173-175 Duane Street

173 Duane Street | Tribeca | built 1880

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. 1880

    Babb & Cook design a plain Romanesque Revival warehouse for the architect's mother

    Widow Catherine Cook replaced a wooden building at No. 175 and a brick house at No. 173 with a warehouse by Babb & Cook, the firm her son Walter had joined in 1877. Its three-story arches and shallow pilasters gave a narrow, cheaply built front some dignity. Critic Edith Thomas praised it in The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine in August 1884 as a model for commercial streets.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1888

    November

    Engineer Albert Gray powers a factory across the street with wires strung from this building

    Albert Gray, a pioneer of electric power in New York, ran his business from this building and supplied over 150 customers west of Broadway and south of Canal Street. After a fire gutted the paper factory of Cornell, Bingham & Co. in November 1888, the firm moved into a building opposite. Gray installed a motor in three hours and fed it with wires stretched across the street from Nos. 173 and 175.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1893

    October

    Young women sort eight million election ballots here, day and night

    Printer Martin B. Brown leased four floors in October 1893 to inspect, sort and pack the ballots for an election with a last-minute design change. The Evening World reported that 200 young women would start work at 7 a.m. to handle slips supplied by the million, while presses ran around the clock using 120 tons of paper. A fireman and a police officer guarded the building, and the arrangement was repeated in 1894.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1977

    Artist Rob Mango becomes building superintendent as artists begin arriving in Tribeca

    In 1977 artist Rob Mango took a job as superintendent and night watchman, an early sign the arts were reaching Tribeca. He wrote in his book 100 Paintings that rats and mice outlasted the dairymen and artists, and he worked in a makeshift studio whose pieces drew passersby from the street. By 1988 the Dannheisser Foundation was showing its collection of living artists here.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  5. 2017

    Sculptor Richard Serra buys a second-floor loft for $7 million

    After the building became artists' live-work lofts in 1996, with one apartment per floor, sculptor Richard Serra bought the second floor in 2017 for $7 million. The Times described a 4,200-square-foot unit with two bedrooms, a studio, a gym and a great room. Serra and his wife, Clara, already owned the full third floor.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Further reading

Nearby

All 564 buildings with stories in Tribeca