Building of the Day: 1002 Bushwick Avenue
The BOTD is a no-frills look at interesting structures of all types and from all neighborhoods. There will be old, new, important, forgotten, public, private, good and bad. Whatever strikes our fancy. We hope you enjoy. Address: 1002 Bushwick Avenue, corner of Grove St. Name: Originally Louis Bossert House, then Arion Singing Society Neighborhood: Bushwick…
The BOTD is a no-frills look at interesting structures of all types and from all neighborhoods. There will be old, new, important, forgotten, public, private, good and bad. Whatever strikes our fancy. We hope you enjoy.
Address: 1002 Bushwick Avenue, corner of Grove St.
Name: Originally Louis Bossert House, then Arion Singing Society
Neighborhood: Bushwick
Year Built: 1887
Architectural Style: Queen Anne
Architects: Theobold Englehardt
Landmarked: No
Why chosen: It’s been stripped of its original slate roof and millwork ornament, as well as original Gothic dormer windows, and looks a bit too somber now, but this was once the home of one of Brooklyn’s movers and shakers. Louis Bossert was a very wealthy and successful lumber and millwork magnate. He was very active in this predominantly German Bushwick community, being of German extraction himself. He would go on to build the Bossert Hotel, in 1909, one of Brooklyn’s finest hotels, on Montague St. in Brooklyn Heights. It was known as the Waldorf-Astoria of Brooklyn. and was the unoffical home of the Dodgers This house was designed by Theobald Englehardt, who built most of the prominant buildings, both private homes and factories, in Bushwick. Later, it would become the headquarters of the Arion Singing Society, a German men’s choir, or Mannerchor. The group was founded in 1865, and would build their own headquarters and auditorium on nearby Wall St, now Arion Place, and for many years was an extremely popular and influential community insititution. I could not easily find when the Society moved to this location, it must have been sometime in the first half of the 20th century, after a majority of the German population had started to move out of the neighborhood. Today it is a private home. This is a case of the occupants of a building contributing more to the history of the community than the building itself, and should be a part of a Bushwick Historic District.
In the words of the incomperable Bette Davis:
WHAT A DUMP!
Always amazing to be reminded of how big the German presence was years ago; now it’s close to vestigial.
MM, I think the home’s history is much more interesting than the building itself, at least in its current state. It could probably be quite magnificent though with a full exterior makeover, especially with the return of those gothic windows. and that metal fencing…oh well, no comment.
Good pick. Englehardt was the preeminent architect for all of north Brooklyn in the late 1800s through the turn of the century. He did hundreds (probably thousands) of buildings in Williamsburg, Bushwick and Greenpoint, from stables and tenements to many of the grand buildings (the Karl Fischer of his day, but two or three orders of magnitude more prolific, and a much better designer!).
For Arion Hall, take a look at these pictures: http://www.wgpa.us/2007/04/arion_hall.html