On Hallowed Ground: Where the Pulps were made

Frank Munsey Co./Red Star

You may have noticed I've been posting pics from the recent trek my wife and I made to New York City. One of my goals was to see what's become of the editorial offices of my favorite pulp magazines. The results were underwhelming. The building above, at 280 Broadway, is the best of the bunch. Near as I can tell, construction on this one began back in 1845, with additions and such until 1917, when the New York Sun moved in. The Sun was a Munsey paper, and the offices for such Munsey mags as Argosy and Detective Fiction Weekly were housed here. Coincidently, this is only about a block from the current office of Dell Publications, the modern day heir to the pulp tradition. 

Popular Publications

 

205 East 42nd Street - little more than a block from Grand Central Station - was home to Popular Publications, purveyors of such fine magazines as Dime Detective and The Spider. This building went up in 1927, and tenants now include CUNY and the United Way of New York. I could almost imagine Frederick Nebel going in the front door to meet with Harry Steeger, if I could tell where the front door was.

 

Street & Smith

 

Street and Smith, from whence The Shadow and Doc Savage ventured forth, was at 79 7th Avenue. This building, at 77, has eclipsed that space, on the edge of toney Chelsea. That's the Westside Market at street level. Condos in this place now go for up to - and over - a million bucks. Heck, wouldn't you cough up a million to live in the Shadow's sanctum?

Trojan Publications

 

From this hallowed ground at 125 East 46th Street came such classy mags as Dan Turner - Hollywood Detective and the Spicy line. That address no longer exists, but its replacement houses a bakery on the corner, and one of the main tenants is a branch of the New York Public Library. Gotta wonder what those librarians would think of the building's spicy past.