West Coast Apartments (Manhattan Refrigerating Company)
107 Horatio Street | also 804 Washington Street, 90 Gansevoort Street, 808 Washington Street | West Village | built 1930
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The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.
Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.
- 1898
Archibald D. Russell leases his new West Street cold-storage warehouse to the Manhattan Refrigerating Company
Archibald D. Russell began as a banker in 1872 and later ran a real estate firm with Douglas Robinson, brother-in-law of Theodore Roosevelt; Elliott Roosevelt was a partner in the firm from 1883 to 1885. Between 1891 and 1898 Russell assembled land at West and Horatio streets and put up a cold-storage warehouse, which was leased to the newly organized Manhattan Refrigerating Company. The company, incorporated in 1894, succeeded an 1890 franchise that had supplied refrigeration to the West Washington Market, diagonally across West Street.
- 1906
The Manhattan Refrigerating Company asks the city to extend its refrigeration pipes through the meat district
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In 1906 the company petitioned the city for a license to run pipes east across West 14th Street, south down Hudson Street and west along Gansevoort Street, saying the area depended on the meat and produce trade. The city, which had begun looking harder at such franchises in 1905, disputed 2,800 feet of pipe the company had already laid between 1898 and 1906 under its 1890 franchise. Those pipes ran under West 14th, Horatio, Washington and Gansevoort streets.
“In 1906, MRC petitioned the City for a license to extend its pipelines easterly across West 14th Street, southerly down Hudson Street…”
- 1906
Thomas Albeus Adams, a former Swift & Co. manager, is heading the Manhattan Refrigerating Company by 1906
By 1906 Thomas Albeus Adams (1864-1940) was president and chairman of the Manhattan Refrigerating Company, posts he held through at least 1939. He had been New York general manager of the meatpacker Swift & Co., founded the distributor Adams Brothers Co. with his brother Robert in 1898, and was president of the Gansevoort Bank on West 14th Street from 1898 to 1906. He also controlled affiliated cold-storage firms in Brooklyn and Jersey City, and is credited with helping secure New Jersey's cooperation on the Holland Tunnel.
- 1912
The estate of the Rev. Eugene A. Hoffman, a seminary dean, owns the site of a new refrigerating warehouse
In 1911 Samuel V. and Louisa N. Hoffman acquired the lot at 105-107 Horatio Street and a year later it passed to the estate of Eugene Augustus Hoffman. The Rev. Hoffman, an Episcopal priest ordained in 1853 and dean of the General Theological Seminary from 1879, was described by the Times at his death as the wealthiest clergyman in the nation, with an estate put at $10-15 million. The seven-story warehouse, designed by J. Graham Glover and built in 1912-13, was one of three additions to the Manhattan Refrigerating Company's plant, which bought it in 1925.
“…was appointed dean of the General Theological Seminary in Chelsea in 1879.”
- 1917
The city grants Manhattan Refrigerating its pipe franchise, and the plant grows to nine buildings
The company reapplied for its refrigeration franchise in 1915 and the city granted it in 1917; the service area centered on what is now the Gansevoort Market Historic District. Starting from three buildings, it expanded in 1912-13, 1925-26, 1932 and 1935 until it held nine, nearly the whole block. Adams's sons, T. A. Adams Jr. and John Quincy Adams, took over the business, and John sold the company in 1978.
- 1931
The New York Central's real estate arm builds a cold-storage warehouse that the elevated freight line passes through
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Between 1916 and 1931 the New York State Realty & Terminal Company, a subsidiary of the New York Central Railroad, assembled the lots for a nine-story warehouse along Washington Street, with Gansevoort and Horatio streets on its sides. Designed by John B. Snook Sons and built in 1931-35, it was the last cold-storage addition to the Manhattan Refrigerating Company's plant, and the railroad's elevated freight line was built to pass through it. The refrigerating company bought it in 1941 and used it until the late 1960s; other known tenants dealt in poultry.
“The railroad's elevated freight line was constructed to pass through this structure.”
- 1980
Rockrose converts the nine former Manhattan Refrigerating buildings on the block into apartments
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In 1980-82 the nine former refrigerating company buildings on the block were joined internally and converted into apartments by the architects Rothzeid Kaiserman & Thomson for the Rockrose Development Corporation, owned by the Elghanayan brothers. Apart from the company and its affiliates, the tenants had dealt in meat, dairy, produce, citrus, frozen food or seafood. The Manhattan Refrigerating Company itself was dissolved in 1983.
Nearby
- 91 Horatio Street2 entries
- F. W. Devoe & Co. Factory110 Horatio Street | 8 entries
- 803 Washington Street2 entries
- 805 Washington Street1 entry
- 807 Washington Street1 entry
- 799 Washington Street3 entries