Hope Building

131 Duane Street | also 135 Duane Street, 133 Duane Street | Tribeca | built 1862

Open on the map4 entries

The lot about 1940
About 1940. Via 1940s.nyc
The lot about 1985
About 1985. Via 80s.nyc

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.

  1. 1861

    Thomas Hope replaces Public School No. 10 with a marble dry-goods loft building

    A brick public school, P.S. 10, with an open yard had stood on the 131-135 Duane Street lots since before 1847. In 1861-62 Thomas Hope, head of the dry-goods wholesaler Thomas Hope & Co., put up the five-story Hope Building in its place. Its double-height marble arcades repeat the design of 129 Duane Street, built a year earlier. Its first tenants included the woolens importer Bauendahl & Co. and Henry W. T. Mali & Co.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  2. 1894

    A. Garside & Sons makes ladies' shoes with a workforce of more than 150 in the building

    By the 1880s shoe and boot manufacturers were taking over the Hope Building. A. Garside & Sons, which made only ladies' shoes, reported 85 men, 45 women and about 25 young workers in 1894, and by 1906 it employed 160 men and 50 women on a 52-hour week. In 1888 it advertised for shoemakers to make Oxford ties and Louis XV heels. Shoe firms were still tenants in the 1940s.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1982

    Loft tenants form the Duane Thomas Loft Tenants Association and win rent stabilization

    As Tribeca's factories emptied, tenants began living in the Hope Building's upper floors in the early 1970s, even though their leases limited them to commercial use; by January 1974 five lofts were occupied. In 1982 residents formed the Duane Thomas Loft Tenants Association, which claimed rent-stabilized status. The dispute went to court and the tenants won.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1998

    Henry Meer opens the City Hall restaurant on the ground floor

    The Hope Building's ground floor became a restaurant space in the 1990s. Maurya opened there in 1994, followed in 1997 by a restaurant called 131 Duane Street. A year later Henry Meer replaced it with his City Hall restaurant.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Further reading

Nearby

All 564 buildings with stories in Tribeca