Building of the Day: 59 Third 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: 59 Third Avenue, from Pacific to Dean Streets Name: Former Brooklyn Printing Plant, New York Times Neighborhood: Boerum…
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: 59 Third Avenue, from Pacific to Dean Streets
Name: Former Brooklyn Printing Plant, New York Times
Neighborhood: Boerum Hill/Times Plaza
Year Built: 1929
Architectural Style: Neo-Classical, with Art Deco ornament
Architect: Albert Kahn
Landmarked: No
Built as the printing plant for the NY Times, this building has been repurposed as school space, and is part of a complex housing the Math and Science Exploratory School, Brooklyn High School of the Arts and the Kahlil Gilbran School.
The Arts HS is the only NYC public school to offer a program in historic preservation. The NY Times signage is still on the façade of this Classical temple. The large windows at street level along Third Ave allowed the public to watch the printing, collating and folding of the paper as it passed across the floor of the building.
This area is now a gymnasium, a sensible reuse of open space. Kahn’s use of Art Deco motifs and styling takes the building to another level, making it one of the most interesting buildings in the Times Plaza area.
The Times Plant, the Williamsburgh Savings Bank, and Hanson Place Methodist Church, along with the main school building alongside, on Dean St, form a wonderful pocket of Art Deco architecture in a mainly late 19th century streetscape.
[Photos by Suzanne Spellen]
thanks for this profile, Montrose. my first vote in a New York election was cast in this building 10 years ago. six years later i moved even closer to the building and passed it regularly for 2 years. i often looked down into the gymnasium from the street level, having no idea what was once there.
I always thought the stone on this building looked like halvah.
During the seventies, there was a city trade high school there which taught cosmetology. Girls would come out after school and get on the bus with wig heads covered in rollers and little duffle bags of beauty supplies.
Glad you chose to highlight this one, it is a very nice surprise when passing through the area.
Park Sloper: you’re probably right about a contemporary press not comparing favorably, though I will say I kind of like the contemporary, color-blocked style of the Times press out in Whitestone, Queens.
Love this building too. Have seen the NYTimes signage for a while and wondered what their use of the space had been. Thanks MM.
Beautiful building! Can you imagine what a building meant to house a printing plant would look like if constructed today?
I pass this building often, and I always stop to look at it and enjoy its lovely details. It is also an excellent example of what repurposing an old building is all about.
Not central to our appreciation of the building (which I always misattribute to the Daily News, confusing it with the garage down the street that is now a climbing studio), but the Kahlil Gilbran School has moved, to Navy Street I think.