Castree Building

53 North Moore Street | also 127 Hudson Street, 121 Hudson Street, 52 Beach Street | Tribeca | built 1910

Open on the map6 entries

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

  1. 1836

    Grocer John Castree moves into a fine house on the site of today's 121 Hudson Street

    Before the warehouse existed, a house stood at 121 Hudson Street, near fashionable St. John's Park. In 1836 John Castree, an Irish-born grocer who had turned to insurance, banking and real estate, moved in. By the 1880s the neighborhood had filled with warehouses, yet Castree still owned the property and was buying more nearby.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1891

    Thomas R. Jackson completes the Castree warehouse as a near twin of its neighbor

    The Estate of John Castree hired architect Thomas R. Jackson to replace several small brick buildings on the corner of Hudson and North Moore Streets. The six-story warehouse, finished in 1891, nearly duplicates the 1888 Castree building across North Moore Street. Its cast-iron base came from the Cornell foundry, and the loading bays kept their original folding iron shutters.

    “Designed by the prominent architect Thomas R. Jackson for the Estate of John Castree in 1891, the building is a near twin…”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  3. 1892

    October

    Wholesale grocer C. Burkhalter & Co. goes bankrupt after its stock vanishes

    C. Burkhalter & Co. took the new warehouse's lease right away, then bought an unusually large amount of food. In October 1892 it declared bankruptcy with about $600,000 in debts, roughly $150,000 more than its assets. The goods it had just bought could not be found, and creditors banded together to trace them, with the New York Times reporting that crooked work was charged.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1901

    A patrolman is fined a month's pay over a torn jacket he billed to Seeman Brothers

    Patrolman Joseph E. Burke told the Seeman Brothers grocers that a crate had ripped his jacket and demanded $22.50, settling for $10. His captain suspected he had shown up with an old, worn coat, and noted that the warehouse was not on his beat. The matter went before a deputy commissioner, who fined Burke a month's pay.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  5. 1923

    February 16

    Robbers shoot it out with payroll guards in the hallway

    A bank messenger and an armed guard were carrying the Seeman Brothers payroll, over $9,000, across Hudson Street from the Pacific Bank. Three young men with revolvers burst from the freight elevator, took the cash and fired when the guards resisted. They escaped in a waiting car, and both sides kept shooting as it pulled away, according to the Times.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  6. 1942

    Seeman Brothers tabulates its sales on 75,000 punched cards

    Under president Silvan L. Stix, the wholesale grocery hired fifteen men to break down its items, quantities, prices and classes of customer. The figures were run through electrical bookkeeping machines using 75,000 hole-punched cards. Daytonian in Manhattan calls this an astonishingly early use of computer-style accounting, years ahead of most firms. By the 1960s the company was gone.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Further reading

Nearby

All 564 buildings with stories in Tribeca