Peerless Building in NYC

[Guest South_paw]

Hi All,

Would you guys like to see pictures from the Peerless Motor Car building on Broadway as it stands today? I was invited to bring my 1956 Cadillac there a couple of years ago(the building was sold by Peerless to GM and later became a GM Cadillac owned dealership). Most of the pictures have Cadillac related content but you will be able to see the inside of the building and the car size elevator in it that Peerless used. Yes it still works! Let me know. I have a bunch of pics.

[Guest BJM]

Lou,

Yes, Peerless fans love photos of anything Peerless. Also I wonder if I can get emailed photo set if digital.

My email is abc.moran@netzero.net

Thanks Jake

[Richard Lichtfel]

I have pictures of this facility and the floor plan when it openned. I will dig them out and try to post them. This has been a busy summer with tours and shows and I have not had much time in my office. We just got back from the New London to New Brighton run and this weekend we are showing at the Milwaukee Masterpiece. And to top it off I got run over by a 1907 Brush in Brighton, that has slowed me down some. The doctor didn't believe I got run over by a brush and I had to show him a picture of it. Next week I can kick my shoes off and spend some time catching up on my paper work.

RHL

[Guest South_paw]

Ok, here we go. We'll start off with the period pictures first

Here's the building in 1909

here's the floor layout(sorry for the small pic. I have much larger pic somewhere)

Forgive me, Is this a Peerless?

Here's the building in 1915 now owned by GM

Broadway side view undated photo. The church is long gone.

Here it is about 1939. Now a GM owned Cadillac dealership

[Guest South_paw]

Here's the building as it stands today.

The building is a New York City Landmark building. It's only had three tentants, Peerless, GM & Hearst Publications. Here's an article about the building http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/14/realestate/14scap.html?_r=1

[Guest South_paw]

In the picture above, look to the left side towards the end of the building at ground level. The last spot is the main building entrance. The spot before it is the entrance to the car size elevator. This elevator is capable of lifting 8000 lbs. to the top floor and you will see in the next few pics how I put it to the test!

Here's the main entrance,

and just to the right of it is the elevator and showroom entrance. Here's the door to the elevator.

[Guest South_paw]

Now just to the right of the elevator is large opening which leads to the showroom floor. It's stripped out now but what a grand showroom it must have been. Here's a pic, (just for sense of scale, thats a '68 Deville all the way up there)!

Here's the back end of the showroom

[Guest South_paw]

The Elevator,

Here's my 1956 Fleetwood loaded in the elevator ready for the trip to the 6th floor with me in it!

and here's my buddies '39 LaSalle in the elevator.

We had both of our cars up on the 6th floor for a cocktail party. The host was the realtor.

[Guest South_paw]

The cars mingled with crowd

Check out the view

At the end of the night it was another trip down the elevator to the street.

That's all folks! Hope I didn't bore you with the Cadillac stuff

[jeff_a]

Great pictures! That drawing looks like about a 1909 Peerless.

[jeff_a]

South_paw,

I was looking at your great pictures of the Peerless/GM/Hearst building again and finally got around to reading the NY Times story you left a link to. The ten-story building went up in 1909 for both the Peerless and Demarest companiess.

There was a carriage-builder/coachbuilder named Demarest who actually was one of at least 50 companies that were coachbuilders for Peerless. This is the same company -- one of those listed in the "Peerless Coachbuilders" thread here on the Peerless Forum.

Say, that party you took the 1956 Cadillac to was recent...2007! You should have invited some of us from the Peerless Motor Car Club to go, too! Maybe our member from Virginia could have brought his 1915 Mod. 48-Six Touring with the 578 Cu. In. engine -- or our member from New Jersey could have appeared with her 1930 Custom Eight Limousine at the party. Seriously, though....the party planners probably didn't know any of us, and the LaSalle and Cadillacs certainly looked good!

Did you know that at one point in time the paths of Cadillac & Peerless were intertwined? 1923 and 1924 were called "the Cadillac lookalike years" for Peerless. That's because most of of the upper management at Cadillac quit, bought Peerless, and ran it for two or three years. The two companies even had the same radiator shell design then!

Anyway, thank you again for sharing the excellent photographs of the Peerless Building.

