106-108 Reade Street

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5-story Italianate residential building completed in 1867. Designed by Samuel A. Warner as a store-and-loft building, it is clad in tan marble above a black-painted cast-iron ground floor. The windows are segmental-arched and have continuous stone sills courses. A silver metal fire escape runs down the center of the facade, which is topped by a bracketed metal roof cornice.

After changing hands several times during the 1880s, the building was acquired as an investment property by David L. Einstein, wool merchant and mill owner. In the 1890s, it was occupied by C.J. Van Houten & Zoon, manufacturers of "Van Houten's Cocoa." Subsequent tenants have included such shoe wholesalers as the David Stroyman Shoe Co., the Crystal Shoe Co. Inc., Paragon Shoe Co., and Stern & Kelner; L. & R. Organic Products; Manufacturers Brush Co.; and Premex Products, hardware merchants. Charles Bruning Co.:, dealers in blueprint and special papers, leased some of the upper floors from 1936 to 1961. The upper floors were converted to residential in the 1980s.