First Tribune Building

This was the first Tribune Building on Printing House Square, seen the corner of Nassau Street and Spruce Street. This building was constructed on the same site of the first Tribune office at 160 Nassau Street, consumed by fire on February 5, 1845 (illustration at the bottom). This Tribune Building (illustration above) opened on May 29 of that year.

This illustration above, by Photo-Electrotype Co., was probably made between 1871, when the New York Daily Witness (see a sigh on the left) began to be published, and 1872 (source: New York Public Library). The illustration below, published in The Life of Horace Greeley, editor..., 1872, shows a much larger Tribune Building (or Tribune Buildings), encompassing the building on the left. The old Tribune Building was demolished in 1873 and the new Tribune Building was completed in 1875. More: Park Row in 19th Century ►

Burning of the old Tribune building, which occurred at four o'clock on the morning of February 5, 1845, during a heavy snow storm which had lasted twenty-four hours. A boy had lighted a stove, and in half an hour the apartment was in a blaze. The Tribune building and the adjoining structure on the corner of Spruce and Nassau streets were entirely destroyed in a short time. The streets were almost impassable (from Our firemen: a history of New York Fire Department by A. Costello, 1887). The neoclassical building, on the right, was erected by the Trustees of the Old Brick Church.