A.D. Brown Building

An elegant loft building at the southeast corner of Washington Avenue and Tucker Boulevard, clad in white glazed terra cotta and brick — a sharp contrast to its brawnier warehouse neighbors. Its main facade faces Tucker, designed as part of an intended grand line of buildings fronting the widened 12th Street. Individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places (March 28, 1980).

H. E. Roach and Son designed this loft in 1897-98 at the southeast corner of Washington Avenue and 12th Street, and it went up as the headquarters of the Hamilton-Brown Shoe Company, which a photograph from about 1903 still shows on the corner, then one of the largest shoe manufacturers in the world. The company's founder, Alanson D. Brown, gave the building its lasting name. It was designed to face 12th Street, part of an intended grand line of buildings on the widened street. The district nomination places the Schwab Clothing Company here from 1899, filling the building by 1903 and staying about a decade, and records the junior dress makers Mary Muffet and Kerry Cricket at 1136 Washington in 1946. Over the years the tenants also included other shoe companies, retail stores and offices, and the Curlee Clothing Company is said to have expanded into it from its narrow building next door at 1128. A ninth story was added in 1953. It was renovated into offices in 1977, listed on the National Register of Historic Places on March 28, 1980, and converted to loft condominiums in 2005 as The Meridian.