Hawley & Hoops Chocolate Factory (Mulberry Street Library)

285 Lafayette Street | also 267 Mulberry Street, 271 Mulberry Street, 10 Jersey Street | Nolita | built 1900

Open on the map3 entries

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

  1. 1886

    Hawley & Hoops build a large chocolate factory south of Houston Street

    John S. Hawley and Herman Hoops built their factory between Mulberry and Lafayette streets in 1886, after starting on Chambers Street. Employing as many as 800 people at its height, it made chocolate, cocoa and candies, including chocolate cigars and cigarettes. Of the few chocolate factories that survive in the city, it is the oldest. The firm's "A No. 1" brand had been among the first to team up with the Brownies illustrator Palmer Cox.

    Source: thechocolatelife.com

  2. 2007

    May 21

    The New York Public Library opens its Mulberry Street branch in the old factory

    On May 21, 2007, the library opened its 87th branch, in SoHo, in the former chocolate factory at 10 Jersey Street. The branch has 12,000 square feet, leased rather than owned, spread over the ground floor and two basement levels, and it stocked books in Italian and Chinese for the neighborhood's immigrant communities. The architects Rogers Marvel kept the factory's beams, columns and metal doors, and an old beam became part of a computer table.

    Source: gothamist.com

  3. 2007

    Rogers Marvel turns the factory's boiler room into the library's main reading room

    For the library, Rogers Marvel Architects moved the main entrance to Jersey Street to keep the Mulberry Street windows for reading space, and added a stair joining three levels. The children's room sits on the shortest-ceilinged basement level, with lit windows opening on a passage under the sidewalk. The adult reading room and stacks fill the former boiler room, which has a 23-foot ceiling.

    Source: architecturalrecord.com

Further reading

Nearby

All 41 buildings with stories in Nolita