I’M the first to admit when I’m stumped. In early February 2024, I walked 37th Street for my Forgotten NY Crosstown series, but like so many series I have shot the last couple of years, I haven’t got around to writing the page yet. However, I can’t resist highlighting this enormous brick building between 9th and 10th, so big it has two entrances with two separate house numbers, 438 and 448. The internets are quiet about the building, but in NY Songlines, Jim Naureckas says:
According to the Hell’s Kitchen/Clinton History Project, this site was originally a glass factory built in 1758 in an rural neighborhood then called Newfoundland. By 1763 it was a tavern or roadhouse. Eventually this became the Underhill Building, and by 1982 the Glass House Farm Cooperative.
New York Before says: “Located in Hell’s Kitchen / Clinton, this tall building designed by Hill & Stout was completed in 1915.”
I do have a clue what the building’s purpose was. There’s a lot of nice terra cotta work on the exterior, which drew my camera to it. As is the rule in NYC now, the ground floor is sidewalk scaffolded to deter skulkers with cameras, but above the second floor windows, you see these fish and anchor symbols.
I recognized them. The building must have hosted printing concerns and presses, or perhaps a newspaper. From my #20 Vesey Street page:
Italian pressman Aldus Manutius (1449-1515) who established one of Italy’s finest printing presses in Venice in 1493. It is thought he invented the slanted style we call italic type.
Aldus is the name of a former software company that made, you may recall, an early giant in the desktop printing biz, Aldus Pagemaker. It was purchased by Adobe, which updated it through 2001; Adobe has pretty much succeeded it with the more complex InDesign.
Flocks of NYC streets are named for the signers of the Declaration of Independence, NYC mayors, Trinity Church vestrymen, classical composers, even astronauts. But printers? Why not?
Aldus Street in Longwood, Bronx runs through the former estate of Colonel Robert Hoe, inventor of the rotary press. When the city developed the area and streets were cut through, three were named Hoe Avenue (which is still there) Guttenberg Street (now East 165th), and Aldus Street.
Now, what newspaper or press occupied the building? Comments are open.
Historian Joe Ditta passes along this article, which indicated the Underhill Building was indeed a printing center.
Check out the ForgottenBook, take a look at the gift shop. As always, “comment…as you see fit.” I earn a small payment when you click on any ad on the site.
5/29/25
4 comments
Is not fish,is dolphin
“Peter Siebel of 252-47 Brattle Road, Little Neck, Queens, head of the Peter Siebel Publishing Corporation, printers, of 438 West Thirty-seventh Street, died yesterday in Long Beach, Calif., where he went recently for his health, according to word received here. His age was 57.”
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/1949/03/05/archives/i-peter-siebel-j.html
There’s also a reference to Siebel Co. in this PDF: https://ia801202.us.archive.org/3/items/pressbook-wb-20-million-sweethearts/pressbook-wb-20-million-sweethearts.pdf
worked in this building for a very short time in 1981
Kevin has a mystery. And now you’re a witness. You have to give more clues, such as who you worked for and what you did and what it was like in the building. It’s like someone being at the Hindenburg explosion in 1937 and saying, “yeah, I was there” and stopping there and not saying anymore.