History and architecture
The 8-story Keuffel & Esser Co. Building was constructed in 1892-93 to the design of De Lemos & Cordes as the general offices and salesrooms for the firm that imported and manufactured drawing materials, drafting tools, and mathematical and surveying equipment. The richly-detailed Renaissance Revival style primary façade on Fulton Street has a tripartite division: a 2-story, arched cast-iron storefront that bears the firm’s name and representations of its products; and buff brick- and terra¬ cotta-clad upper stories, with the midsection having a recessed monumental round-arched window capped by a foliated sculptural relief of a knight’s helmet, shield, and winged orb, and the upper section featuring a 2-story angled metal window bay and culminating in a decorative cornice and balustrade. There is a secondary articulated façade on Ann Street.
Theodore W. E. De Lemos & August W. Cordes, born and educated in Germany, established their firm in 1884 and were active within New York’s German-American community, becoming noted for commercial structures and large department stores. The Keuffel & Esser Co., the first American company solely devoted to drawing and drafting materials, was founded in 1867 on Nassau Street by two other German émigrés, Wilhelm J. D. Keuffel and Herman Esser. Early on, the firm was successful and continually expanded, tentatively starting manufacture in 1870, opening a retail store in 1872, moving to 127 Fulton Street in 1878, and constructing a factory in Hoboken, N.J., in 1880-81.
K&E introduced imported slide rules in 1880, began their first American manufacture in 1891, and became the nation’s foremost producer. Herman Esser was bought out in 1902, and the firm remained privately owned and managed by the Keuffel family until 1965.
K&E played a nationally significant role in the technological development of the United States, both as a leading manufacturer of drafting equipment, surveying instruments, and related products, and as the developer of continually advanced systems, until the 1980s. This building, which remained in use by K&E for nearly seven decades, is one of the best- preserved and distinguished of the smaller late-19th-century office buildings in the area of lower Manhattan between the financial district and City Hall.
Sources and further reading
This history comes from the Landmarks app’s historical catalog. Names and building uses may reflect the period described.