The Story
The block of West Broadway between Broome and Spring belonged to the Lorillards. Through the 1860s, 70s, and 80s the tobacco family filled it with brick stores and factories, most by John B. Snook, a row the Landmarks Preservation Commission's 1973 designation report says defines the block's character. Mid-row, the record turns terse: 387-389 West Broadway, running through the block to 73-75 Wooster Street, architect unknown, commenced June 7, 1929, completed November 21, 1929, original function, garage.
The building worked for a living longer than almost anything around it, later housing cardboard box manufacturing and remaining an active manufacturing site into the mid-1990s, well after galleries had claimed the district. Chelsfield U.S.A., an arm of the London developer Chelsfield P.L.C., bought it in 1997 and completed the conversion in 2004, a project The New York Times reported cost more than $30 million. SLCE Architects cut a lightwell into the center of the plan and wrapped six lofts and two commercial units around it, behind 55 feet of casement windows on each street front.
Inside
Penthouse A holds the top floor and the roof. The loft runs 4,856 square feet under 15-foot ceilings, coffered above the great room, with a marble gas fireplace and the building's casement windows pulling light from two streets. Four bedrooms include a principal suite with a spa bath, and a staircase rises to an upper lounge with terrace exposure on three sides.
The lounge opens onto 3,008 square feet of private roof terrace fitted with an outdoor kitchen, a pergola, and a bocce court laid out above West Broadway. The penthouse last traded in November 2024, returned to the market this July, and went into contract in two days, in a doorman building with only five other homes.
The Neighborhood
The address sits inside the SoHo-Cast Iron Historic District, designated in 1973, with Wooster Street's Belgian blocks on one side and West Broadway's retail run on the other. The building's own ground-floor commercial condominium sold to Acadia Realty Trust for $25 million in early 2025, a measure of what this stretch has become. Snook's Lorillard buildings still line the rest of the block.
In Contract
