Three holdout brownstones hiding in the Diamond District

For a block devoted to the jewelry trade, 47th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues has business bustle and energy…but not much sparkle.

Marked by two oversized diamond-shaped lights (below) and some colorful signage above some storefronts, the buildings lining the block dubbed the Diamond District seem drab—not unlike neighboring blocks with a similar mix of old brownstones and commercial loft buildings in the shadows of modern office towers.

It’s curious how this unlovely stretch of Midtown—a tidy townhouse and brownstone street in the Gilded Age—ended up as the modern-day Diamond District. Since the mid-19th century, New York’s jewelry district was firmly centered on Maiden Lane, according to Barak Richman in a 2020 article in The Conversation.

The reason for the move came down to the increasingly high rents for Maiden Lane’s old building stock. “When wealthier banks started driving up downtown rents in the 1920s, diamond businesses started moving uptown to 47th Street,” wrote Richman.

1-11 West 47th Street in 1913

One real-estate developer saw an opportunity. In 1923, “Fenimore C. Goode, a broker, promoted construction of a new building at 20 West 47th Street specifically to tempt the Maiden Lane firms,” wrote Christopher Gray in a 2008 New York Times column.

Diamond and jewelry concerns began relocating to Number 20, as well as new buildings that followed at 40 West 47th Street and One West 47th Street, stated Gray. Within a few years, Gray continued, “The Real Estate Record and Guide reported that the 47th Street block “has almost overnight become New York’s new Maiden Lane.”

75 West 47th Street

To make room for the trade, new construction came in, replacing the townhouses and brownstones. Some dark and forlorn low-rise holdouts still survive in the Diamond District though, hiding between bigger buildings and behind store signs.

28 West 47th Street

You can easily imagine 75 West 47th Street (above) as one in a row of handsome 19th century brownstones, likely with a high stoop leading to a parlor floor. Only the top two floors are visible now, grimy with age, along with the signature cornice.

28 West 47th Street, 1939-1941

Its neighbors underwent major makeovers, but 28 West 47th Street has remained the same—just as it looked in this 1939-1941 tax photo, above.

The prettiest holdout building might be this sweet walkup, below, at 33 West 47th Street. No cornice remains, a window is blocked by an air conditioner, and a two-story storefront obscures the bottom two floors. But imagine the romance that balcony might have inspired!

33 West 47th Street

[Third image: NYPL Digital Collection; fourth image: New-York Historical Society/Robert L. Bracklow Photograph Collection; seventh image: NYC Department of Records and Information Services]