Former Tiffany Building

History and architecture

The former Tiffany & Company Building at Fifth Avenue and 37th Street is one of the most elegant commercial palaces in New York. Built in 1903-06, the structure was designed by McKim, Mead & White, one of the nation's most influential architectural firms. The design, modeled on the sixteenth-century—Palazzo Grimani in Venice, provided a suitable setting for the fifth (and third-major) home of America's premier jewelers, Tiffany and Company, which had grown in wealth and prestige throughout the second half of the nineteenth century. The move of the firm to this location from Union Square reflected the continuing northward—movement of retail establishments in New York City in the early years of the twentieth century and helped to establish Fifth Avenue as the city's most exclusive shopping street.

Charles Louis Tiffany (1812-1902), the founder of the company, began his merchandising career at the age of fifteen, managing a family-owned general store, then joining his father, Comfort, in a cotton-manufacturing business which became known as C Tiffany & Son. In 1837, with a loan from his father, Charles joined a former classmate, John B. Young, in opening a stationery and notions store located at 259 Broadway. The year was not an auspicious one in which to begin a new commercial venture. The city and the country were in the grips of one of the worst financial crises yet experienced, known as the Panic of 1837. So severe was this economic depression that it must not have greatly surprised Tiffany and Young that their sales for the first three days of business totaled $4.98.

Nonetheless, the firm survived its initial difficulties, expanding in 1841 by bringing J. L. Ellis in as a partner and sending John Young to Europe as the store's agent. Within four years the store had shifted its merchandise from stationery and notions to Bohemian glass, porcelain, and jewelry of a quality and beauty far above any of its competitors, and with Young as its agent in Europe, the store was able to make available to the New York public fine grades of jewelry from Italy and England.

The firm continued to prosper throughout the decade. After 1851, Tiffany, Young & Ellis made its first move north along Broadway to No. 271, a particularly fortuitous location opposite the A.T. Stewart department store which had opened the year before.

Young and Ellis left the company in 1853, and the firm name was changed to Tiffany & Company. In keeping with the trend to grand palazzo structures, Tiffany made its third move in 1854 to 550 Broadway.

Above the front door was installed the famous nine- foot wood figure of "Atlas," carved by Henry Frederick Metzler to support the store's master clock. This figure became a Tiffany symbol and has adorned every Tiffany store since.