147 Duane Street

Tribeca | built 1856

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.

1855
James Gibson builds a five-story brownstone store and loft building at 147 Duane Street
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In 1855-56 James Gibson put up a five-story Italianate building at 147 Duane Street, twenty-five feet wide with a brownstone front. It replaced an older brick dwelling that had a shop on its ground floor. It belonged to the first wave of rebuilding that turned Duane Street from houses, workshops and boarding houses into a row of store and loft buildings in the mid-1850s.
“The building was constructed in 1855-56 for James Gibson. Faced in brownstone…”
Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission
1898
Herman Giesse's sign company moves into 147 Duane Street and stays into the 1920s
The Herman Giesse Sign Company, later called the Giesse Glass Sign Works, occupied the building from 1898 into the 1920s. Later tenants reflected the shoe trade that filled Duane Street: the Lester Pincus Shoe Corp. in the 1930s, then in the 1950s the Duane Shoe Co., the M.K. Weil Shoe Co. and the Twilight Slipper Co. When the district was designated, the ground floor was commercial and the upper floors were residential.
“Tenants have included the Herman Giesse Sign Company, later known as the Giesse Glass Sign Works (1898 to the 1920s)…”
Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

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