The 1894 Aspell & Co. Building - 151 Hudson Street

On July 1, 1823 Helen Lispenard Stewart was married to James Watson Webb in the mansion of her father, Alexander L. Stewart.  The three-and-a-half story Federal-style mansion sat at the southwest corner of Hudson and Hubert Streets.  Directly behind it was a two-story brick stable.

By the outbreak of the Civil War the days of wealthy homeowners and fashionable gatherings in the neighborhood were nearly a memory.

As late as 1937 altered houses similar to the Stewart mansion survived along Hudson Street one block south.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

By the 1890's the Stewart mansion had become a seedy rooming house, occupied by dockworkers and other rowdies.  Among those was longshoreman William Goonan and his wife, and William Cleary, another dockworker.

On Saturday night, March 24, 1894 Cleary began drinking.  It would be the last time the roughneck got drunk.  At around 1:00 in the morning he was in Goonan's room and the two got into a vicious fight after Cleary claimed "that he was the best man along the docks."

According to The Evening World, "Goonan disputed Cleary's claim and the two men clinched.  They rolled out of the room into the hallway and down a flight of stairs.  On the landing below a big pool of blood tells that a fearful fight took place there."

Roused by the noisy affray, a boy ran from the house and called Policeman Schoenfield.  When the officer arrived he found Cleary stabbed in the face and neck and Goonan with a knife in his fist.  The Evening World reported "Goonan, who was also badly beaten in the fight, was committed to the Tombs without bail."

The old mansion was soon gone.  It had been purchased a year earlier, on April 14, 1893, by Joseph H. Bearns, who owned several properties in the area.  The principal in the liquor importing firm Joseph H. Bearns & Co., he had hired architect Julius Kastner to design a five-story loft building on the opposite corner of the block, at No. 10 Hubert Street, two years earlier.  In fact, the two had worked on similar projects since the 1880's.  They would collaborate again for No. 151 Hudson Street.

Kastner's completed structure was similar to several of his other designs for Bearns.  A handsome, industrial take on Romanesque Revival, it was faced in yellow Roman brick and trimmed in brownstone and red sandstone.  Designed in four parts separated by brownstone cornices, it exhibited expected husky Romanesque Revival elements like undressed bandcourses, lusty medieval-style carvings, arched openings at the top floor.  But Kastner softened the  design with the use of bullnosed bricks which rounded the corners.  While he could have saved Bearns money with terra cotta decorations, he opted for carved ornaments throughout and executed the complex cornice in stone.

The rounded edges soften the overall appearance of the building.  Note the spiraled corner detailing of the top floor.  The stone elements that drip like stalactites from the cornice are somewhat hidden today behind metal sheathing. 

As the building rose, Aspell & Co. was operating from Nos. 314-316 Greenwich Street.  The wholesale grocery dealers embarked on an unusual marketing scheme that year.  It opened a new department that offered certain items at wholesale prices to individual shoppers--a savings of up to 50 percent.

An advertisement on August 19, 1894 promised the housekeeper that on top of the savings, she could have "the goods delivered free of charge in or out of the city" (foreshadowing by more than a century retail giants like Amazon).  There was "a full line of staple and fancy groceries and wines, etc., also table delicacies suitable for city, country or seaside use."

New-York Tribune, November 13, 1895 (copyright expired)

Before the turn of the century Aspell & Co. had moved into No. 151 Hudson Street.  It shared the building with the Cincinnati-based S. A. Sloman Co.  Samuel A Sloman had made a drastic change to his family's business a few years earlier--from trading in furs to the manufacture of liquor.

Since the mid-1890's he marketed his Diamond Wedding Whiskey as a remedy rather than an intoxicant.  His ads promised it "invigorates feeble constitutions, renews life and arrests disease."  Others said it restored "power and suppleness to the muscles, warmth and richness for the blood."

This ad promised the whiskey was "invaluable to nursing mothers."  original resource unknown

Apparently the military bought into the restorative powers of Diamond Wedding Whiskey, for in 1900 both S. A. Sloman & Co. and Aspell & Co. were bidding on contracts with the U.S. Navy.

