Originally constructed for a real estate company, 1021 housed at least two different shoe companies in its early decades. The Bee Hat Company moved in in 1944, using the building for warehousing and sales. In 2000 they moved out.
Remediation and renovation began in 2005, converting the building to residential units with two retail spaces on the street. The renovation also included night lighting of the building’s cornice and the return of a pipe system that blows steam out of the mouths of the second-story decorative lion heads.
