Puck Building

The Puck Building is a seven-story office structure in SoHo featuring red brick facades with vertical bays and horizontal bands of arcades and arches. It occupies an entire city block and blends retail spaces on lower levels with office areas supported by cast-iron columns, while recent renovations have added luxury penthouses.

Completed in 1886, architect Albert Wagner designed this Romanesque Revival structure to house Puck magazine and the J. Ottmann Lithographing Company. This combination of publishing and printing operations made it a major center for media and graphics production in the late 1800s.

Two gilded statues of Puck from Shakespeare's works stand at the entrance, each holding a mirror and pen to symbolize the magazine's editorial mission. These figures remain iconic to the building's identity and mark its origins as a publishing house dedicated to satire.

The building sits centrally on Lafayette Street and is easily accessible on foot, with lower-level entrances directly accessible from the street. The surrounding neighborhood offers good transit connections and many other attractions nearby to explore.

The building was once considered the largest structure in the world dedicated entirely to lithography and publishing. This specialized focus made it a hub for graphic arts and printing innovation during an era when these crafts defined media production.

Location: Manhattan

Architects: Albert Wagner

Architectural style: Romanesque Revival architecture, Rundbogenstil

GPS coordinates: 40.72472,-73.99528

Latest update: December 20, 2025 00:28