Here is a photo of the Long Company Warehouse (1910) at the intersection of Washington and Murray Streets. We are looking south (to the left slightly) to Washington Market. Note the fine cobblestones and streetcar tracks. Is that a McCormick spice sign above the left wagon? The owner of Long’s was a self-made entrepreneur and grocery wholesaler originally a farm boy from Pennsylvania. He made good here in the city. From the sign, it looks like he brought his brothers along with him. His company had several nearby locations before he ended up here. It was a common pattern in the Washington Market area to start a small business, rent space and then as you expand end up by building your own warehouse. It is a very fine building, as is the one next to it. If converted to housing in this day and age it would have been the appropriate density for Tribeca (enough to support a subway!).
This block and the Long Warehouse was one of the victims of the Washington Street Urban Renewal Project which sought to rid lower Manhattan of this kind of building and business. It was demolished. The 2013 photo below is taken at the intersection of the crosswalk and streetcar line, as close as I could get standing in the middle of the Murray and Washington Streets. What you see below is a new high-rise luxury condo that covers the whole block. It is where Whole Foods is now. Washington Street itself is gone. Go stand in front of the dog run by PS 234 and look due south. In 1910 you would have seen Long’s and the stretch of Washington Street.
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