Building of the Day: 1470 Bedford Avenue

Brooklyn, one building at a time.

Name: Originally Brooklyn-Durant Motor Company, now Temple of God In Christ Jesus Church
Address: 1470 Bedford Avenue
Cross Streets: Sterling and Park Places
Neighborhood: Crown Heights North
Year Built: 1924
Architectural Style: 20th century Gothic-style commercial
Architect: Unknown
Landmarked: No

The story: William “Billy” Durant was a character, one of those people whose lives make great screen plays. He was handsome, took great risks, lived large, and had great business success and spectacular failures. In many ways, this little building is a reminder of his life and career. It was built in 1924 as the headquarters and showroom for the Brooklyn-Durant Company, makers of the Durant automobile. Never heard of the Durant? Well, you are certainly familiar with the company its namesake founded, a little automobile enterprise called General Motors.

Billy Durant was born in Boston in 1861, and came from money. He dropped out of high school to work at his grandfather’s lumber yard, and never looked back. In 1885, he went into business with a partner in a carriage company. A year later, he founded the Flint Road Cart Company, turning a $2,000 start-up into a 2 million dollar company with sales around the world. That company became the Durant-Dort Company, based in Flint Michigan; in 1890, the largest company of its kind in the world. He was only beginning.

Of course, Flint was at the center of the new automobile industry, and going from wagons to automobiles was a no-brainer. In 1904, he was approached to become the general manager of Buick, which he quickly turned around from failure to success. With $2,000 of his own money, he founded General Motors in 1908, and immediately turned around and offered stock. Within two weeks he had raised 12 million dollars. He bought Buick, and then turned around and bought Oldsmobile from founder Ransom Olds. Still buying, he acquired the Oakland Motor Company, which he renamed Pontiac, and the Cadillac Motor Company, then a subsidiary of Buick.

It was only 1910, and he was on a roll. He wanted to offer Henry Ford 8 million dollars for Ford, but the banks turned him down, and over-extended, he reached too far, and his GM board of directors kicked him out. Undaunted, he vowed to out GM GM, and started over. His partnered with race driver Louis Chevrolet to found Chevrolet Motors, which then began producing mid-priced cars, and made a fortune. With that money, he was able to borrow money from the DuPont family and regain control of General Motors.

In his second round at GM, he established GMAC in 1919, brought Chevrolet into the fold, and acquired Frigidaire and Fisher Body. But the company had become too big for Durant, and he began losing money, and control went to the DuPont’s, and his board, and he was forced out again, after only a year. But that was ok, he still had plans.

In 1921, he started Durant Motors. He started out with one model, but soon had others in different styles and price ranges, all of which did well. He saw himself as a budding rival to GM. He bought smaller companies and their cars, marketing them as Durants, with a price range from the Star, the cheapest of the line, rivaling the model T, on up to the Locomobile, his top of the line luxury brand. This showroom would have had them all, and there are ads in the local papers with many of his models offered for competitive prices.

Durant motor cars sold from 1921 to 1926, and then from 1928 to 1932. The Star was sold between 1922 and 1928. This building was the showroom, inexplicably built in a 20th century Gothic style, like many others in Brooklyn and the New York City area. Even the huge Studebaker building across the street is Gothic. I don’t know why Gothic and cars go together, except that perhaps in the early age of automobiles, owning a roadster or one of the great touring cars offered by these companies was a religious experience.

Billy Durant flew high and fast, but he flamed out just as quickly. The Great Depression got him, as it did so many others. He had tried to help prop up the stock market with the Rockefellers and others, and crashed and burned, going bankrupt in 1936. He ended his days in Flint running a bowling alley, and slinging hot dogs. Only his pension, arranged for him by his GM associates and the DuPont’s, saved him from total poverty. He suffered a stroke, only partially recovered, and died in 1947, in Flint. He’s buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx in a private mausoleum.

The Brooklyn Durant Company closed its doors with the Depression. The wide open display front of the building was bricked up, and today, the Gothic style showroom is appropriately a church. The building belonged to the city for a while, before being sold to the church in the 1970s. It’s now a more or less forgotten part of Bedford Avenue, Brooklyn’s once-huge Automobile Row, where showrooms, dealerships, service stations and other auto related businesses thrived between 1905 and the 1950s. Today, a few of the old automobile business buildings remain, all repurposed as businesses or housing, all pretty much forgotten monuments to one of Brooklyn’s most successful business hubs. GMAP

Gratuitous plug: My tour partner Morgan Munsey and I will be conducting a Walking Tour of Automobile Row this Saturday, November 9 at 11 am. The tour is sponsored by the Municipal Arts Society, and there are still tickets available. Please check their website for prices and location. We are always glad to meet Brownstoner readers on our tours.