Three years later the directors of Aspell & Company agreed to dissolve the corporation.  It was replaced at No. 151 Hudson Street by Wm. A. Leggett & Co., wholesale grocers and dealers in condensed milk.  William Leggett had established his company in 1870.

In January 1908 Joseph H. Bearns leased the entire building to Bennett, Day & Co. "for a long term of years."  Wm. A. Leggett & Co. was allowed to stay on as a sub-tenant.

There was no long a Bennett in Bennett, Day & Co.  The wholesale grocery business was owned by husband-and-wife partners Henry Mason Day and Emily Garnett Day.  The Virginians had come to New York in 1874 and opened a dried fruit and nut business.  The New-York Tribune noted decades later that for "many years [Day] imported whole crops of fruits from Brazil and other countries and disposed of them to wholesalers in this country."

The Days were prosperous and maintained a summer home in Greenwich, Connecticut, where Henry moored his yacht.  But Henry's health had begun failing by the time his company leased the Hudson Street building.  He had essentially retired in 1903, spending most of his time in Europe, California and Florida because of his ill health.  On January 18 1909, a year after signing the lease, he died at the age of 58.

About the time of Day's death William A. Leggett suffered an attack of bronchitis.  His condition did not improve and a year later, in September 1910, he succumbed at the age of 81.

Kastner's attention to detail included delightful miniature Romanesque Revival columns incorporated into the upper portion of the cast iron storefront.

Although his death brought an end to Wm. A. Leggett & Co.; Bennett, Day & Co. continued under the control of Emily Day and her son, Lee Garnett Day.  Lee was, perhaps, less interested in the wholesale grocery business than in adventure.

On December 25, 1914 The New York Times noted that he had graduated from Yale University in 1911 and "has hunted big game from India, and recently returned from a trip of five months' exploration in Brazil."  The purpose of the article was to announce he was setting off on yet another expedition, this time "to explore unknown parts of the South American jungles under the auspices of the American Museum of Natural History and the Field Museum of Chicago."  Day personally managed and financed the extensive undertaking.

Day told the reporter "Not a specimen of the mammal or of bird life has ever been obtained there.  Should we be successful in getting specimens some of them at least should prove to be of value to the collections of the museums because of their rarity."

Bennett, Day & Co. remained at No. 151 through 1917, before moving to No. 165 Hudson Street.  That year Simon W. Greenbaum & Co. was incorporated by Simon and his brother, H. M. Greenbaum, and J. Socoloff to import and export peas and beans."  In February 1918 the firm leased the Hudson Street building.

The Produce District edged up against the wholesale shoe district.  As the years passed shoe merchants pushed out the grocery dealers in some areas of Tribeca.   When Simon W. Greenbaum & Co. signed the lease on No. 151, the O'Sullivan Heel Company was operating from nearby No. 131 Hudson Street.  By 1922 they had taken over the Greenbaum lease.

Founded by James and Humphrey O'Sullivan in August 1899, the firm manufactured replacement heels for men's shoes.  It marketed its rubber heels as being less jarring than the more common leather versions.  An advertisement in 1922 explained "One of the chief causes of fatigue is the strain of standing--the jar of walking on hard floors and pavements."  The hard leather heels gave no relief and "ordinary rubber heels are little better."  But as in the Goldilocks story, O'Sullivan's Safety Cushion Heels "combine just the right toughness for long hard wear with the greatest amount of springiness."

The Evening World, June 12, 1922 (copyright expired)

In 1908 author William Richard Cutter wrote "Countless imitators, in all countries, have paid their sincerest flattery, by their unscrupulous attempts to foist upon the public, their imitations of rubber heels, and the inevitable results, that none have been, as yet, successful, each claiming for his own to be as good as the 'O'Sullivan'--'The Standard'--the yard stick of the rubber heel industry."

O'Sullivan Rubber Co. was still in the building in 1950 when the Bearns estate sold No. 151 "to an investor," as reported by The Times on March 1.  The article noted that it was the last of Bearns's many properties to be sold and that the "sale was the first involving the property in fifty-seven years."

At the time the Tribeca renaissance was still a few decades away.  The first signs of change would come in 1980 when the ground floor became home to Sheba, an Ethiopian restaurant.  The New York Times food critic Mimi Sheraton approved, saying "Huge napkin-size crepes are the eating implements in which are wrapped curried stews such as the doro watt, and minchet abesh wott.  Kitfo, a raw ground beef specialty is a personal favorite."

