At the corner of Plymouth and Pearl, 142 Plymouth Street sits in one of DUMBO’s most layered addresses. Long before Hudson Wilder arrived, this corner had already lived several lives: factory, workshop, motorcycle garage, and fashion set. Its history is a fitting reflection of DUMBO itself — industrial at its roots, creative by nature, and constantly reinventing itself.
There is something about old industrial buildings in New York. They tend to accumulate stories rather than simply acquire tenants.
142 Plymouth Street is one of those places.
Today, it is home to Hudson Wilder’s Studio–Showroom–Café, but the building’s story reaches back to the manufacturing era that shaped DUMBO. The building at 142–152 Plymouth Street, extending to 40–48 Pearl Street, was constructed in 1901, with a later 1924 extension. According to the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission’s DUMBO Historic District designation report, its original owner was Robert Gair, the industrialist whose name is inseparable from the history of DUMBO. NYC Media
From Robert Gair to Gairville
Robert Gair was one of the great industrial figures of turn-of-the-century Brooklyn. He developed the machinery and manufacturing processes behind the folded cardboard box, transforming what had previously been labor-intensive production into an industrial process.
Gair moved his business from Manhattan to DUMBO in 1888, and his factories and real-estate holdings became so prominent that the neighborhood was once known as Gairville.
A street frozen in time
One of the most evocative records of this corner comes from 1938, when photographer P. L. Sperr documented Plymouth Street from Pearl Street.
The New York Public Library’s digital collection preserves Sperr’s photograph, capturing the street as an unmistakably industrial Brooklyn landscape: Belgian-block streets, factory walls, overhead infrastructure and the bridges passing through the sky.
Look closely and the bones of the neighborhood are remarkably familiar.
The buildings remain. The street remains. The relationship between Plymouth and Pearl remains.
What has changed is what happens inside them.
Fashion was always part of the DNA
There is another thread in the history of 142 Plymouth that feels particularly appropriate to Hudson Wilder: fashion.
The building was once associated with garment manufacturing, including a pantyhose factory. Later, in the 1990s, the space became a motorcycle garage and gathering place for a Japanese motorcycle club.
Then fashion returned — this time through a camera lens.
In 1991, photographer Peter Lindbergh brought a group of supermodels to Brooklyn for Vogue’s September issue. The resulting editorial, “Wild at Heart,” became one of the defining fashion images of its era.
The Vogue archive dates the issue to September 1991, while Vogue's retrospective of Peter Lindbergh’s work for Vogue identifies Wild at Heart as one of his landmark stories. Vogue
From factory floor to DUMBO Design District
DUMBO's transformation is itself a story of reinvention.
The neighborhood that once produced packaging, paper goods and other industrial products eventually became home to artists, designers, architects, technology companies, galleries, restaurants and independent businesses.
Today, the DUMBO Improvement District describes the neighborhood as a longstanding center of design, pointing to its architecturally significant historic buildings alongside its contemporary creative community. Our Founder Conway C. Liao, coined the term DUMBO Design District when we moved into the neighborhood in 2016. A term he started using from day one, it finally caught on in 2025, when it was officially recognized as a design district.
Why we're here
When we opened Hudson Wilder at 142 Plymouth Street, we weren't interested in recreating the past.
We were interested in continuing it.
Hudson Wilder is a Studio–Showroom–Café: a place where design, food, books, music, conversation and everyday objects can exist together. The café gives people a reason to slow down. The showroom gives them a reason to look closely. Our events bring designers, artists, architects, chefs, writers and neighbors into the same room.
That feels particularly right for this address.
A building that has spent more than a century making room for different forms of creativity has become a place for people to gather around design and everyday life.
The history of 142 Plymouth Street isn't a straight line.
Cardboard boxes became factories.
Factories became workshops.
Workshops became a motorcycle garage.
A motorcycle garage became part of the visual landscape of 1990s fashion.
And today, the same corner is a place for design, coffee, conversation and community.
Perhaps that's the real significance of being here.
Not preserving the past exactly as it was, but continuing the tradition of reinvention that has always defined this corner of DUMBO.
Hudson Wilder
142 Plymouth Street
Corner of Plymouth + Pearl
DUMBO Design District, Brooklyn - New York City