579 Sixth Avenue (New York City, New York)

 commercial building  Add category

3-story Greek-revival commercial building completed in the 1840s as a row house with a ground-floor shop. The brick facade is now painted dark-grey. The 2nd floor has a 3-paned studio window flanked by white paired pillars, and the 3rd floor has three windows with wooden shutters. The original white roof cornice with brackets, panels and dentils tops the facade.

By 1859 the house was home Dr. William Charles Hunter. He hired architect Joseph M. Dunn to update the store in the summer of 1874, with a new interior and storefront. After 1880, Hunter leased his drugstore that year to E. Montanus, Jr., a graduate of the New York College of Pharmacy, although the business continued to use the name of W.C. Hunter. In the spring of 1885 J. W. Birdsall held the lease to the pharmacy. In the meantime, William and Frances Hunter still lived upstairs, where he died that same year. Despite his death, the W. C. Hunter Drugstore operated under that name in the building at least through 1907.

During the Depression years it saw a rapid-fire turnover in tenants. In 1930 it was leased to the Ervin Auction Company, in 1933 to Morris Stone, in 1934 to the Alexander Smith Contracting Corporation, and in 1937 to the G. W. Furniture Company. At mid-century it was home to Lampland, a retail lighting store. A renovation in 1981 resulted in office space on the upper floors and a restaurant at ground level. In the late 1990s and into the 2000s, the building housed a number of gay bars, including Heaven, Club 579, and Rush. The ground floor is now occupied by Oramen Japanese restaurant.