Sheba made way for Thai House Cafe in early 1987.  Six months after its opening New York Magazine said "This is food you'd expect to find in a Thai home, carefully cooked and tamely spiced."  The restaurant remained in the space at least through 1991.

In the meantime the building had experienced cinematic exposure when it posed as the Hotel Broslin in the 1982 film Basket Case.  A large neon sign was hung from the fire escape for the outside shots of the fictitious hotel.

Although a Certificate of Occupancy for the commodious loft dwellings at No. 151 was not officially rendered until 2010; the building had become residential decades earlier.  In 1992 Birnbaum's New York, written by Stephen and Alexandra Mayes Birnbaum noted "Only the most urban personalities tend to live in TriBeCa--Harvey Keitel, Robert De Niro, and Martin Scorsese are among the pack who have lived in converted lofts at 151 Hudson Street."

The building stretches back to No. 2 Hubert Street, where the Stewarts' two-story stables once stood.

Meticulously restored, the facade of Julius Hastner's 1894 structure is essentially unchanged.  Its three-color design stands out among its neighbors in the constantly-evolving Tribeca neighborhood.

photographs by the author

The Sherwin-Williams Co. Bldg - 397 Washington Street

The wooden house at No. 28 Hubert Street had stood for half a century when laborer John Ellis lived in a rented there room in 1886.  He was working on the roof at No. 42 Watts Street in October that year.

Thomas Sullivan was in his 70's and lived in the attic of that old building.  The bent old man hoarded gold coins in a tin box and as Ellis worked, he glimpsed him through a window, fingering his treasure.  The gold amounted to a small fortune--about $52,000 today.  When Sulllivan left the room, Ellis lowered himself through the window and stole the box. 

Around the same time Gustavus L. Lawrence operated a produce business on Franklin Street.  In 1895 he purchased No. 28 Hubert Street, where police had tracked John Ellis and the stolen gold, along with two other old buildings, No. 30 Hubert Street and No. 397 Washington Street.  He hired architect George F. Pelham to replace the vintage structures with a modern loft building on the 28 by 78 foot site.

Completed in 1896, it cost Lawrence the equivalent of just over $1 million today.  It was a happy marriage of Renaissance Revival and Romanesque Revival styles, six stories tall.  Pelham used beige brick above the red brick ground floor.  Three-story arches drew the eye to the upper floors.  The motif was carried on in arched openings along the top floor.  A captivating chain design executed in brick filled the frieze below the sheet metal cornice.

On April 30 1896, almost immediately upon the completion of the structure, Lawrence sold it to Joseph H. Bearns, who ran his liquor business steps away at No. 10 Hubert Street.  The transaction was purely an investment for Bearns, who leased the building to the Cleveland-based Sherwin-Williams Paint and Varnish Company.

Sherwin-Williams appears to have mostly manufactured marine paints in the New York factory.  In 1896 it advertised its "vessel paints" and "marine paints" in Beeson's Marine Directory.  In 1901 the firm landed lucrative contracts with the United States Navy.

The Financial Panic of 1907 was devastating nation-wide.  The New York Stock Exchange dropped nearly 50 percent from its peak the previous year and panic caused chaos on Wall Street.  Banks and businesses failed and overall production fell by 11 percent.

Sherwin-Williams's military contracts may have helped the firm weather the economic crisis.  A year later things seemed to have been turning around.  A reporter from The Sun visited the Washington Street factory on November 6, 1908 for a story on the recovery.  "Activity was noticeable at the big paint works of the Sherwin Williams Company and it was said at the plant that rosy reports from other sections of the country where the firm does business were prophetic of a resumption of the prosperity temporarily checked by the financial stringency."

The company had upgraded from horse-drawn drays to motor trucks by 1912 when a horrific accident took place in New Jersey.  Drivers Robert Sohl and Joseph Lynch were arrested on June 14 that year after the tragic incident.  The New York Times reported "Edward C. Hallgring, 13 years old, was run down by an automobile truck owned by the Sherwin Williams Paint Company while playing ball near his home in Hamburg Place Road.  The front wheels of the truck passed over the boy's body, killing him."

