Dali Market (New York City, New York)

 grocery / grocery store  Add category

2-story mercantile building originally completed in 1860 as a 4-story residential building with a commercial ground floor. The upper floors were operated as a boarding or lodging house. At least by 1876 Frederick Trope ran his grocery business at street level. By 1900 the grocery business was taken over by F. W. Jaeck, who listed himself as a butcher. In 1910 the former grocery store was now a saloon, run by Michael J. Collins.

The garment and millinery industries, long centered around Broadway below 14th Street, were inching closer to No. 461 Seventh Avenue. The change in the neighborhood was accelerated when Rowland H. Macy surprised New Yorkers with his announcement in July 1901 that he was abandoning 14th Street. He planned to build a gigantic new store on 34th Street, running through to 35th Street along Broadway. The nine-story structure would be a commercial phenomenon. Diagonally opposite No. 461 Seventh Avenue, on the southwest corner of 34th Street and Broadway, sat a similar structure. Henry Siegel, owner of a major competitive dry goods store, had discovered Macy’s plan before he had a chance to buy up all the property. Siegel outbid Macy on the corner lot, paying $125,000. Undeterred, Rowland Macy built his mammoth department Store around the stubborn holdout. It was a frustrating situation that would repeat itself before too long.

In June 1917 Margaret D. Thomas purchased 4-story building on the Seventh Avenue corner. In 1924 Macy’s expanded, opening the “West Building,” increasing its selling space to 1.5 million square feet. Five years later, in September, it announced it would expand again. The store purchased a three-story and a 16-story structure on Seventh Avenue and negotiated for No. 461. Margaret D. Thomas, perhaps holding out for more money, declined to sell. Once again Macy’s found itself building around an annoying corner building that refused to budge.

In 1932 the building was reduced to two floors, and converted to a synagogue on the 2nd floor for the Garment Center Congregation, with a cigar store and soda fountain on the ground floor. The building is now occupied by Dali Market. The stuccoed facade is painted grey, and there are tripartite windows in white-painted frames on the 2nd floor. Those at the west side of the northern elevation have been filled in. The ground floor has display windows, and an angled, beige metal awning. A white-painted metal cornice caps the roof line.