If you didn’t realize downtown Brooklyn was once grand, talk to Bob Furman, founding member of the new group Brooklyn Preservation Council. The Brooklyn Eagle reported on Furman’s hopes for the area. They include raising awareness about the urban fabric that existed there before the Robert Moses-championed Cadman Plaza and Columbus Park replaced some 300 buildings, including a few neo-classical treasures, in a fit of urban renewal in the post-war years. “While we can’t rebuild the way it used to be, I thought it would be appropriate to commemorate what it once was, he says. I always felt that the Downtown Brooklyn and Cadman Plaza renewals were disasters. [Their] purpose was to reverse the decline of Downtown Brooklyn and Brooklyn Heights, which [they] didn’t do. One building especially missed is the neo-classical Kings County Courthouse, razed and eventually replaced by Brooklyn Law School at Joralemon Street and Boerum Place, made with Tuckahoe marble and designed by Borough Hall’s architect, Gamaliel King. Hopefully the signs Furman hopes to erect, commemorating lost streets and buildings, will help deter us from making the same mistakes today.
Preservationist Looks to Commemorate Downtown Brooklyn of Old [Brooklyn Eagle]
Cadman Plaza. Photo by r5n5.