142 Duane Street

Tribeca | built 1860

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.

1859
Earlier on the site, the Congress Steam Sugar Refinery occupied the lots of 142 to 146 Duane Street
Before the Italianate store of 1859-60, part of this site lay within Howell, King & Co.'s Congress Steam Sugar Refinery, which ran across what are now numbers 142, 144 and 146. The rest of the lot held a brick dwelling used as a boarding house in the 1850s. James Benkard and Benjamin Hutton built three stores on the cleared land.
“…a portion of the site of the Congress Steam Sugar Refinery owned by Howell, King & Co.”
Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission
1882
A dispute with a late partner's heirs forces an auction, and banking heir John Mason buys 142 Duane Street
In 1882 Benjamin Hutton quarreled with the heirs of his late partner James Benkard. A court ordered the Duane Street properties sold at auction. John Mason, an heir to the Mason banking fortune, bought 142 Duane Street as an investment, while Hutton regained control of numbers 144 to 152. From the 1880s onward the building was home to many shoe wholesalers.
Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

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