97 Franklin Street

also 257 Church Street | Tribeca | built 1867

Open on the map6 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. 1865

    October 2

    Slade & Colby start a five-story Italianate loft on the corner of Franklin and Church Streets

    Gardner Colby and his son Gardner R. Colby, Boston dry goods men, joined Jarvis Slade in a real estate project on the corner lot, and the wooden building on it was demolished. On October 2, 1865, work began on a stone-fronted store, completed on April 28, 1866, with the addresses 97 Franklin and 257 Church Street. The owners did not move in, renting to other dry goods companies.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1868

    December

    A 16-year-old employee takes $11,000 in bank notes from a desk at Bowen, Whitman & Winslow

    In December 1868, Chicago wholesale dry goods firm Bowen, Whitman & Winslow lost two bank notes of about $5,600 each. Sixteen-year-old employee James W. Morrison took them from an executive's desk and passed them to 18-year-old William Lewis, and they reached James W. Tallmadge, who was arrested trying to cash them in Cleveland. The New York Times complained that he had sat a week without seeing a magistrate.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1871

    October 8

    The Great Chicago Fire ruins a Chicago dry goods firm renting space at 97 Franklin Street

    Bowen, Whitman & Winslow, the Chicago wholesaler that had occupied the building for years, suffered heavy losses when the Great Chicago Fire began on October 8, 1871. The Bowen brothers lost their homes, and the firm did not survive. Two other woolen firms took over what remained of its business.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1875

    September

    Oppenheim Bros. advertises for a 'fit model' and 100 cloak finishers

    The women's apparel manufacturer Oppenheim Bros. took space here by 1875. In September it advertised for a young woman with a good figure and stylish look to model cloaks and suits for fittings, a job much like today's fit model, and in October it sought 100 cloak finishers. In March 1876 it advertised for another 100 dress and suit makers.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  5. 1895

    August 1

    Architects Ludlow & Valentine open an office at 97 Franklin Street

    Charles Abernethy Valentine, a Columbia graduate who studied architecture, joined William Orr Ludlow on August 1, 1895 to form Ludlow & Valentine. Valentine handled design and Ludlow the engineering and business side. They set up in the building, where Valentine's father's firm, J. M. Valentine & Co., was the main tenant, and left in 1897.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  6. 1976

    May

    Off-off Broadway theaters Tostos and Process Studio operate in the building

    By 1976 the off-off Broadway Tostos Theater was in the building, and in May that year it opened Derlo Wilson's play Now She Dances!, which the New York Times said dealt with homosexuality and drew on Oscar Wilde's Salome. By 1979 the Process Studio Theater was here, staging an evening of John Guare one-acts in May.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Further reading

Nearby

All 564 buildings with stories in Tribeca