143 Franklin Street

 condominium  Add category

6-story Renaissance-revival residential building completed in 1898. Designed by Henry Anderson as a warehouse, it has a grey cast-iron ground floor, and reddish-orange brick on the upper floors. The upper portion of the building is divided into end bays, each with two window openings per floor, and a slightly recessed central bay with four openings per floor. At the second level, the brick wall, banded with terra-cotta, displays arched openings with oversized voussoirs and archivolts terminating in bosses. Floors 3-5 have raised brick banding at the side bays. Segmental arches of terra-cotta and brick cap the openings except at the 5th floor where the second-story arch motif reappears. Surmounting a stringcourse, the 6th floor is a modified version of the 3rd or 4th floor. Its central section is crowned by a modillioned pressed-metal cornice.


Some of its tenants have included Gabay Plumbing (for whom it was built), several generations of the Popper family (merchants of mirrors and glass), the George E. Athans Co., and Lan Yik (Asian) Foods, Inc. The building was recently renovated to condominiums. The ground floor houses Urban Archeology, an antiques store.