171 Duane Street

Tribeca | built 1803

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.

1803
Schoolmaster Henry Verveelen buys the corner of Duane and Staple Streets from Trinity Church
Around 1803 Henry Verveelen, a schoolmaster, bought this property from Trinity Church and put up a two-and-a-half-story Federal-style house. He ran a school on the premises. Openings and lintels from his earlier building can still be seen on the Staple Street side of 171 Duane Street.
“Verveelen, who purchased the property from Trinity Church in 1803, was the instructor in a school that met on the site.”
Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission
1860
The Federal-era building at 171 Duane Street gets a cast-iron front in 1859-60
The 1803 building was enlarged in 1830-31 for Francis Kane, who added three stories to make it five. In 1859-60 it was extended out to the Duane Street building line and given a cast-iron facade with full-height pilasters and an arcade at the top. The brick Staple Street wall still shows the window openings and lintels of the two earlier buildings.
Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission
1945
Egg wholesalers occupy 171 Duane Street from the mid-1940s to the mid-1970s
In the late nineteenth century coffee and spice wholesalers worked in the building. By the early twentieth century it was leased to the dairy merchants Enyard & Godley for warehouse space and offices. In the mid-1940s M.J. King, Inc., egg wholesalers, moved in and stayed until the mid-1970s. It is now residential.
Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

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