Old Ad: Hiram Anderson's "Great Carpet Establishment"

 

Inside Hiram Anderson's Great Carpet Establishment at 99 Bowery (c.1858), which billed itself as the “largest carpet establishment in the U.S.”

Today 99 Bowery hosts the Chinese-owned Olivia Furniture Corporation.

Steinway & Sons on the Lower East Side

Did you know that Steinway & Sons was once located on the Lower East Side?

Though German immigrant Heinrich Steinway founded in the iconic company 1853 out of a small shop at 75 Varick Street, his sons opened an upscale showroom at 107-109 E. 14th Street in 1864.

In 1866, they opened Steinway Hall in the rear of the showrooms, which quickly became the center of New York City's cultural elite. The concert hall hosted the New York Philharmonic for a quarter of a century, until they moved to the newer Carnegie Hall in 1891.

(Images: left, Steinway ad from 1907; right, a photo of 107-109 E. 14th Street from 1892).