A bold rebuild brightens Howard Street, once a bustling downtown shopping destination

There’s a transformation in progress along Howard Street that should warm the hearts of anyone who knew this neighborhood as a bustling downtown shopping destination. A $10 million restoration of the old Pollack’s furniture showroom is now in its seventh month of a painstaking refurbishment. It has been renamed Crook Horner Lofts, a reference to the old plumbing supply house that did business in the 1890 structure. The building is becoming 15 units of expansive loft-work apartments. With 14-foot high ceilings and dramatically arched windows in some flats, this building references the days when it served as Pollack’s furniture and rugs retail store — after the bathtub and pipe seller moved on.