Morse & Rogers Building

166 Duane Street | also 25 Hudson Street | Tribeca | built 1911

Open on the map5 entries

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

  1. 1850

    Hungerford's Hotel occupies buildings at 164-166 Duane Street, where a shoe-trade tower later rises

    Hungerford's Hotel was established in the 1850s in four linked buildings at 164 to 170 Duane Street, and by 1885 it had closed. The two masonry buildings at 164 and 166 Duane were later demolished, along with five on Hudson Street, to make way for the present tower. This entry describes an earlier building on the site.

    “…two masonry buildings at 164 and 166 Duane Street that were part of Hungerford's Hotel . The hotel , which was established in the 1850s…”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  2. 1910

    January 22

    Sonn Brothers announce a twelve-story building for the Morse & Rogers wholesale shoe business

    Henry and Hyman Sonn, wholesale grocers and real estate investors, bought seven old buildings at the southwest corner of Hudson and Duane streets in late 1909. On January 22, 1910 the Real Estate Record & Guide reported their plan for a fireproof twelve-story building for Morse & Rogers. The shoe firm signed a 21-year lease on January 14, 1910, starting March 1, 1911, and worked out its needs with architects Rouse & Goldstone.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1911

    Rouse & Goldstone's twelve-story neo-Renaissance tower rises at Hudson and Duane streets

    Completed in 1910-11 for the Central Building Improvement and Investment Co., the steel-frame building runs about 121 feet along Hudson Street and 45 feet along Duane. It has a two-story limestone base, a pedimented portico entrance on Duane Street, and terra-cotta trim on the twelfth story. Rouse & Goldstone were known for their apartment and loft designs.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  4. 1931

    June 30

    Prohibition agents uncover a wildcat brewery at 25 Hudson Street

    On July 1, 1931 the New York Times reported more than 80 raids over two nights by Prohibition Administrator Andrew McCampbell's agents. In one raid the day before, they found what they called a wildcat brewery at 25 Hudson Street, arrested John Sullivan and seized two 2,000-gallon vats of beer along with a 1,500-gallon vat of the same drink. The shoe firm Morse & Rogers had left the building when its long lease ended in 1931, and a mix of unrelated tenants followed.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  5. 1948

    The tabloid PM, then the Star and the Compass, are produced here, and Walt Kelly gets his start

    In the 1930s and 1940s the building housed Field Publications, publisher of the radical tabloid PM. When the paper changed hands in the late 1940s it became the Star, where Walt Kelly, creator of Pogo, began. The Compass then moved in, keeping Star columnists I. F. Stone, Jennings Randolph and Albert Deutsch, and ran until 1952. In the mid-1950s the plant passed to El Diario de Nueva York.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

Further reading

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All 564 buildings with stories in Tribeca