The Constable, 53 Howard Street: Review and Ratings

Review of 53 Howard Street by Carter Horsley

This very handsome, 5-story, red-brick building at 53 Howard Street at Mercer Street in the SoHo Historic District was erected in 1857 for the Arnold Constable Dry Goods Emporium.  The fifth story was added in 1862.

The architect of the original building, which is also known as 307 Canal Street, is unknown.

The popular and elegant store relocated to Broadway and 19^th Street in 1873.

This building, which is known as The Constable, was acquired by United American Land in 2005 who had the property rezoned and got approval from the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission for its restoration, which including removal of a long, staggered fire escape on Mercer Street.

United American Land’s other residential properties include 319 Broadway, 500 Broome Street, 146 Duane Street, 17 Park Place, 301 West Broadway, 424 West Broadway, 300 Canal Street, 14 Murray Street, and 33 Union Square West.

The building has 18 rental apartments.

Bottom Line

An exquisite restoration of an 1857 red-brick/stone building erected for the Arnold Constable Dry Goods Emporium, it was renovated and converted into 18 rental apartments in 2005.

Description

The designation report for the SoHo Historic District noted that “Although the Canal Street façade is faced with stone while those on Mercer and Howard Street are brick, the formula for bays and varying window shapes is repeated on all three sides.”

“None of the original iron storefront remains on the Canal Street side, but the contemporary lithograph, indicates that it was originally supported by columns identical to those remaining on the other two façades. These original columns are quite different from the columns and pilasters that remain on the storefront of the 1862 addition, however, which are quite wide in comparison to their height and decorated by massive ornamental bands. The upper stories of the façade are separated by projecting cornices and outlined on the second through fourth floors by stone quoins at both corners and between the 1856 and 1862 sections,” the report continued, adding that “paneled pilasters replace the quoins on the fifth floor.”

“The round-arched second-story windows are crowned by decorative keystones and flanked by pilasters topped with Corinthian capitals. The paired central windows of the second story of the original section are also accented by a common pediment that is perched above the two keystones. They are further emphasized by balustrades identical to the one below the second-floor, central window of the 1862 addition,” the report added.

“On the upper floors,” it continued, “the central windows are paired, though have no pediments. On the third, fourth and fifth floors the windows are topped by segmental rather than round arches. Above the fifth-floor window, paired volutes rise up towards the center, forming...a modified pediment. The building is topped by a simple cast-iron cornice with paired brackets above the central and side piers between which are evenly spaced modillions.”

When it opened, the store, then known as the Marble House, offered silk, imported hand-made lace, bridal veils and other accouterments for the lady about town.

Apartments

Apartments have high ceilings, double-glazed windows, wide plank oak floors, cast-iron columns, hewn beams, and vented washers and dryers.  Kitchens have granite countertops and stainless-steel appliances.

Apartment 4A is a two-bedroom unit with an entry into the 17-foot-long dining room with an open kitchen that is next to a 22-foot-long living room.

Apartment 2C is a one-bedroom unit that faces Mercer Street and it has ceilings over 12 feet high.

Apartment 2E is a one-bedroom unit with an entry foyer that leads to a 15-footlong gallery that is next to a long, open kitchen in one direction and a 19-foot-long angled living space in the other.

History

The superb website Daytonianinmanhattan.com ran a long article on the Constable store March 29, 2010, noting that the original entrance to the Arnold, Constable Dry Goods store on 19^th Street was on Broadway: “As the firm grew, so did the store; additions being added until at last the monster emporium spanned the entire length of 19th Street, taking out the former home of actor Edwin Booth with it.”

“Aaron Arnold, a British emigrant had opened a small dry goods business in 1825 on Pine Street in lower Manhattan, planting the seed of what would become the oldest department store in America,” the article continued, adding that “In 1842 he took on James Mansell Constable as his partner.  At some point in the later 1860s the name Arnold & Constable became Arnold, Constable & Company. By 1857 the partners moved to Canal Street, where a five-story marble clad store awaited which was dubbed Marble House.  Offering ‘Everything From Cradle to Grave,’ Arnold, Constable & Company gained a reputation among the ladies of the moneyed carriage trade.  Business continued to boom and the retailers laid plans for a second store in the newly-developing shopping district around Union Square.”

The “new building, designed by Griffin Thomas, sat on the southwest corner of Broadway and 19th Street, [and]…Completed in 1869 the five story structure was clad in marble, brick and cast iron. Arnold, Constable & Company had chosen the site well.  Only three years later Thomas was called back in to enlarge it down the 19th Street side.   Thomas added a striking two-story mansard roof, drawn from the French Second Empire architecture that had taken over Europe after the Paris Exposition of 1852.”

“The French-style architecture was most possibly intended to hint at the European goods offered inside -- gowns from The House of Worth in Paris, French china and imported silks.  The carriages that parked outside carried New York's feminine elite.  Mary Todd Lincoln was a regular shopper and the account ledgers read like the social register:  Vanderbilt, Carnegie and Astor for example.

“Wiilliam Schickel designed the final westward additions and even established his offices in the building.  Despite a change in materials, the cast iron Broadway façade giving way to brick and masonry towards 5th Avenue, the additions are nearly seamless.  When the 5th Avenue end was completed, Arnold, Constable & Company became the first department store with a 5th Avenue address.  The massive emporium exemplified what would become known as a retail ‘palace.’"

James Constable died in May of 1900 and 14 years later the store moved again, razing the Vanderbilt mansion at 40th Street and 5th Avenue for a new, more modern store.

A February 11, 1975 article by Isadore Barmash in The New York Times noted that
“Arnold Constable, New York City's oldest specialty store, will close late next month after 150 years of existence and a half‐century on Fifth Avenue.”

“Increasing expenses and the need to spend a ‘large sum’ for modernization were cited yesterday by Merwin Bayer, president of the Arnold Constable Corporation, as the reasons for the decision to close the store, the last of 11 once operated under the Constable name. The disappearance of Arnold Constable as an old retailing name continues a trend. Recent years have seen the passing of such famous Manhattan retailers as James McCreery & Sons, the A. DePinna Company, Best & Co., Saks 34th Street, Black, Starr & Frost and Hearn's,” according to the article.

Mr. Bayer was the nephew, the article said, “of Isaac Liberman, who was the president of Stewart & Co., in the nineteen-twenties and remained the long-term chairman of Constable after it merged with Stewart, New York’s first department store, about 1925.”