The Terminal Warehouse is today partially occupied by a "mini-storage" facility. I kept the excess stuff that I, for some unknown reason, owned that didn't fit in my Manhattan apartment there for a couple of years (until I could finally afford a bigger place to live). Very interesting cast of characters hanging around that place, including some well-known musicians who used their storage rooms as practice spaces, which definitely brightened up the otherwise dreary surroundings.

Still there, looks relatively untouched:

View Larger Map

I'm pretty jazzed about that.

Sometimes searching the names of the old firms in the wonderful Shorpy photos yields surprises. Cornell Iron Works is still going and the in depth historical information on its website mentions this location on the far side of the cement mixer.

TahoePines, you are correct, thank you.

Knowing what it is I was able to find this illustration (or really grainy photograph?) of a similar machine.

The history of Otis Elevator and its headquarters building can be found in West Chelsea Historic District pages 81 to 84.

Putti; putti...

The Strange Device is, I believe, a skid-mounted (hence portable, sort of) steam-operated cement mixer. The large dark vertical cylinder is the boiler, the engine - also vertical - can be be seen to the right of it, and the big barrel is the mixer itself with its delivery chute facing us.

Now, back to Pico and Sepulveda.

But there is a steam dummy crossing the avenue just past the Otis building. Steam dummies were locomotives disguised with car bodies so as not to alarm horses.

[There's an automobile just a few feet away. - Dave]

And I, evidently, need new glasses!

I'm really curious as to what this device is in the lower left.
It looks like a giant Vacuum Cleaner?

I love the small details in these photos. In this one, unloading or more likely cleaning up the carcasses from a poultry car in the lower left corner.

The Otis building is still there!

The notorious reputation of "Death Avenue" for fatal train accidents has been mentioned here before. An extraordinary event occurred on the night of October 24, 1908, when 500 schoolchildren marched down the avenue, "carrying American badges and flags draped in mourning," to protest the death of 7-year-old Seth Low Hascamp. The boy had been "ground to death" the month before, when he fell off the top of a freight car at 11th and West 35th during a game of Follow-the-Leader.

The W&J Sloane Company was a high-end home furnishing business. Established in 1843, they filed for bankruptcy protection in 1985. Their retail store was at 888 Broadway, at 18th Street, now home to ABC Carpeting, a similar business. This area was known as the "Ladies Mile" district it had many stores catering to the well-to-do. Sloane eventually moved to the even more exclusive 5th Avenue.