44 White Street

Tribeca | built 1866

Open on the map5 entries

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

1. 1859

   February 21

   The Eagle Hotel's furniture and liquor are auctioned off at the earlier building on the 44 White Street site

   A three-story Eagle Hotel stood at 44 White Street, between Broadway and Church Street, when the block was still mostly residential. On February 21, 1859, auctioneer William Witters announced the sale of its furniture, barroom fittings, wines, liquors and cigars, which ended the hotel's run. Aaron and Eliza Jacobs later replaced it with a loft building finished in 1866. This was an earlier building on the site.

   Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

2. 1866

   Aaron and Eliza Jacobs complete a five-story Italianate loft at 44 White Street

   Built in 1865-66 on a 25-foot-wide lot, the building replaced a three-story masonry structure. The Landmarks Preservation Commission notes that Aaron Jacobs was probably a cloth merchant with a business on Franklin Street. A cast-iron storefront with fluted Corinthian columns carries four stories of stone, possibly marble, with arched window surrounds, bracketed pediments and a dentilled cornice. The architect has not been identified.

   Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

3. 1867

   Silk dyer Claude Greppo opens an office at 44 White Street

   Claude Greppo started a silk-dyeing plant in Paterson, New Jersey, in 1866 and by 1867 had an office in the new White Street building. His business grew quickly, and in January 1876 he teamed up with another dyer to form Weidmann & Greppo, whose works The Silk Industry in America called the largest in the United States. The firm later moved to Mercer Street.

   Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

4. 1914

   February 14

   Henry Glass & Co. opens a white goods annex at 44 White Street

   The dry goods firm already occupied the building next door at 46-48 White Street. In 1913 it announced that its white goods department would move into number 44, and on February 14, 1914 the Dry Goods Economist reported the remodeled 7,000-square-foot annex open for business. The firm leased the top four floors in 1915 and the whole building by March 1917, then joined the two buildings with a doorway.

   Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

5. 1991

   Wolfgang Staehle starts The Thing, an artists' network, in the basement of 44 White Street

   The Daniel Newburg Gallery was in the building by 1985. In 1991 Wolfgang Staehle founded The Thing in the basement, an international network of artists and art projects linked through a telephone-based mailbox system. It left in 1995, when its website launched. The upper floors had been converted to residences the same year Staehle rented the basement, one apartment per floor.

   Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Further reading

• The 1866 44 White StreetDaytonian in Manhattan

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All 564 buildings with stories in Tribeca