LEE BROTHERS FURNITURE, MANHATTANVILLE

FOR some time I wondered about the original purpose of this Greek temple on the Riverside Drive viaduct just south of West 135th Street. I recently discovered it: historian Fred Hadley explains it in 1940s NYC:

Lee Brothers Storage & Van Co., founded in 1900, was initially located at 210 E. 125th St. near 3rd Ave. Lee Brothers was also a furniture business and had auction rooms in their facility. It was also in 1925 that Lee Bros. bought the property at Riverside Drive and 134th St. in order to build their own purpose-built facility. As described in the Times, 22 Nov. 1925, pg. E16, “The Guardian Storage and Transfer Company, which is controlled by Lee Brothers, Inc., purchased from the Hensle Construction Company plot of ground 49 by 200 feet, situated on the northeast corner of Twelfth Avenue and 134th Street. Upon this plot Lee Brothers, Inc., propose to erect a fifteen-story fireproof warehouse which will contain every modern facility for the storage and packing of household effects. This building will have entrance from the lower level of Twelfth Avenue and 134th Street as well as from upper level of the 134th Street approach to the Riverside Drive viaduct.”

Quoting the Indispensable Walter Grutchfield:

Plans were filed with the New York City Dept. of Buildings in 1925 for a 14-story warehouse, costing $250,000, at 647-666 W. 134th St. These plans, however, were revised two years later by a new filing for a 14-story storage building, costing $400,000, at 647-661 W. 134th St. In both plans the architect was George S. Kingsley. A listing for the new Lee Bros. warehouse first appeared in the Manhattan telephone directory in 1929. The last Lee Bros. listing for this address was in 1948. The following appeared as an F.Y.I. article by Daniel B. Schneider in the New York Times, 11 October 1998, “The beautifully detailed, classically inspired building, erected in 1929, was designed as a furniture warehouse and has remained just that. … The warehouse was originally built and owned by Lee Brothers, whose name is still visible beneath layers of paint on the Riverside Drive facade. It was designed by George S. Kingsley, the architect who designed several other historically inspired storage warehouses in Manhattan and in the Midwest, according to Christopher Gray, the architectural historian. Viewed from without, the Lee Brothers warehouse is so splended that for years it has been rumored that it was built for the Astor family, said Neal W. Eisenstein, a vice-president for Manhattan Mini Storage, which has owned the building since 1984. The columns and pilasters mask a cavernous interior, containing over 1000 storage rooms and vaults, built of thick concrete and steel and dispersed over 14 floors. Roughly half the floors are built below street level, far below the viaduct, and the current entrance and loading dock are tucked into the West 134th Street side of the building.” The founder of Lee Bros. was Charles Lee (1853-1953). He died at age 99 shortly before reaching his 100th birthday. There were obituary notices for Charles Lee in the New York Times, 18 June 1953, p. 32: “Charles Lee, who founded Lee Brothers Storage, Inc., 103 East Twenty-fifth [sic] Street, in 1900, died Tuesday in Orlando, Fla., where he had retired since his retirement in 1925.

Furniture stores, and even furniture warehouses, often have impressive exteriors; the clock-towered U-Haul distributorship on College Point Boulevard in Flushing served for many years as a Serval Zipper factory and could be seen from She Stadium over the outfield fence. It was built in the 1930s as a W & J Sloane Furniture warehouse. Currently the building is in the Manhattan Storage chain.

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7/4/2024