254 Canal Street

 office building  Add category

5-story Renaissance-revival office building completed in 1857. Designed by James Bogardus as a manufacturing facility for George Bruce, a prosperous printer and inventor of new technologies in the printing industry. The ground floor has fluted, white cast-iron columns with wood and glass infill in between, divided into 12 bays on Lafayette Street, and 16 bays on Canal Street. The columns originally had Corinthian capitals, but they have been removed.

The columns continue on the upper floors, with a low balustrade between them at the base of the 2nd floor, which has square-headed windows. The three top floors all have round-arched windows with keystones. A dentiled and modillioned roof cornice wraps around both facades.

The building was home to Charles Scott & Co. in the 1860s, importers of embroideries, and in the 1880’s wholesale tobacco dealers Wise and Bendheim were here. In December 1910 the building was auctioned with 22 other properties comprising George Bruce’s estate. When Nathan Wilson purchased the building in 1948 from Moe Levy & Son, it was a manufacturing loft with various shops on the ground floor. In the early 1980s the ground floor was essentially covered over by slapped-on storefronts and the all but one of the wooden doorways were replaced by modern glass and metal entranceways. It was converted to offices in 1987 by architect Jack L. Gordon. Currently, the ground floor is occupied by a TD Bank branch, and an AT&T wireless store.