Aspell & Co. Building

151 Hudson Street | also 2 Hubert Street | Tribeca | built 1894

Open on the map6 entries

Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.

  1. 1823

    July 1

    Helen Lispenard Stewart marries James Watson Webb in her father's Federal mansion here

    An earlier building on this site, the three-and-a-half-story Federal mansion of Alexander L. Stewart, stood at the southwest corner of Hudson and Hubert Streets with a brick stable behind it. His daughter Helen Lispenard Stewart married James Watson Webb there on July 1, 1823. By the 1890s the house had become a rooming house for dockworkers.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1894

    Julius Kastner designs a Romanesque Revival loft in yellow Roman brick for Joseph Bearns

    Bearns bought the old Stewart mansion on April 14, 1893 and hired architect Julius Kastner to replace it. Kastner faced the five-story building in yellow Roman brick with brownstone and red sandstone trim, and used bullnosed bricks to round the corners. He chose carved ornament over cheaper terra cotta and built the complex cornice in stone.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1894

    March 24

    Two longshoremen fight in the old Stewart mansion rooming house, ending with a stabbing

    In the earlier Stewart mansion on this site, by then a rooming house, longshoreman William Goonan and dockworker William Cleary got into a vicious fight around 1 a.m. on March 24, 1894, after Cleary had been drinking and claimed to be the best man on the docks. The brawl rolled out of Goonan's room and down a flight of stairs, leaving a pool of blood on the landing. Police arrived to find Cleary with stab wounds in his face and neck and Goonan holding a knife, and Goonan was held in the Tombs without bail.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1914

    December 25

    Lee Garnett Day, whose family firm leased the building, announces a South American expedition

    Bennett, Day & Co., wholesale grocers, leased the building in 1908 and stayed through 1917 under Emily Day and her son Lee Garnett Day. On December 25, 1914 The New York Times reported that Lee, a 1911 Yale graduate, was setting off to explore little-known stretches of South American jungle on an expedition for the Field Museum of Chicago and the American Museum of Natural History. He personally managed and financed the trip.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  5. 1982

    The building poses as the Hotel Broslin in the horror film Basket Case

    In the 1982 film Basket Case, the exterior of 151 Hudson Street stood in for the fictional Hotel Broslin, with a big neon sign hung from the fire escape for the outside shots. The building had become residential decades before its certificate of occupancy was issued in 2010.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  6. 1992

    Birnbaum's guide lists Harvey Keitel, Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese among the building's loft residents

    The factory building became residential decades before it was legalized. The 1992 guide Birnbaum's New York observed that only the most urban personalities live in TriBeCa and named Harvey Keitel, Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese among those who had lived in converted lofts at 151 Hudson Street.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Further reading

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