Wallet Card at the Lining Store

412 Washington Street in Hoboken, NJ has had a long and complex history. In 1853, an Odd Fellows Hall was built here. The original building burned down in 1893 and a brick building was erected in it's place. That building was gutted by fire in 1914. In 1915 merchant Max Hurwitz bought the property and built the current fireproof structure. Hurwitz moved his dry goods store, called The Lining Store, into the first floor, and rented out much of the rest of the building to the Odd Fellows. During World War One, the US government seized the building to house soldiers. The Odd Fellows never returned, but Hurwitz reopened the store after the war, and eventually owned several department stores in the area. In 1927 Hurwitz sold out to the W.T. Grant chain, which had a store in the building for 25 years. The upstairs floors became the Palace Garden Hall and hosted basketball games, boxing matches and dances. In the 1950s Grant sold out to another merchant and the location became Queen's Department Store, later Queen's Quality Furniture. By 1979 the second floor was home to a circus school run by Soviet immigrants. In 1981 the property was sold to a real estate developer who remodeled the building and turned it into a condominium.