Fooled Ya

The east side of Broadway, just above Houston Street:

On the right, an obviously modern building. On the left, a cast-iron facade well within the norms on the late nineteenth century. In between, a surprisingly good ashlar stone facade, painted a bit peculiarly…nope. That’s a cast iron facade from 1859, designed by John Snook and developed by (and presumably cast by) Daniel Badger. That early on, the cast-iron designers and builders were still directly imitating stone.

In the black and white of a 1940 tax photo, the fakery is even more convincing: