THE Butterick Building at the NW corner of 6th Avenue and Spring was built in 1903, before 6th Avenue was built. Butterick is a sewing pattern company founded in 1863 by Ebenezer Butterick in an era when people sewed their own clothing according to patterns, which were to clothing as blueprints are to buildings. The 15-story tower was designed by Hogan & Slattery. The building was the HQ of Butterick’s publishing company; at one time Butterick’s fashion magazines, containing fashion tips as well as patterns, were some of the most-read periodicals in the USA. The company’s Delineator was a precursor of more recent magazines such as Woman’s Day. According to NY Songlines, “When opened, this building had the nation’s second-largest printing plant, after the government printing office in D.C.” Thus, it’s quite possible had I been born earlier in the century, I would have found work there at some point. Butterick moved uptown to 2 Penn Plaza in 2001.
I mention the Butterick Building because its slanted, or chamfered, exterior conforms to a now-disappeared street pattern. Can you guess what it is? I will continue this story on a future FNY page.
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4/21/25
5 comments
Looks like the chamfer is aligned with Macdougal Street, which now ends in a park before reaching 6th Avenue but presumably used to extend all the way to Spring Street.
Winner, winner, chicken dinner?
You got me
The now disappeared street pattern is due to Sixth Avenue’s original southern terminus at Carmine Street in Greenwich Village, as noted in the FNY posting dated September 18, 2011. In the 1920s, the avenue was extended southward from there, cutting through the original street grid, to provide a direct path for the IND Sixth Avenue subway route. That line originally opened in 1932 (for the Eighth Avenue IND below West 4th Street station) and in 1940 north of West 4th Street.
That’s why Sixth Avenue south of Carmine Street (just below West 3rd St.) has an angular pattern versus the street grid that creates many triangular intersections. The old Sixth Avenue elevated line used West Broadway south of West 3rd Street on its route to South Ferry. This elevated closed in 1938.
What happened to this building after Butterick left it back in 2001?
I worked in that building for 10 years, up until they turned it into condos a few years ago. It was a standard factory turned office building. Big concrete floor plates that could hold heavy machinery, big windows that could fully open, and you could feel the rumble of the IND from even the top floor. The freight elevators still had manual knob controls. Nat Geo had a sweet penthouse office, Warby Parker was on the first floor and there was a 24 diner on the King street side.
When they redid the building for residential, they built a new structure over the 161 loading dock to connect it to neighboring 233 Spring St. Turned the 233 loading dock into a Trader Joe’s and most of the upper floors into luxury apartments.