In response to our earlier story about the haunted Silicon Valley office park that has housed numerous failed or failing enterprises — Brobeck, Howrey, Wachovia, and Dewey — a commenter noted:
Have a look at the prior tenants of 1301 6th Ave. in NYC [Dewey’s headquarters in Manhattan]:
Lehman Brothers
Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison
Dewey & LeBoeuf
Lehman’s main headquarters was on Seventh Avenue, but the company did have a presence in 1301 Avenue of the Americas. Several readers sent us this photo (by David Shankman):
How The Law Office Of Stephen L. Thomas Jr. Reclaimed Valuable Hours And Strengthened Client Care With 8am
Founded in 2017, the Baltimore-based Law Office of Stephen L. Thomas Jr. unified case management, communication, and payments with 8am—saving 10–20 hours a week for clients, trials, and growth.
As you can see from the sign, one of Dewey & LeBoeuf’s predecessor firms, Dewey Ballantine, shared space with the ill-fated Lehman. No wonder James Stewart observed, over the weekend in the New York Times, that Dewey is “in many ways, the Lehman Brothers of the legal profession, although perhaps that’s unfair to Lehman Brothers” (because at least Lehman had “enormous assets on its balance sheet — while Dewey, like law firms generally, had scant tangible assets”).
In light of its jinxed office properties (and maybe even its jinxed partners), our final image seems eerily prescient, in hindsight….