Landmarks Preservation Commission June 19, 1984, Designation List 170 LP-1227 GORHAM BUILDING, 889-891 Broadway, Borough of Manhattan. Built 1883-84; architect, Edward Hale Kendall. Alterations 1893; Edward H. Kendall. Landmark Site: Borough of Manhattan) Tax Map Block 848, Lot 12. On November 18, 1980, the Landmarks Preservation Commission held a Public Hear~ ing on the proposed designation as a Landmark of the Gorham Building, 881-891 Broadway, Borough of Manhattan, and the proposed designation of the related Landmark Site (Item No. 13). The hearing was continued to February 10, 1981 (Item No.6). Both hearingshad been duly advertised in accordance with the provisions of law. Two witnesses spoke in favor of designation. There were no speakers in opposition to designation. Two letters were read in favor of designation. DESCRIPTION AND ANALYSIS The Gorham Building, built in 1883-83 at the northwest corner of Broadwayand 19th Street, was designed by noted architect Edward Hale Kendall, and is one of his few surviving buildings. The building is an unusual example remaining in New York of the Queen Anne style. This style, which was not often used for commercial buildings, makes the building with its picturesque massing and rich ornamental detai 1 a noteworthy addition to the area. Erected for Robert and Ogden Goelet when this section of Broadway was a fashionable shopping district, the building housed the store of the Gorham Manufacturing Company, a producer of fine silver, in its lower two floors . The Clients and ihe Site Robert (1841-1899) and Ogden (1851-1897) Goelet were members of an old and wealthy New York family; the first Goelet came to New Amsterdam from Holland in the third quarter of the 17th century. 1 Robert and Ogden•s great-grandfather was a successful hardware dealer. Thei r grandfather, Peter P. Goelet, continuing the hardware business, also invested in New York real estate; by the time of his death in 1830 he ONned a large property knONn as the 11Goelet Farm.•• Their father Robert, and especially their uncle Peter, greatly increased the family land holdings in the city. According to his 1879 obituary in the New York Times, Peter Goelet 11made it an invariable rule never to part with a foot of land the title of which had been once vested in the Goelet family .... On the other hand, he was at all times ready to purchase property,11 so that by the end of his life he-11owne!d lots in every part of the city.••2 Robert and Ogden Goelet, inheriting the property in 1879, continued their uncle1s practice of rarely or never selling land, and the estate constantly increased in value.3 The Goelets began to acquire land on both sides of Broadway between 19th and 20th Streets in the 1840s, by which time the built-up city had reached Union Square and was rapidly growing northward. The first Goelet to buy land in the area was Peter Goelet, the uncle of Robert and Ogden. In January 1844

-2- he purchased two lots at Broadway and 20th Street (on the site of the present Goelet Building, McKim, Mead and White, 1886-87), and a large parcel at the northeast corner of Broadway and 19th Street, where about a year later he built his own house. By the 1880s almost all the land along Broadway between 19th and 20th Streets belonged to the Goelets. The actual site of the Gorham Building was purchased by another member of the family, Almy Goelet, in 1845-46. Broadway above 14th Street never became as fashionable a residential dis trict as it had been further south. Although there were some mansions, other dwellings tended to be flats for middle-class residents with shops on the ground floor. Peter Goelet's four-story brownstone mansion at Broadway and 19th re mained the grandest residence on Broadway4 until its demolition in 1897.5 By the 1870s, Broadway between 14th and 23rd Streets was being redeveloped as part of a fashionable shopping district which included Broadway and Fifth and Sixth Avenues, and 14th and 23rd Streets. Broadwa~ betwe

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