Morey Warehouse
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Tattered Cover Books (Morey Warehouse)
1896, Gove and Walsh. 1628 16th St.
Denver's largest wholesale firm erected this warehouse of 253,000 square feet, designed by Aaron Gove and Thomas F. Walsh, the architects of many warehouses surrounding their best-known work, the 1912 portion of Union Station. The brick exterior is distinguished by horizontal banding on the first story, recessed upper-story windows, and a bracketed metal cornice. A grand second story entrance from the 16th Street Viaduct (demolished in 1993) led to oak-finished offices on the second floor. Chester S. Morey presided over a wholesale food empire of 500 employees and eighteen branches in Colorado, Nebraska, New Mexico, and Wyoming. Morey's building was remodeled in the early 1990s as a branch bookstore, coffee bar, offices, and warehouse of The Tattered Cover, founded in 1974 by Joyce Meskis as a tiny bookshop. The Tattered Cover has grown into a giant with some 500,000 titles in stock, earning praise from The New York Times as “the best general bookstore in the U.S.”
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