glum building next door is another I wouldn’t want to find myself in, fingers crossed, the Manhattan Civil Courthouse, designed by William Lescaze and M. W. Del Gaudio and opened in 1960. Its monotony is broken up by a bas-relief sculpture on the Centre Street side. The park and the courthouse occupy what was a classic court and jailhouse, The Tombs. In those days, you went to the slammer in style, at least architecturally.

In 1980, the easternmost section of Leonard Street between Centre and Baxter Streets was renamed (not subnamed) for Frank Hogan, Manhattan district attorney who died in 1974 after 34 years in office. The street is located between the Louis J. Lefkowitz State Office Building and the Manhattan Criminal Courts Building. Hey, Department of Transportation, how about a new sign?

From 1940s NYC: In 1941, 139 Centre Street (The Excelsior Building, at White Street) was the location of multiple emigre and refugee groups, as per the NYT article “New Home for Refugees: Various Groups Form Largest Emigre Center in City.”

 It’s amazing that #241 Canal on the northwest corner of Centre hasn’t been landmarked, but perhaps it’s still too new: it was built in 1983, designed by P.K.Y. Chen as the former headquarters of the Golden Pacific National Bank, and is one of a number of Canal Street that have pagoda-like characteristics. The bank went insolvent years ago, but the building remains, occupied by a number of businesses including a ground-floor coffee joint.

I have a soft spot for the building to its rear, with its colorful panels, at Centre and Hester Streets.

A sampler of hand-produced signage for food wholesalers on Centre Street between Hester and Grand Streets.

My favorite was this brilliantly colored red and yellow, plastic and vinyl sign for the American Society of Buddhist Studies at #214 Centre Street.

Periodically I check on this classic Type 3 bishop crook, likely fom the 1910s, at Centre and Grand Streets. I can happily report it’s still there; the one at Lafayette and Canal was gone, when I last looked.

The domed former NYPD Headquarters, 240 Centre Street, located in a wedge between Centre, Grand, Broome, and Centre Market Place. Currently a super-luxury apartment building called Police Building Apartments, it was designed by Hoppin & Krohn and completed in 1909 just as the Beaux Arts movement was beginning to wind down and modernism was around the corner. The lions in front look rather more fierce than the two at the New York Public Library – as befits Police HQ. It was converted to luxury use in 1988, a very early harbinger of the luxe trend that would take hold in Soho in the following decade. 

It’s not easy to get a good picture of the Italianate Odd Fellows Hall at #165-171 Grand Street, the SE corner of Centre: the sun always seems to be in a bad spot. It was constructed from 1847-1848 with a Second Empire-style slanted roof addition in 1882. The Independent Order of Odd Fellows, a secret society, was founded in Manchester, England, in the early 1800s. The organization described its purpose “To visit the sick, relieve the distressed, to bury the dead, and to educate the orphan,” and in addition to be tile “Guardian of the Widow, and Father of the Fatherless.” The New York branch was founded in 1806. Like the Masons, the IOOF still has a very wide worldwide membership. Such fraternities were unusual in England at the time of the IOOF’s foundation, hence the name.

That’s my kind of menu at Landmark Coffee Shop at Centre and Grand. I haven’t tested the quality yet though. And, the brilliant blue and white awning sign uses the Cooper Black font designed by type king Frederic Goudy. The diner was in scenes in the Madonna vehicle “Desperately Seeking Susan” in 1986.

Speaking of fonts, Centre Plumbing Heating Sprinkler Supply next door at #233 Centre uses the 1910s-era Hobo font on its brilliant red and gold sign.

Unusually for a stationery store, Paper Source, at #237 Centre, also has a cafe, hence the “Eat” sign on the exterior.

I was impressed with #239-247 Centre, between Grand and Broome, but it’s an especially large loft building converted to apartments. The eateries and apparel shops on the west side of Centre here are collectively called “Little Paris” as most are French-themed.

The initiative is spearheaded by women-owned language and cultural center Coucou. The business moved to Centre St. in 2019, and the owners noticed how they were tucked in between well-known cultural neighborhoods but didn’t have “a strong identity of its own.” They also noticed that the “quaint little boutiques, cafes and restaurants, and bakeries” reminded them of Paris.

Along Centre St. you can find French café and bakery Maman, wine bar La Compagnie des Vins Surnaturels, and art and home decor shop Clic. [Secret NYC]

Centre Street’s northern progress stops at Broome Street and this 1890s apartment building on which a giant billboard has been affixed. A narrow extension, Cleveland Place, extends north to Petrosino Square at Lafayette Street.

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9/15/24