160 Chambers Street

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5-story residential building completed in 1862 in the Second Empire style to a design by Samuel Thompson as the Third Precinct Police Station. It was converted to the House of Relief in 1875. At that time the aging structure was adequate; but before long business buildings filled the neighborhood and the increased population made caring for the injured and sick more and more taxing. By 1894, it was shabby and outdated, and the institution moved to its new quarters, The Hudson Street Hospital. A year later, the Chambers Street building was altered for use by the fire department's Engine Company No. 29.

The renovations resulted in a prim Italianate-inspired brick structure capped with a Second Empire mansard roof with two dormers of paired windows above a modillioned and dentiled cornice. The high stone base, capped by a smaller dentiled cornice, accommodated the large, centered engine opening that followed the traditional firehouse design. The smooth-stuccoed facade wasd painted red, with metal cornices over the windows; the center window of the 2nd floor has a triangular pediments, and the 3rd floor has a rounded pediment.

Two decades later the firefighters of Engine Company 29 left the station house for good when the house was decommissioned. For years it was used as a lumber and “building materials” yard with the top three stories empty. Then in 1983 it was converted by Lawrence Omansky into commercial space on the ground floor and residences—one per floor—above. Omansky kept the top two floors for himself as a duplex apartment.

The ground floor is currently occupied by Chambers Beauty Spa.

s-media.nyc.gov/agencies/lpc/lp/2564.pdf