DeVinne Press Building

The De Vinne Press Building is a commercial building and former printing plant at 393–399 Lafayette Street, at the corner of Fourth Street, in the NoHo neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City, New York. The building was designed by the firm of Babb, Cook & Willard in the Romanesque Revival style. It is a New York City designated landmark and is on the National Register of Historic Places. The De Vinne Press Building is seven stories high, excluding the raised basement. The facade is made of brick and terracotta, with decorations concentrated on the southern and western elevations, which face Fourth Street and Lafayette Street, respectively. Each facade includes segmental arches and round-arched windows, as well as horizontal belt courses. Inside, the building has a mostly rectangular floor plan. The interiors were designed in a utilitarian style and were intended to accommodate the weight of printing presses. The load-bearing walls are made of brick, and the structure also contains cast-iron columns encased in brick piers. The building was built in 1885–1886 by Theodore Low De Vinne, a typographer and printer who led the De Vinne Press. He originally owned a 25 percent stake in the property, while the remaining share was owned by Roswell Smith, the founder of the Century Company. The structure expanded east between 1891 and 1892. The press closed in 1922, and De Vinne's heirs sold their interest to Smith's estate in 1929. The building was sold in 1938 to the Walter Peek Paper Corporation, which sold it in the early 1980s to Edwin Fisher. The ground floor has been occupied by Astor Wines and Spirits since 2006, while the upper floors were gradually renovated and converted to offices.