----Jeff

Edited August 16, 2022 by jeff_a (see edit history)

[Guest South_paw]

Jeff,

Glad you enjoyed the pics. We would have loved to have a couple of

Peerless motor cars there. This will make you chuckle. If I remember correctly, we got the call on a Tuesday that they need the cars for that Thursday! When we agreed to make the trip into NYC for the event, we didn't have much of a clue of the historical significance behind it all. I also recall being bummed out a little that my car wasn't going into the showroom. Imagine that! How many chances do you get in life to put a 56 Cadillac or any car in a elevator and then drive it on the 6th floor inside of a building! Most of what happened that night didn't sink in until days later when we put all of the history together. It truly was a once in a lifetime experience!

I was not aware of the Peerless-Cadillac connection, thanks.

[jeff_a]

I think it would be possible to buy a pair of touring cars, one a 1923 Cadillac and one a 1923 Peerless, and take them to car shows together. My guess is they would be pretty hard to tell apart. Both would have nearly identical radiator shells, and both would have V-8's. As near as I've been able to tell, the Peerless had the bigger engine {331.8 vs. 314.5}...and the most horsepower {70 vs. 60+}. Both would have had 2-wheel mechanical brakes. In '24, Cadillac went to 4-wheel mechanical and Peerless went to 4-wheel hydraulic brakes...and Cadillac's motor went to 83 h.p.

Price for the Peerless 7-Passenger Touring Phaeton in 1923 was $2,990 -- and the Cadillac in that body style was $3,150 (later reduced to $2,885). Peerless production for the year was 5,400...Cadillac's was 23,009.

No doubt most of the readers here have been to the Hi-Line Vintage Motor Museum in Rudyard, Montana since they opened in 2007.* They have a '24 Cadillac 7-Passenger Phaeton on display there. Great, large, imposing car!

There's a '23 Cadillac Touring for sale in NC for $49,900, another in Illinois for $62,500**, and a '23 Peerless Mod. 66 Touring was for sale in Spain last year for only 73,000 euros (see "New Peerless Discovered" thread, post# 3 for a photo). Of these, the Peerless is the rarer car by far, and the prices accurately reflect this.

* If you haven't you should drop in!

** this has 31,000 miles on it, though...amounting to just over 350 miles a year of wear and tear

Edited November 9, 2010 by jeff_a
Added a lot of statistics. Cadillac owners are welcome to chip in, too. (see edit history)

[Richard Lichtfel]

The reason the 1922 Cadillac and Peerless look alike is because in 1921 Mr. Collins, President of Cadillac formed a corporation called the Collins Motor Car Company and raised 4 million dollars in capitol that was used to buy controlling interest in the Peerless Motor Car Company. Peerless management was completely replaced by Cadillac people.

Collins President

W.M.Collins Vice President (Collins son)

Mr. Lang Vice President former vice president of Cadillac

Mr. Cleary Adv. Mgr former adv. mgr. at Cadillac

Mr. Porter Treasurer former controler at Cadillac

Mr. McDaniel distribution mgr. former assistant dist. mgr at Cadillac

Mr. Burke V. President & general sales mgr. former sales mgr. Cadillac

Mr. Emig experimental eng. same position at Cadillac

Mr. Pearce assistant treas. had same position at Cadillac

Mr. Earhardt purchasing mgr. had same position at Cadillac

W.R.Milner body design engineer-had same position at Cadillac

F.h. Trester Secretary--assistant to Pres. at Cadillac

W.R.McClenaghan superintendent--same at Cadillac

Herman Schwarze electrical engineer--same at Cadillac

In August 1922 the new Peerless models were introduced and do you see why they looked like the Cadillac??

[alextheantiqueautoguy]

South_paw, Thanks for the pictures of the Peerless Building. I thought I had collected a fair number of photos but that layout of the interior was a phantastic find. If you have a larger version, please post it.

I don't have the reference in hand but the official name of the building to City of New York departments was the "Demerest/Peerless Building." Demerest was a publisher.

Peerless began to close all its Agencies in US cities in 1913. The property in New York, Boston and Chicago was among the assets of the company that a corporate raider could sell off for a tidy profit. The Boston building still exists, too, at 660 Beacon St. and is quite a handsom building even now.

This is the Google Map photo of the Peerless Building location, 3 blocks South of Central Park. That's Broadway sweeping up to the park.

Alex
www.theantiqueautoguy.com 

Edited December 11, 2020 by alextheantiqueautoguy (see edit history)

[jeff_a]

Just saw this today, Alex. Thank you for the modern view of the Peerless building.

[alextheantiqueautoguy]

Thank you for clearing up my whole perception of the building. The Demerest connection never was clear and I sure didn't understand there were two buildings built separately-together before.