132 Madison Avenue (New York City, New York)

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4-story Italianate office building originally completed in the 1840s as a mansion. By 1856 it was occupied by Madame Bergier’s Boarding and Day School for Young Ladies. By the time the first shots were fired in the Civil War, Madame Bergier’s Boarding and Day School for Young Ladies was gone. The large mansion seems to have been operated as a high-class boarding house in August 1863 when resident R. S. Walter was drafted into the Union Army.

The former mansion continued to operate as a boarding house until 1904, when it was occupied by the Women’s Domestic Guild, which offered 22 rooms as housing for household servants. Within only a few years the former mansion became a hub of firms involved in the architectural business.

By the 1920s the millinery and garment districts had moved northward, engulfing the area. In 1921, the building's then-owner, J.W. Bell, ommissioned architect A. A. Hopkins to convert No. 132 Madison Avenue into “four-story offices.” The $5,000 renovation corresponded with the city’s widening of Madison Avenue that same year. The result was a beige stuccoed facade, the removal of the grand stoop (the arched entranceway was converted to a window), and the lowering of the doorway to ground level. A vast show window was installed on the former parlor floor, with iron framing dividing it into many small, square panes. The upper floors have three bays of segmental-arched windows, with the southern bay just barely projected forward.

On the 31st Street side, the coursed stone raised basement level has five segmental-arched openings at street-level for glass-block windows, three grouped in the center, and one at each end. Above, the parlor-level has five tall segmental-arched windows, four of which are framed by flat, beige pillars with rather flat Corinthian capitals. These once likely supported a long cast iron balcony. The upper floors each have four segmental-arched windows - in straight lines at the eastern, center, and western bays, and in varying positions at the other two bays, depending on the floor. Both facades are capped by a black iron roof cornice. The rear, western wall has two bays of square-headed windows at the north end, and the further-projecting south end has another bay, with a single bay of windows at the resulting sidewall. A black metal fire escape runs down the northern wall, and piping is attached to the southern wall.

For over a decade, before the garment district moved north of 34th Street, No. 132 Madison Avenue was home to children’s wear, lingerie companies, and manufacturers of dresses and women’s suits. Then, in 1959, the house where wealthy girls read French poetry and swept up the mahogany staircase in antebellum skirts, was converted to a restaurant. Department Buildings documents noted that the kitchen and one dining room were in the basement; the dining room, bar rooms, coat check room and office were on the first floor, and that all the upper floors were “to remain permanently vacant.” Only three years later another conversation resulted in offices throughout; today the building is occupied by the Christian Herald organization.