874 Broadway loft featured in DWR catalogue

not ‘news’ but fun
They are not going to pay me a dime, nor send me a free couch, but I happen to love spending quality time once in a while with the catalogue for Design Within Reach. I wasted some time  took a break did some Manhattan loft research today with the May catalogue. Sadly, the catalogue does not appear to be on-line, but (for reference) it is the catalogue cover pictured here. (Maybe some of the interior photos are on the website, but I gave up wandering about looking for them. There have to be limits on wasting some time  taking a break doing Manhattan loft research.)

Manhattan lofts are. of course, often used in photo shoots, just as they are in movies. Probably more often, places that look like Manhattan lofts are featured, though they were really shot in Denver, or Toronto, or wherever.

If you have the May DWR catalogue, turn to the double spread on pages 16-17, and pages 20 through 28 (some are without page numbers). Not only does the space and the soft-focus buildings out the window look Manhattan loft-ish, but I can identify the exact Manhattan loft, though I was only there once, about two years ago.

These photos were taken in the living room of the Manhattan loft #301 at 874 Broadway (the McIntyre), facing south and west. When I saw it at an open house it was in somewhat rough condition, but the walls and windows were painted white. Either this new catalogue has very old pictures, or the new owners restored but stripped and left rough the windows, the (plaster?) walls, the radiators, and brick elements after buying it in October 2009. I would not have been absolutely certain in the instant I first saw the catalogue pix, except for the stenciling on the window on page 16 in the catalogue.

Compare the catalogue pic to the fifth photo in the StreetEasy listing, and to the first photo in the Corcoran listing, still on the web here. If you can play with the photos enough to enlarge them you will read (backwards) the bottom two lines of the window stencil that is easily read in the catalogue: “Room 303 / Collating / Zero…” (“zeroxing”, most likely) and that Corcoran site photo clearly shows the red and white buildings also seen in the catalogue, which are on East 18 Street, cater-corner across Broadway.

Just a fun thing that has proven to be very distracting today. Note to self: be more careful about wasting some time  taking a break doing Manhattan loft research with other media.

© Sandy Mattingly 2011