Woods Mercantile Buildings

History and architecture

The Woods Merchantile Buildings at Nos. 46-50 White Street are handsome examples of mid-19th century commercial architecture. Built of marble with a cast-iron ground floor, these two buildings were designed as a single unit in a simplified style based on Renaissance architecture. They were erected in 1865 by Samuel and Abraham Wood as first class storehouses.

For fifty years after its opening in 1806, White Street was a quiet middle-class residential street. With the massive waves of emigrants from Germany and Ireland beginning in 1848 and the discovery of gold in California in 1849, much of which flowed into the city's barks, the city underwent a period of rapid growth and northward expansion. The small Federal and Greek Revival private houses that lined the section of Broadway near White Street were rapidly replaced or converted to commercial use. The sidestreets maintained their residential character a few years longer than Broadway, but by the outbreak of the Civil War, they too were redeveloped for commercial purposes.