280 Broadway - History

History

Alexander Turney Stewart had opened his mercantile business across the street, but when it started to prosper, he had what became known as the "Marble Palace" built on the site of Washington Hall, the former headquarters of the Federalist Party. Stewart's department store featured a number of marketing innovations designed to increase the volume of turnover and keep up with the increasing capacity of industrial manufacturing. He was among the first to set fixed prices for his goods and drew female customers through special sales and fashion shows. The success of his store inspired numerous imitations north along a five block strip of Broadway. At the height of their success in the 1850s, this portion of Broadway became popular among the city's elite for window shopping while parading in the latest fashions.

The building was the first commercial structure in the city in the Italianate style, and the first to be clad in Tuckahoe marble – after 1850 supported by cast iron on the ground floors – both of which set the style for the "commercial palaces" which followed it.

The store began on the corner of Broadway and Reade, and gradually expanded down Broadway and across Chambers Streets, with additions in 1850-51 and 1851-52, both designed by Trench & Snook, and 1872, designed by Frederick Schmidt. The store moved uptown in 1862 to a new full-block building on Broadway betweeen East 9th and East 10th Streets, and that building acquired a full-block annex between East 8th and 9th Streets in 1902, although by that time A. T. Stewart had died and the company had been sold to John Wanamaker.

After the store moved, the building at 280 Broadway became a warehouse. In 1884 Edward D. Harris designed an addition in which two floors were added to the original five, and the building was converted into offices; in 1917 it was bought by the New York Sun newspaper, which renamed it the Sun Building.

In 1966, New York City acquired the building to be demolished for a plan to redevelop the Civic Center which did not came to fruition. The building was rehabilitated from 1995-2002, overseen by Beyer Blinder Belle. The city's Department of Buildings uses the upper floors, and the first and second floors are used for retail stores.