Tiffany Shines in Union Square, Briefly

This interesting story appeared in the New York Times yesterday.

Seems construction at 15 Union Square West has reminded the City that this building was once home to Tiffany & Company at the end of the 19th century. The broadsheet tells how you can sneak a peak at the original architecture along the 15th Street side, including "gently curving third-floor windows."

The story had a sad ending, though:

Feeling that Union Square had coarsened, Tiffany decamped in 1905 for Fifth Avenue and 37th Street. Twenty years later, the Union Square building was taken over by the Amalgamated Bank. In 1953, after a passer-by was fatally injured by a piece of loose cast iron, Amalgamated had the structure stripped and reclad.

According to city permits now posted at the construction site, the plan is to remove the facade entirely, add seven floors and convert the building to apartments.

Sigh.

Breakers at Tiffany's

I'm usually upset by news that an iconic store or restaurant has decided to divide itself and become that odious thing, a chain. This sort of greed-induced amoeba act always results in a watering down of the business' image and quality of service. Look at the P.J. Clarke's brach downtown, or the many extensions of Greenwich Village's John's Pizzeria, none of them a patch on the original Bleeker Street location.

Nonetheless, there's something right about the news that gem giant Tiffany's plans to open a new storefront at 37 Wall Street. That neighborhood is where most of their Fifth Avenue patrons work anyway, isn't it? There should be a Tiffany's in the Financial District, allowing money managers to pop in for a bauble for the wife or mistress on the way home from work. The space appears to be client-appropriate: an old Beaux Arts building with 35-foot-high ceilings.

The new store will actually be right around the corner from where Tiffany's began, at 237 Broadway. Back then it was called Tiffany and Young and sold, ahem, stationary and so-called "fancy goods." A few years later, it got around to jewelry. I believe you can still buy stationary on Fifth Avenue, up on the third floor.