173 Duane Street | Romanesque (architecture), apartment building, 1880_construction

 Romanesque (architecture), apartment building, 1880_construction

6-story Romanesque-revival residential building completed in 1880. Designed by Babb & Cook as a store-and-loft building, it is clad in reddish-brown brick with stone and terra-cotta trim. The facade above the ground floor has arched window openings at the 2nd and 6th floors, two tall arched bays rising from the 3rd to the 5th floor, and unusual oval openings at the 5th floor. Stone bands and terra-cotta trim, such as at the molded arches of the 5th floor, further mark the design. The building is topped by a replacement cornice and an arcaded brick parapet. A black iron fire escape runs down the right side of the facade, and a suspended metal canopy covers the ground floor.

In 1889 the building contained a hide dealer and an electric power company. It was converted to a meat-packing plant for Armour of Chicago in 1900. In the 1940s, it contained Golden Eagle Farm Products, the Seville Packing Company, and ABC Dairy Products. From the early 1950s to the late 1970s, it was occupied by Carl Ahlers, a dairy wholesaler. By the turn of the century, it became residential apartments.