640 Broadway ca. 1949
While it’s certainly the most famous Empire State Building, the skyscraping structure on the corner of 34th Street and 5th Avenue was not actually the first “Empire State Building.” That title belonged to a somewhat more terrestrial, but still extant, building at the corner of Bleecker Street and Broadway.
In the mid-late 19th century, a six-story brick and stone structure sat on a 25′ x 300′ footprint at 640 Broadway between Bleecker and Crosby Streets. The ground floor was home to the Empire State Bank, with manufacturers located in the lofts above.
In November 1895, a fire later determined to be arson, burned the building to the ground. The fire ended the Empire State Bank, which applied to the Supreme Court for dissolution on February 18, 1896. The owner immediately moved to rebuild. He hired architects De Lemos and Cordes, who that same year designed the Siegel-Cooper Building (now part of the Ladies’ Mile Historic District), and would go on to design Macy’s Herald Square.
Opening in 1897, the new building at 640 Broadway helped transform this neighborhood (designated the NoHo Historic District in 1999). At the time, the area was transitioning from 5-6 story loft buildings to taller buildings, such as the Bayard Condict Building located directly across the street from 640 Broadway at 65 Bleecker Street.
In honor of his former tenant, owner B. Lichtenstein named 640 Broadway the Empire State Building. This was more than 30 years prior to the development of its more famous namesake.
When the “original” Empire State Building opened it housed dozens of manufacturing companies employing hundreds of young women. Fires broke out in the building in 1904, 1909, 1919, and 1921, but miraculously no one was killed. Dramatic rescue stories were reported in the Sun and Times.
With the advent of its taller and more famous cousin uptown, it became less and less common to refer to 640 Broadway as “The Empire State Building.” On top of that, during the 1940s and 50s, the neighborhood in which 640 Broadway was located went into a precipitous decline. Many of the once grand hotels in the area became flophouses and shooting galleries; some even collapsed.
By the 1960s, the building had taken on an entirely different character. In 1965 the offices of the protest group May 2nd Movement were located in the building. This group provided legal counseling to those seeking to avoid the Vietnam War draft.
In 1971 the building housed the offices of the Law Commune, who successfully defended the Black Panthers against 156 counts of bombing, arson, attempted murder, and other crimes. They also defended Abbie Hoffman following his September 5, 1973 arrest for selling $36,000 worth of cocaine with a street value of $500,000. When arrested, he gave his address as “640 Broadway in Greenwich Village”. Hoffman skipped bail and underwent plastic surgery. After six years in hiding, sometimes dressing as an Orthodox Jew, Hoffman surrendered and was sentenced to three years, of which he served one year.
