168 Duane Street

Tribeca | built 1887

Open on the map5 entries

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

  1. 1853

    February

    Three spiritualist mediums take rooms at Hungerford's Hotel, an earlier building on the site

    Before the present warehouse, this lot was part of Hungerford's Hotel, which merged four older buildings at Nos. 164 to 170 Duane Street. In February 1853, at the height of the craze for spirit rapping, three mediums lodged there and advertised through the New-York Tribune: $2 for a diagnosis, $1 for a spiritual investigation. One of them, H. Burkhart, told the paper he had examined noises at No. 168 and concluded they were spirits.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1887

    Stephen Decatur Hatch completes a Flemish Revival warehouse for Fleming Smith

    Fleming Smith, who owned the lot in 1886, hired architect Stephen Decatur Hatch to replace the old hotel buildings with a five-story store and loft building. Hatch mixed the Flemish style, a reference to New York's Dutch past, with Queen Anne touches such as multi-paned windows and carved foliage over the ground floor. A wavy gable crowns the fifth floor. Smith later gave Hatch a far bigger commission at 135 Watts Street.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1889

    November 30

    A cigar dealer leaves for lunch with $150 and is missing for two weeks

    John A. Belvin, a 49-year-old wholesale tobacconist with an office here, left for lunch on November 30 carrying $150 in cash and told his staff he would be back in half an hour. When he did not return, his Brooklyn family called in Inspector Byrnes and feared foul play, since he wore a lot of jewelry. On December 13, two weeks later, he came home, unable to explain anything after leaving the store except that days earlier he had found himself in St. Augustine, Florida.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1915

    October 2

    Radio engineer William Dubilier works here on a trench wireless after helping detect submarines

    Electrical engineer William Dubilier, listed at 168 Duane Street in 1915, had just come back from France, where he helped the British and French governments develop submarine detectors. He told reporters his team learned to filter out the noise of big ships and could sense a submarine fifty miles away. Back in New York, the Times reported on October 2 that he planned to build a low-aerial wireless set for use in the trenches.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  5. 1945

    November

    A Teamsters picket threatens to stall 10,000 Thanksgiving turkeys at Carl Ahlers, Inc.

    Carl Ahlers, Inc., a poultry, butter and egg firm that had moved in during the early 1930s, faced a union drive by the Teamsters in mid-November 1945. When talks stalled, pickets went up at the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western pier on Cortlandt Street and shipments stopped. With more than 10,000 turkeys stuck before the first postwar Thanksgiving, the union lifted the line, warning it would return.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

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