Details on the Borough Hall Skyscraper District
The creation of the Borough Hall Skyscraper District had been in the works for at least five years (we reported on it being discussed at a Brooklyn Heights Association meeting back in 2005) before it was officially presented at a Landmarks hearing on October 26. But we had yet to see a proposed map of…
The creation of the Borough Hall Skyscraper District had been in the works for at least five years (we reported on it being discussed at a Brooklyn Heights Association meeting back in 2005) before it was officially presented at a Landmarks hearing on October 26. But we had yet to see a proposed map of the district until Community Board 2 sent out the materials yesterday for next Tuesday’s meeting. (Turns out it’s been available on the LPC site for a while though.) In addition to running the map above, we’ve cut-and-pasted the text of the district description that was also included in the mailing below. We’d be surprised if it wasn’t ultimately approved, but, as Crain’s and The Post have pointed out, not everyone is wild about the idea.
In the first half of the nineteenth century, especially following the chartering of the City of Brooklyn in 1834 and the completion of its new City Hall in 1848, a distinct civic and commercial center began to crystallize along the eastern edge of residential Brooklyn Heights. As the city continued to grow during the 1850s and 1860s—in the process becoming the nation’s third-most populous urban area—the streets immediately adjacent to City Hall were taken over almost exclusively by businesses.
In the later decades of the nineteenth century transportation improvements further encouraged commercial development in the area. The Brooklyn Bridge, which opened in 1883, directly connected the neighborhood with Manhattan’s financial center. Soon newer—and often much taller—buildings began to rise on the surrounding streets, including the impressive Romanesque-Revival Franklin Building that survives at 186 Remsen Street.
Brooklyn’s commercial heart continued to grow in the years following the consolidation of Great New York in 1898. The Temple Bar Building, for example, was erected in 1901 at the corner of Court and Joralemon Streets and was intended to attract the city’s leading lawyers to the borough. Other office buildings soon followed including the speculative venture at 32 Court Street that was completed in 1918.
The conception and construction of the Brooklyn Municipal Building—originally planned in 1909 but not completed until 1927—lead many to speculate that the area surrounding Brooklyn’s Borough Hall would become a financial center to rival that of Lower Manhattan. The area’s tallest and most architecturally intricate skyscrapers were erected during this period, particularly the stately, 35-story Montague-Court Building at 16 Court Street and the handsomely detailed Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce Building at 75 Livingston Street, both completed in 1927.
The proposed Borough Hall Skyscraper Historic District, comprising approximately 20
properties, is characterized primarily by tall commercial buildings erected in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Designed in a range of styles from the Romanesque-Revival to the Beaux-Arts to the Modern, the structures in the study area represent the work of an impressive group of architects including Helmle, Huberty & Hudswell; McKenzie, Voorhees & Gmelin; George L. Morse; the Parfitt Brothers; Schwartz & Gross; H. Craig Severence; and Starrett & Van Vleck. It contains many of the borough’s most architecturally distinguished business buildings, as well as its two most significant civic structures—the Brooklyn Municipal Building and the individually-designated Brooklyn Borough Hall.
I get the last comment!
Preservation rules! Kilroy was here! Save the whales!
“You constantly make any discussion of preservation into a quasi-religious battle, usually with preservationists lacking some kind of moral core.”
This is a silly statement.
The discussion is over.
Benson, of course it’s a matter of choice. It’s also a fact that the number of buildings actually landmarked is quite small, so stop acting as if the “government” is MAKING people live, gasp!, without central air conditioning, or in substandard housing.
People actually choose where they live, based on lots of criteria; their personal choices about amenities, appliances, numbers of bathrooms, central air and period details among them, as well as location and expense. Landmarking is not preventing anyone’s choices here.
And please. Blayze is entitled to his opinions, as are you. I find you to be more of a zealot than he is. You constantly make any discussion of preservation into a quasi-religious battle, usually with preservationists lacking some kind of moral core. Preservation is about protecting our architectural history, and an appreciation of craftsmanship, beauty, and neighborhoods. What in the world is wrong, and immoral, about that?
“Unless you’re extremely elderly or handicapped, you have no right to be concerned about stairs.”
“As for raising a family in the city, that’s the sacrifice we pay for living in an urban setting. You could have a McMansion in Suffolk county that’s miles from anything worthwhile, or you can walk the extra flight of stairs and still have lots of neighborhood amenities within walking distance.”
Blayze, you are a zealot. Statements like these are why the preservationist movement will fail at some point in the future. THIS is exactly the over-reach of which I speak.
“It’s a matter of taste and convenience and choice.”
No Montrose, it is NOT a matter of choice. You are advocating that the state governmental power, not the market, determine the supply of housing stock.
As for your argument about renovation: please. Gut renovating a walk-up building takes serious money. I’ll invite you to talk to developers and see if they can run with the idea of renovating walk-ups and charge the price necessary to recoup their investment, with a profit.