Joseph H. Bearns died in 1914 and it was about that time that Sherwin-Williams left No. 397 Washington Street.  It became home to grocery importers La Manna, Azema & Farnam.  The firm had a branch office in Paris, run by Arthur Azema.

La Manna, Azema & Farnam imported Italian and Spanish products like olive oil, sardines and mushrooms in bulk, then canned and bottled them in the Washington Street building.  It labeled different items with their own brand names--like Francois canned mushrooms and Mary Elizabeth sardines.

Decades before sexual discrimination laws the firm explicitly hired only females in its bottling department.  An advertisement in the New-York Tribune on October 6, 1918, for instance, read "Girls, bottling establishment; good pay steady employment."

The girls-only policy for bottlers is puzzling today.  New-York Tribune, April 13, 1919

A reflection of the much different times, the company's specificity in hiring, deemed unacceptable today, extended to religion.  A June 8, 1919 ad sought an "Office Boy, Christian."

In 1918 owner F. W. Keller was charged with violations of a labor law for not having adequate emergency exits and was ordered to provide "egress to street from termination of stairway."  It was most likely at this time that the iron fire escape with its decorative, scrolled railings was added to the Hubert Street elevation. 

La Manna, Azema & Farnam remained in the building into the Depression years, following by Millner & Son, suppliers of "foodstuff," in the late 1930s.  The following decade saw Archibald & Kendall, importers and processors of spices and seeds, calling No. 397 home.

Founded by William D. Kendall, the firm packaged its spices under the Black Diamond label.  At some point a lucrative and sensible side line was established under the name Archibald & Lewis Co.  While Archibald & Kendall sold its "spices and seasoning herbs," its affiliated company sold "bird seed and bird food."

Over the next three decades the building saw a luncheonette on the ground floor and Independent Cordage Company in the upper stories.  But the Tribeca renaissance was on the horizon.

Although a small apparel company still operated in the ground floor in 1982, the building was being converted to cooperative apartments.  It did not hurt that resident Ekkehart Schwartz, who was president of the co-op board in 1982, was an architect.

The conversion was completed in 1984, resulting in one residence per floor.  In 1997 the apartment firm was gone and an office now shared the lobby floor. 

By 2005 the Civitella Raniere Center was in the building.  Founded in 1993 its mission was "to bring together visual artists, writers, and musicians from around the world who demonstrate talent and an enduring commitment to their disciplines."

photographs by the author

Liquor, Pistachios and a Penthouse - Julius Kastner's 1892 10 Hubert Street

The 25-foot-wide, two-and-a-half story brick house that sat at the northwest corner of Hubert and Collister Street in the early decades of the 19th century was owned by Trinity Church.  In the 1840's it was home to the Rev. Jonathan M. Wainwright.  Directly behind was a similar house, also owned by the Church.  As the century drew to a close the neighborhood had fully changed from residential to industrial and the once handsome homes had been converted for business use.

On July 22, 1891 Joseph H. Bearns purchased the old houses, paying Michael and Frances Murtha $25,500, a little over $700,000 today.  The principal in the liquor importing J. H. Bearns & Co., he commissioned architect Julius Kastner to design a five-story store and loft building on the site.

Completed the following year, it was an especially handsome commercial take on the Romanesque Revival style.  Faced in beige brick trimmed in brownstone and terra cotta, its clean design avoided the ponderous elements often found in Romanesque structures.  Nearly flush terra cotta capitals capped the ground floor piers that embraced the cast iron storefront.  The fourth floor featured arched openings with terra cotta eyebrows.  Ornate roundels decorated their spandrels below an impressive terra cotta cornice that terminated in wonderful masks--one male the other female.  A bracketed cast metal cornice completed the design.

The terra cotta masks flanking the fourth floor cornice are outstanding.

J. H. Bearns & Co. was highly successful, importing expensive brandies and wines from London and Europe.  Joseph H. Bearns would hire Julius Kastner several times more to design Tribeca structures.

Among Bearns' employees in the Hubert Street building in 1895 was James Connelly.  The apparently fiery-tempered Irishman did not make it to work on January 24 that year.  The operator of a streetcar enraged him that morning and he was arrested "for throwing stones at motorman in Broadway," according to The Sun.

