The Building that Beat Robert Moses

On Monday May 10, three New York City fire trucks blocked two lanes on Broadway just north of Broome Street. Sirens screaming, tourists taking photos, fire men standing around looking bored as a few others came out from under a construction tarp hanging over one entrance to the E.V. Haughwout building at 490 Broadway, the scene was chaotic, yet subdued.

The fire trucks drove away, and I entered bebe, a clothing store housed in the bottom floor of the building. Inside, the brightly colored clothing, shiny white floor, and abundant mirrors were in stark contrast to the historic grandeur of the outside.

Looking at the cast iron columns, part of the building’s façade modeled after a library in Venice, I could see why the building is deserving of its landmark designation. Built in 1857, the E.V. Haughwout Building at 490 Broadway had the world’s first commercial passenger elevator, built by the Otis Elevator Company. According to Otis's website, “The price of the elevator was US $300. The unit rose at a speed of 40 feet per minute (0.2 meters per second)," meaning that it took about a minute to travel from the first floor to the fifth. The building was one of the many on the north side of Broome St. that would have been demolished to make way for Robert Moses’s planned Lower Manhattan Expressway. The landmark designation, despite Robert Moses’s protestations, protected it. It was the first in a series of decisions that prevented the expressway from ever being built (Wrestling With Moses By Anthony Flint).

Once a department store that sold luxury items such as china (Mary Todd Lincoln bought some for the White House here), the building more recently housed a Staples, and currently a bebe, an “aspirational women’s fashion brand” according to the RKF real-estate firm. Inside I saw shiny shoes, gaudy colors, high prices ($34 for a ribbed cotton tank top), but no elevator. The elegant historic appearance of the outside, compared with the garish modernity of the inside was depressing, however, it is far better than no building and a six-lane highway roaring overhead.