Historians are trying to save a lower Manhattan building that is "a rare surviving relic" of New York's 19th-century world trade center but is due to be demolished to make way for a new hotel.

The Greek Revival warehouse is in a neighborhood that was part of "the process that made New York into America's great city," says historian Paul E. Johnson.

The red-brick warehouse on Pearl Street, near the South Street Seaport Historic District, was erected in 1831, one of the buildings that made up the original world trade center in lower Manhattan, long before the 110-story twin towers that opened in 1970. Wholesalers on Pearl Street, which has been around since Manhattan's Dutch colonial days, specialized in dry goods shipped to storekeepers all over the country.