Rather surprisingly, it appears that Bearns and Kastner had not included an elevator in the original plans; relying instead on "hoistways," or shafts, through which goods were raised and lowered by pulleys.  In April 1898 architect E. R. A. Berg filed plans to "erect elevator shaft extending from cellar to 5 ft. above roof."

Joseph H. Bearns died in 1914, leaving an estate of $850,000, a staggering $21.5 million today.  The terms of his will no doubt raised eyebrows city-wide.  The estate was distributed among three of his four children--Lillie May, James and Joseph.  The New York Times noted the will "cut off Melville Bearns without a heritage."

James S. Bearns inherited the Hubert Street property and in March 1916 leased it to Otto Isenstein & Co.  The firm imported gums used to make varnish.  Among the products offered in 1917 were "Congo Gum, Kauri Gum, Varnish Gus and Dumar Gums."

World War I sparked anti-German sentiment and discrimination throughout the United States.  Many German-sounding banks, insurance companies and other businesses voluntarily changed their names to avoid problems.  It may have been what prompted Otto Isenstein & Co. to apply for a corporate name change in May 1918 to Innes & Co., Inc.

The war impacted the firm in another way.  On October 30, 1918 Drug & Chemical Markets reported "While most of the kauri gum to be imported is being used by the trade, not a little of it is required by the Government itself.  It is used for various parts of ships and to a large extend for railroad passenger cars."  Because of that need the War Trade Board limited importations of kauri gum to 3 million pounds during 1918.  Innes & Co., Inc. and all other importers, were required to supply a detailed report to the Board showing the amount it brought into Hubert Street.

The firm seems to have been fair to its employees in terms of wages.  When it was looking for a boy "to run errands" in March that year, it offered a starting salary of $8 per week.  Although the hours were long--8:30 to 6:00--the wages for an untrained boy were attractive, around $130 a week today.

After less than two years in the building Innes & Co. moved out in January 1919.  It later became home to the wine and liquor importer Julius Wile Sons & Co.  Like J. S. Bearns & Co., it dealt in high end products.

In the summer of 1938 its executives were outraged when retailers offered one of its brands, Peter Dawson scotch, at discounted prices, equal to about $48.50 today.  On August 11 The New York Times reported "At the offices of Julius Wile Sons & Co., officials said they have already taken steps to halt the price-cutting on their brands."

Julie Wile Sons & Co. had been gone from No. 10 Hubert Street for about two years at the time.  In 1936 John N. Germack took over the building for his pistachio nut operation.  He had purchased the Zeobia Company from its founder, Joseph A. Zaloom, six years earlier, replacing that name with his own.

In the 1930's 10 Hubert Street was in surprisingly pristine condition.  original source unknown

Its Red-Lip brand pistachios were sold to retailers not only as packaged snacks, but for use in their penny vending machines.  One advertisement said in part "There is only one quality of Red-Lip Pistachios--and that is 'top quality"...The public goes for flavor--so, if you want to boost your sales of pistachios, fill your machines with the brand for which the public has shown a decided preference--Germack Red-Lip Pistachios!"

John N. Germack moved to Hudson Street in 1943; but the painted name remained on 10 Hubert Street for decades despite subsequent tenants, like Central Supply Co., here in the 1950's, and Graphic Horizons, Inc. in the '80's.

The 20th century had not been kind to the structure.  By the early 1990's the brick and terra cotta were damaged.  The cornice had been removed at some point in the second half of the century and the cast iron storefront was obliterated and filled in.

photo via ODA New York

But, as was the case with so many neglected Tribeca loft buildings, it was rescued by a residential transformation.  On October 22, 2014 Curbed New York reported that the architectural firm ODA was working on converting it "into a rather high-end rental buildings."  But the project went much farther than a mere renovation, it was as the architects worded it, "a conservation."

The damaged terra cotta details were restored, the lost cast iron storefront reproduced, and a cornice that closely matched the original was fabricated.  A penthouse, unseen from street level, was added, resulting in a total of just four sprawling apartments.  The remarkable restoration brought No. 10 Hubert Street, phoenix-like, to its 1892 nobility.

photographs by the author