Schepp Building
51 Hudson Street | also 165 Duane Street, 47 Hudson Street | Tribeca | built 1881
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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.
- 1880
Coconut importer Leopold Schepp buys the corner and hires Stephen D. Hatch
Leopold Schepp had begun by selling palm-leaf fans on New York street cars and by 1871 had founded an importing firm. He made a fortune from a process for drying and shredding coconut, which he sold in tins. On March 23, 1880 he bought the five buildings at the corner of Duane and Hudson Streets, and within the month architect Stephen Decatur Hatch had filed plans. The finished factory employed about 150 workers.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1890
Schepp sends an armed schooner to protect his ships from Colombian seizures
In late 1889 the Colombian gunboat La Popa seized several American trading schooners. Schepp, whose firm ran 21 trading stations in Central America, did not wait for diplomacy. The Pittsburgh Dispatch reported on January 1, 1890 that his firm had sent the schooner George W. Whitford toward Colon armed with two cannon, rifles and revolvers. The show of force worked for a time, but Colombia seized the Whitford itself on March 31, 1896 and released it on April 20.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1925
The 83-year-old Schepp gives away part of his fortune and is swamped with requests
On March 16, 1925 Schepp handed out checks to employees, from $500 for an office boy to $5,000 for a clerk of 21 years. Two days later he announced a foundation to help New York boys aged 13 to 16 prepare for useful careers, and by October he had put $4.5 million into the Schepp Foundation for Boys. By July the publicity had brought crowds and jammed phone lines to his office. A separate office and a staff of secretaries were hired to sort through the letters.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1930
A 200-ton water tank crashes through the roof and down two floors
A 20,000-gallon rooftop water tank, weighing about 200 tons, broke loose at 11 a.m. on June 27, 1930 and fell through the roof and then the tenth and ninth floors. Water flooded the floors below, where roughly 100 people were working, and they fled the building soaked. Nobody was hurt, and the firm's four-day week may have kept the floors emptier. Inspectors found two other tanks tilting dangerously. The mansard tower had probably been removed in a 1927 renovation.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1987
Chef David Bouley opens his restaurant Bouley on the ground floor
By the 1970s and 1980s the old coconut factory was turning residential: poetry readings were held there in 1977, and the upper floors became apartments in 1981. In August 1987 chef David Bouley opened his French Provencal restaurant, Bouley, at street level. It stayed until 1996, and in 1999 the Northern Italian restaurant Scalini Fedeli took the space.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
Further reading
- The Schepp Building - 165 Duane StreetDaytonian in Manhattan
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