Holmes-Brumley Candy Factory

83 Warren Street | Tribeca | built 1920

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. 1888

    J. M. Atwater runs a jelly, sauce and canned-goods business from an earlier building on the site

    Before the present loft, 83 Warren Street held a store built by J. M. Atwater, who leased the land from Grace Church. His business made jellies, sauces, catsups and canned goods, and Illustrated New York praised the spot in 1888 as one of the most desirable downtown. In March 1894, after 34 years in business, Atwater sold his leasehold to Hampton O. Marsh, who planned to replace the building.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1894

    W. G. Beatty designs a five-story brick and limestone loft, but its owner dies before it is finished

    Hampton O. Marsh hired architect W. G. Beatty, who filed plans in May 1894 for a five-story loft costing $13,000, with a hand-powered freight lift at the sidewalk and electric lighting. Marsh died of a heart attack on September 22, before it was finished, and his estate carried on. Construction wrapped up before the year ended, with a facade of variegated Roman brick, a cast iron storefront and a row of five arched openings at the top floor.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1897

    July 16

    A candy company's receiver goes missing, and a safe-maker's agent has to open the firm's safe

    Holmes-Brumley & Company, the candy maker in the new building, ran into financial trouble in 1897, and 28-year-old bookkeeper Robert W. Bullock was named its receiver. In early July he said he needed rest and was not heard from again, and on July 16 the Times reported that creditors were alarmed. The firm's equipment was auctioned without him, and a representative of the safe factory had to open the safe because only Bullock knew the combination.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1903

    A clerk at the Keasbey supply firm is arrested at work after his wife arrives in New York

    Marcus Stowe Hill had taken a $15-a-week clerk's job at Robert A. Keasbey's industrial supply company after a failed scheme to make Egyptian and Turkish cigarettes. Three weeks later police entered 83 Warren Street and arrested him for non-support, after his wife Alberta arrived in New York with their children. A magistrate dismissed the complaint when Hill promised to do his best for her.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  5. 1977

    Musicians Lydia Lunch, Miriam Linna and members of Mars share a loft nicknamed the Home for Teenage Dirt

    By the mid-1970s the old candy factory was being lived in without legal conversion, and unlike many Tribeca lofts it was known for musicians rather than painters. A 2018 rock guide to New York says that around 1977 the residents were Lydia Lunch, Bradly Field, Miriam Linna, other members of the group Mars, and writer James Marshall.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Further reading

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