75 Franklin Street

Tribeca | built 1865

Open on the map5 entries

The lot about 1940
About 1940. Via 1940s.nyc
The lot about 1985
About 1985. Via 80s.nyc

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.

  1. 1829

    Rev. David Patterson, a classics teacher and textbook author, lives in the house that stood here

    In the 1820s a 19-foot-wide house at 75 Franklin Street was the home of the Rev. David Patterson. The Magazine of the Reformed Dutch Church called him a very able teacher in the school's classical department. He published Caesar's Commentaries in 1829 and had earlier produced a Greek Reader. This was an earlier building on the site.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1865

    Eliza McBrair Sanderson replaces the old house with a three-story loft

    Eliza McBrair Sanderson had inherited extensive property from her grandfather James McBrair but struggled with taxes on it. The house that Patterson once occupied came down in 1864, and the next year a three-story commercial building stood on the site. It quickly filled with textile firms.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1878

    April 8

    A cotton converter here sues the Pennsylvania Railroad over losses in the 1877 strike

    Charles Kohlman & Co., a cotton-goods converter at 75 Franklin Street, was one of 39 New York firms that sued the Pennsylvania Railroad on April 8, 1878. They sought more than $60,000 for goods lost in the Great Railroad Strike of 1877. Kohlman's own claim was $1,190.13, worth about $29,000 today.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1894

    A Romanesque Revival brick facade with bull-nosed piers is added by 1894

    The three-story building took its present Romanesque Revival look by 1894, when it was extended to cover the whole lot. Double-height brick piers with bull-nose profiles and carved capitals support corbelled arches at the third story. In the 1890s the Hoosier Manufacturing Company of Fort Wayne, Indiana, had offices here.

    “Double-height piers with bull-nose profiles and intricately ornamented capitals separate the windows and support corbelled arches of molded brick at the third story.”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  5. 2010

    Billy's Bakery moves into the ground floor

    Around 2010 Billy's Bakery, already known in Chelsea for its cupcakes, opened in the retail space at 75 Franklin Street. The shop took over a ground floor that earlier housed a worker's restaurant, a bookstore and, for much of the twentieth century, a printing and stationery company's warehouse and offices.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Further reading

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