889 Broadway, also known as the Gorham Manufacturing Company Building, is a Queen Anne style building located at Broadway and East 19th Street in the Flatiron District of Manhattan in New York City, within the Ladies' Mile Historic District.
The stories above the second floor were originally rented as bachelor apartments until Gorham expanded into the rest of the building.
The site was initially owned by members of the wealthy Goelet family,[1] originally from the Netherlands.
[2] The Goelet family had a long tradition of investing in New York City real estate.
[1] Peter Goelet, known for "tenaciously" holding on to all real-estate that he owned,[3] was the first to buy land in the area in the 1840s.
Another family member, Almy Goelet, purchased the site of the Gorham Building across the street in 1845-1846.
[12][14] B. Altman and Company moved in 1906 to 355-371 Fifth Avenue, between 34th and 35th Streets, diagonally across from the present Empire State Building.
The Gorham Company moved later the same year to 390 Fifth Avenue, a block north at 36th Street,[4] which had opened in September 1905.
[15] The building was converted by John H. Duncan in 1912 into lofts and offices, removing a corner tower and adding roof dormers.
[16][22] First used in the United States in the 1860s, the Queen Anne style included such features as asymmetric brick facades, stone decorative trim, elaborate ornamentation, and roofs interrupted by dormers or gables.
[22] The lowest two stories comprise the base of the building and were originally designed for commercial tenancy.
[22] Along Broadway, the original three-bay facade on the first floor was replaced in 1912 with the current five-bay-wide storefront, made of limestone.
Notable features of both facades include segmental arches above the fifth floor of several bays, as well as carved scroll motifs and slightly projecting piers.