Benson, not to keep beating a dead horse, but no one is forcing anyone to rent or buy a walkup apartment, If they don’t want to schlep kids and stuff up 4 flights of stairs, then don’t rent the apartment. There are plenty of other choices. Some people don’t mind, and actually enjoy the exercise. It’s as simple as that. It’s a matter of taste and convenience and choice. Just as it is a choice to have central or any air conditioning at all. It’s not a requirement, or a necessity. Plenty of people neither want it or have it.
Also, ever hear of renovation? An old building can be retrofitted to have any amenity, if one wants to spend the money. For many, it’s a matter of taste and preference. Believe it or not, a lot of people prefer old apartments because they LIKE them, and don’t want to have central air, or modern appliances. Those who want those things rent or buy in buildings that have them.
Lots of fancy schmancy VERY expensive buildings in this town don’t have in-apartment washer/dryers, or central air, or 2 bathrooms, buildings both old and new. You act as if I’m suggesting people live without electricity and hot running water in order to be “real”. I don’t understand why you are making a buyer/renter’s choice into some kind of statement on the worth of preservation.
A place to park one’s car? What happened to all your transit endorsing? And stairs? Unless you’re extremely elderly or handicapped, you have no right to be concerned about stairs. That, and most buildings (give or take ones built post 1930) with over five stories tend to have elevators in them.
As for raising a family in the city, that’s the sacrifice we pay for living in an urban setting. You could have a McMansion in Suffolk county that’s miles from anything worthwhile, or you can walk the extra flight of stairs and still have lots of neighborhood amenities within walking distance.
Please Benson, your logic is so archaic and sadly stuck in the 1950’s. Somehow I think even you would consider LoMex as being a good idea. So, do us all a favor and move to Miami or a smaller sunbelt city that caters to your kind. Parking lots and nondescript glass condos seem to be your taste.
“These buildings were built for the middle class at the turn of the century, and had to be nice to attract the middle class. ”
Yes, and now here we are in 2010, and folks have strived to further improve their standard of living. In much of the US, being in the middle-class implies amenities such as a washer-dryer hook-up, central air, a certain amount of spaciousness to the layout, 2 batrooms and a place to park one’s car. None of these amenities are present in these walk-up’s, be they originally tenements or flats. Also, most people don’t relish the idea of schlepping kids, groceries and stollers up 4 flights of stairs. Finally, one of the items I appreciate about my modern condo apartment is the sound insulation, fireproofing and sprinkler system, thanks to modern construction techniques.
So, preservationists can harbor the hope that there are enough people out there who are enamored of old facades so that they forego modern amenities, or they can be realistic and not insist that every building be preserved. Your choice. One of my hobbies is the study of history, and such reading reveals that many movements fail because of over-reach.
Benson, for some reason you have a deep dislike of walk-up flats buildings. Your main screed against further landmarking Park Slope was the fact that some walk-up tenements are included in the footprint. You’ve carried on about the ones on PPW before, as well.
Crown Heights North has a great many of these buildings, and I happen to find them quite attractive, for the most part, and I think they embody what urban density should be. Most are center hall, with 2 building long apartments per floor. That is quite a bit of room. If they are as intact as when built, they are well thought out urban spaces. Many have interior hallways that prevent them from being railroad flats. These buildings were built for the middle class at the turn of the century, and had to be nice to attract the middle class.
Real tenement buildings are narrower, and usually are railroad flats, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t decent housing. Why are they obsolete? Because someone has to climb stairs? You climb stairs in a brownstone. For everyone who is not willing to climb stairs, for whatever reason, there is someone who will, so what’s obsolete?
Interior spaces can be changed and renovated, layouts improved, new kitchens and baths, etc, just like anywhere else. These buildings, when included in historic districts are just as much a part of what made the neighborhood historic as “better” architecture. They are where people lived. I happen to think the ones on PPW show the progression of living arrangements as the new century continued. People began to make the transition from one family houses to apartments. They also wanted to be on the park, and the developers met the need. They are not obsolete, as people still find them suitable to their needs. If they don’t want to climb the stairs, they don’t buy or rent. Tearing them down is not progress.
If someone buys one that is not landmarked, and wants to tear it down, zoning will determine the height of any new building. I don’t see where that is any improvement.
Then again, we could replicate the Upper West Side…
but the UWS is a fairly different beast, and for the most part, high-rise development in the area has only brought in an influx of chains, especially bank branches. It feels awfully suburban at times. Walking back from work around the 72nd Street transit hub, bank branches would leave all their lights on, and the atm areas were pointlessly lit up. Sure, the area is busy during the day but why cram such useless things in such valuable space? It seemed a horrible waste of real estate just for 4 atm machines to blink on and off. It could have been apartments or a restaurant or anything of better use. Then again, this bank branch malaise is all over the city.
Perhaps, we need to utilize space a little better before we go knocking down more historic buildings..
However, the best example, or what would be ideal for Brooklyn is West End Avenue which has gorgeous prewar apartment houses up the entire stretch, including every style from Beaux-Arts to Art Deco. Brownstones are squeezed in little places but the majority are large buildings that are attractive, many of which have ground-level retail or offices. It’s New York at it’s best. If we were to replicate any street, West End would be it.
But who am I kidding, architects are bad planners. Keep NYC in amber. Send high-rises to Hong Kong.