84. Puck Building
Location: 295-309 Lafayette Street
Built: 1885-1886; 1892-1893 and 1899 (additions and subtractions); 1983-1984 (restoration)
Architects: Albert Wagner and Herman Wagner
National Register Number: 83001740
Listed: July 21, 1983
Visited: October 12, 2008
Additional Information: New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission Designation Report
That's the Shakespearean Puck right up there, leaning on a pen and carrying a mirror, presumably reflecting the poor slobs down below.
This building was the home of the snark, not once but twice. First time was with the building's namesake, a satirical magazine that excoriated all manner of political and social figures of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era with nasty fantastic grotesquerie. A lot of the subjects dealt with are mostly urr and umm to me (for now), so while it's very interesting to note that Puck's cartoons may have swung Presidential elections, what this prisoner of the 21st century gets is all the identity politics stuff: they were pro-Semitic (yay, even if premised on stereotype), anti-Catholic (argh; this must've been real lulzy to the folks across the street), and anti-racist if not above portraying Frederick Douglass as an ape (guh)--as well as the Irish (OMFG).
A hundred years later, Spy Magazine took up residence here. You know it, or remember it--a comic scorner of all things celebrity. I used to read copies of it in the basement of Woodward Hall my freshman year at St. John's when I wasn't reading some incomprehensible translation from the Greek: it kinda thrilled me because I could get a moontan from its reflected New York sophistication and it kinda disturbed me because it gave me nothing to hold on to other than that, couldn't tell what it stood for, couldn't learn anything from it other than things not worth learning about, couldn't make sense of its stance. And it wasn't very nice, and I always fancied myself from kidhood on as awfully nice. So even as all the biggie magazines out there started to mimic its layouts, its Boschian density of factlets, it was something of a relief not to have to take Spy seriously any more when it started sucking a few years into its existence. And now that I know that VFer and truffled-mac-and-cheese-slinger Graydon Carter was partly behind it, I'm sorta sorry I gave the magazine even the slightest mental encouragement.
(If you're a follower of Gawker like I am, you might be amused to know the Puck is owned by the Kushners.)
The Puck was originally a little smaller--the taller back half of the building was added a few years after it was initially completed in 1886. But it was also a little wider. This is what the corner of Mulberry and Houston looks like today:
And this is how it looked in 1892, according to King's Handbook of New York City:
That's right: two bays' worth of building were sliced off the Puck like it was a block of Cracker Barrel Extra Sharp. You see, when the city decided to open up a three-block cul-de-sac--called Lafayette Place--that ran from Astor Place to Great Jones Street, and connect it to several other existing streets, the route of the new north-south thoroughfare went right through the Puck and several of its neighbors. While the latter were all destroyed, the Puck merely underwent major surgery in 1899, in the end gaining an entirely new Western face to meet Lafayette Street.
That's why the building has two Puck statues: the one on Mulberry and Houston stands over what used to be the original main entry, which was later replaced by a grander entrance with multi-story columns and a brownstone capital on which another Puck stands.
Built: 1885-1886; 1892-1893 and 1899 (additions and subtractions); 1983-1984 (restoration)
Architects: Albert Wagner and Herman Wagner
National Register Number: 83001740
Listed: July 21, 1983
Visited: October 12, 2008
Additional Information: New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission Designation Report
That's the Shakespearean Puck right up there, leaning on a pen and carrying a mirror, presumably reflecting the poor slobs down below.
This building was the home of the snark, not once but twice. First time was with the building's namesake, a satirical magazine that excoriated all manner of political and social figures of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era with nasty fantastic grotesquerie. A lot of the subjects dealt with are mostly urr and umm to me (for now), so while it's very interesting to note that Puck's cartoons may have swung Presidential elections, what this prisoner of the 21st century gets is all the identity politics stuff: they were pro-Semitic (yay, even if premised on stereotype), anti-Catholic (argh; this must've been real lulzy to the folks across the street), and anti-racist if not above portraying Frederick Douglass as an ape (guh)--as well as the Irish (OMFG).
A hundred years later, Spy Magazine took up residence here. You know it, or remember it--a comic scorner of all things celebrity. I used to read copies of it in the basement of Woodward Hall my freshman year at St. John's when I wasn't reading some incomprehensible translation from the Greek: it kinda thrilled me because I could get a moontan from its reflected New York sophistication and it kinda disturbed me because it gave me nothing to hold on to other than that, couldn't tell what it stood for, couldn't learn anything from it other than things not worth learning about, couldn't make sense of its stance. And it wasn't very nice, and I always fancied myself from kidhood on as awfully nice. So even as all the biggie magazines out there started to mimic its layouts, its Boschian density of factlets, it was something of a relief not to have to take Spy seriously any more when it started sucking a few years into its existence. And now that I know that VFer and truffled-mac-and-cheese-slinger Graydon Carter was partly behind it, I'm sorta sorry I gave the magazine even the slightest mental encouragement.
(If you're a follower of Gawker like I am, you might be amused to know the Puck is owned by the Kushners.)
The Puck was originally a little smaller--the taller back half of the building was added a few years after it was initially completed in 1886. But it was also a little wider. This is what the corner of Mulberry and Houston looks like today:
And this is how it looked in 1892, according to King's Handbook of New York City:
That's right: two bays' worth of building were sliced off the Puck like it was a block of Cracker Barrel Extra Sharp. You see, when the city decided to open up a three-block cul-de-sac--called Lafayette Place--that ran from Astor Place to Great Jones Street, and connect it to several other existing streets, the route of the new north-south thoroughfare went right through the Puck and several of its neighbors. While the latter were all destroyed, the Puck merely underwent major surgery in 1899, in the end gaining an entirely new Western face to meet Lafayette Street.
That's why the building has two Puck statues: the one on Mulberry and Houston stands over what used to be the original main entry, which was later replaced by a grander entrance with multi-story columns and a brownstone capital on which another Puck stands.
Labels: Albert Wagner, Herman Wagner, Little Italy, Nolita
posted by Michael at
7:10 AM
1 Comments:
Just discovered your 'Masterpiece' blog and like it. Am surprised to note, re: the Puck Building, that you correctly point out what was lost to a new Lafayette St., but neglected to note that two entire bays were also sliced off the north facade for the widening of Houston St. in the '30s when the IND subway was built under it.
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