What a glittering transformation: The Diamond Exchange at 14 Maiden Lane in New York City has become the Diamond Exchange condominiums.
The 10-story skyscraper in the city’s Financial District features nine private full-floor homes and a commercial space. Prices for the Diamond Exchange start under $2.6 million—a nice price, says Thomas Guss of New York Residence, the brokerage representing the property, for such a storied building, location, and amenities.
“The history isn’t decoration. It’s built into the architecture.…We didn’t have to invent a story; we only had to tell it,” he says.
In the 1800s, Maiden Lane was the center of the U.S. diamond trade. Dating back to 1894, the Diamond Exchange building, one of the last surviving designs by architect Gilbert A. Schellenger, has dreamy oversize bay windows, engineered so diamond dealers could examine their stones with plenty of daylight.
Let’s talk design: Each residence is about 1,300 square feet with two bedrooms and a flex space that can become a bedroom or an office. Its open kitchens feature Viking, Bosch, and Dacor appliances. Two full bathrooms include steam showers, white oak chevron floors, multi-zone heating and cooling, and a Bosch washer and dryer.
The lobby, which has a virtual doorman, a package room, and optional storage, is decorated with a diamond-shape chandelier that once hung in Harrods Buenos Aires.
Guss says the building’s developer had just completed the renovation of 131 Duane Street, one of the last cast-iron buildings in Tribeca and within walking distance of Maiden Lane, when this property became available. It felt like a natural fit given the team’s experience with historic architecture, he says.
“As a project, it was unusually attractive: a 10-story skyscraper dating from 1894, purpose-built for a single trade, with a footprint that allows every residence to occupy an entire floor. That combination is rare in lower Manhattan,” Guss says. “The building was also not landmarked, and therefore at risk to be demolished. We saw an opportunity to preserve a piece of New York history by giving it a new and attractive purpose.”
Maiden Lane was established as a center of New York’s jewelry trade as early as the late 18th century, and in 1892 developers Abraham Boehm and Lewis Coon acquired the site to build a tower specifically intended for the diamond and jewelry trade, Guss says.
“When it was completed in 1894, a 10-story building with an elevator was still remarkable. It featured reinforced floors capable of supporting the heavy safes required by the trade and large windows providing the abundant daylight diamond dealers prized,” he says.
Soon, more than 300 jewelry firms were concentrated within a two-block stretch of Maiden Lane, with the most prominent firms occupying offices in The Diamond Exchange.
As rents increased in the early 20th century, the trade gradually migrated north, first toward Canal Street and the Bowery and eventually to West 47th Street, where New York City’s Diamond District is located today.
“In a very real sense, today’s Diamond District has its roots on Maiden Lane,” Guss says. “Just one year after the Diamond Exchange was completed, its developers sold the building for $375,000, an extraordinary sum in 1895, equivalent to roughly $15 million in today’s purchasing power.”
Top: The Diamond Exchange at 14 Maiden Lane in New York City now houses full-floor condominiums available for sale. (Photos courtesy of New York Residence)
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