Without documented evidence or further scientific tests, the brick symbol’s age remains speculative. But the bricks themselves are re-used and its mortar appears noticeably different (“...more robust”) than the surrounding wall – so the installation is assumed to post-date the original construction of the building in 1831. The symbol was also constructed as a “Pipe Chase” to conceal utility conduits, which may offer a valuable clue to its date.
The following speculative theory considers circumstantial evidence that suggests a date in the mid to late 1830’s. This is based on the narrow width of the pipe chase, the hand cut bricks, the history of modern utilities in Manhattan, the concerns of the building’s owner, William Colgate, and other factors.
Gas pipe was first laid in New York on Pearl Street in the early 1820’s, with the New York Gas Company being founded in 1823. Gas illumination met early resistance due to safety concerns, but it soon became the standard for lighting in the 19th century (replacing whale oil). Underground water (pumped in from 14th St.) also arrived on Pearl Street in the 1820’s. So construction of the warehouse coincides with the first underground utilities in Manhattan and would not necessarily be inconsistent with a pipe chase installed in the building.
But if gas lines were servicing Pearl Street in the 1820’s, why didn’t William Colgate connect his building in 1831? Colgate welcomed innovation, but he was also a leading firefighter in the city, and we know that he did not install gas lighting at his nearby Dutch Street soap factory in the late 1820’s because it was considered a fire hazard. So he probably held off at 211 Pearl Street for the same reason, even as many merchants were beginning to install gas at the time.
But with improvements to the system (and perhaps some badgering from his merchant tenants), he may have accepted gas lines - possibly within just five years of completed construction. The brick wall encasement would have added a measure of fire safety. And as a double pipe chase, it may have also included water running down from a roof drain.
The location of the pipe chase - near the storefront entrance and rising no higher than the ground floor ceiling - may also be a clue to its use and installation date. Perhaps it lit a mercantile auction space at the front of the building.
It may also be a later addition for electricity (Edison’s first power plant was established just two blocks away on Pearl Street in 1882). Or was it merely decorative - done for a 20th century restaurant or pub? Or is it simply the whim of an unknown bricklayer at some point along the building’s history? The historical record is still blank.
Short of hard evidence, 1837 accounts for gas utility history in Manhattan and Colgate’s fire safety concerns. It also remains within the era of a very similar geometric pattern set in marble and found on the rotunda floor at Federal Hall (1835, Town and Davis) in lower Manhattan. Only mortar analysis at Testwell Laboratories, to be completed by the first week of July, may point towards the truth.