149 Duane Street

also 133 West Broadway | Tribeca | built 1858

Open on the map5 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. 1855

    A wooden house sheltering three Black families is replaced by a five-story store at 149 Duane

    Until about 1855 a wooden house and store stood at this corner of Reade Street and West Broadway, with a grocery downstairs and three Black families above. Ralph C. Van Houten had it and the small house behind demolished to put up a five-story commercial building. His builder probably served as architect, and one historian calls the plain style Utilitarian.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1860

    March 7

    Burglars break into a wine and cigar importer's rooms and steal only the cigars

    On March 7, 1860 two men forced the West Broadway door and broke into David M. Hollister's wholesale liquor and cigar store upstairs. They ignored the liquor and took four boxes of cigars worth $150. Both had records, one released from Sing Sing months earlier. Police found the loot at a West Broadway cigar store, and its owner was arrested too.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1864

    October 23

    A commission merchant is arrested after a fire starts through a hole bored into a rival's office

    A fire in commission merchant Leahy's office on Sunday afternoon, October 23, 1864 looked suspicious. Investigators found it started after a hole was drilled through a wooden partition and an accelerant poured in. The brace and bit was found in the room of Thomas B. Boyd, who rented space on the same floor, and he was arrested and held on large bail.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1866

    Confederate veteran Charles Baltzell Rouss opens a dry-goods business, years before taking the name Broadway

    Rouss, born in Winchester, Virginia, had run a store there before joining the Confederate Army, and reached New York after the war with $11,000 of pre-war debts and little else. He opened a dry-goods and notions business at 149 Duane in 1866 and ran it for years until it failed. He then began again on Broadway, changed his middle name to Broadway, and by the 1890s reported sales of $8 to $10 million.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  5. 1897

    February 20

    Two respectable businessmen brawl on a Brooklyn-bound platform over a stepped-on corn

    Alexander F. Reid, who sold twine and cordage from the ground floor, was hurrying to his train on February 20, 1897 when George Glassner stepped on his foot, on which he had a painful corn. Reid hit Glassner on the nose, Glassner hit back, and both were arrested. Magistrate Crane released Glassner and fined Reid $3, and the New York Herald said he went home to eat cold quail.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Further reading

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