Merchants' Refrigerating & Ice Manufacture Company Building

35 North Moore Street | also 31 North Moore Street | Tribeca | built 1915

Open on the map4 entries

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

  1. 1891

    Merchants' Refrigerating Company builds a cold storage warehouse over two rowhouses and a carpenter's shop

    The Merchants' Refrigerating Company put up its six-story warehouse at 35-37 North Moore Street in 1891, designed by Thomas R. Jackson and built by Hugh Getty. It stood on the site of two handsome rowhouses that had faced St. John's Park from what was then Beach Street, now Ericsson Place. A brick stable and Havilah M. Smith's carpentry shop on North Moore Street were cleared too. The 50-foot-wide building runs through the block between the two streets.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  2. 1891

    Jackson's arcaded warehouse shows its iron frame on two different brick faces

    Thomas R. Jackson's design lets the outside show the inside: three bays on each facade follow the layout of iron columns, beams and girders spaced in 15-by-18-foot units. The North Moore Street front is faced in tan iron-spot brick, while the Ericsson Place front is plain red brick. Unlike later cold-storage buildings, the arcaded fronts have paired windows rather than the small openings that helped keep cold in.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  3. 1901

    The warehouse becomes the refrigeration plant that supplies cold brine to Tribeca customers

    After 1901 the building held the Merchants' Refrigerating Company's plant, which sent chilled brine to customers in a two-block area around Beach, Hudson, Franklin and Varick Streets. Around 1917 the plant was enlarged to serve all of the firm's Tribeca customers. The company added to its complex on the block by buying 31-33 North Moore in 1900, building a larger warehouse at 27-29 in 1905 and adding another at 17-19 in 1924. It owned this building until the mid-twentieth century.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  4. 1998

    Four North Moore Street warehouses are joined as The Merchants House, with 23 lofts

    As restaurants and galleries moved into Tribeca in the 1980s, the old warehouses at 31-37 North Moore Street drew new interest. New York magazine reported in 1995 that lofts there would be sold as condominiums. A renovation completed in 1998 joined the four warehouses from 31 through 37 North Moore into a building called The Merchants House, with 23 loft residences.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

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