191 Front Street Building

History and architecture

This completely simple five-story brick warehouse building has nonetheless a very handsome first floor supported on square cast iron columns which once had Corinthian capitals and which display ornamental forms at the tops of the panels of the columns.

The window sills and lintels are also extremely simple, but a dignified dentiled roof cornice may be seen above the brick fascia at the top of this building. It aligns at roof level with No. 189 and, except for its cast iron store front, is architecturally quite similar to it.

Nos. 191 and 193 were originally built as one store but have both been remodeled since they were built and appear quite different today. We do not have the construction date of these buildings with double store, but we know that it was prior to 1793, for in that year it was assessed at $2,250 and leased to Garrett Westful, a merchant, who was there in 1794 and 1795, The property was sold to Minturn and Champlin, leading merchants, who occupied these buildings intermittently from 1804 to 1816. In 1804, this firm had commissioned Christian Bergh, the famous ship builder, to build the first ship, "The North America".