Building of the Day: 335 Union Street

Brooklyn, one building at a time.

Name: Former private house, now apartments
Address: 335 Union Street
Cross Streets: Court and Smith streets
Neighborhood: Carroll Gardens
Year Built: Unknown, probably 1840s, early 50s
Architectural Style: Gothic Revival
Architect: Unknown
Landmarked: No

The story: There used to be two of these houses; Gothic Revival homes on large lots with carriage houses in the back. The 1880 and 1886 maps of the area show this well, especially the 1886 map. The two mirror image houses sat on either end of a wide 100-foot lot, with grounds between the houses and adjoining carriage houses to the rear. This was an unusual arrangement, even for the time, and I’m sorry that more definitive information about the earliest days of the houses is not easily available. The house has very attractive drip moldings on the windows and doorway, and is finely proportioned, and was originally a story or two taller.

Union Street is named for the Union Stores warehouses that lined the Red Hook waterfront. This area was known for many years as South Brooklyn, because it was at the southern edge of the town of Brooklyn, an ironic designation today considering how much farther south Brooklyn would continue. Carroll Gardens began to be laid out in the late 1840s, and was well served by the public transportation of the day, and Union Street was one of the main thoroughfares.

The owner of this house when the 1886 map was made was William E. Gladwish. He was for many years associated with the Eastern Transportation Line, and was Vice President at his death in 1884. Eastern was a shipping company with schooners and tugs that operated along the East Coast. After his death, a steam tugboat was named after him. It was involved in a liability law suit that ended in the Court of Appeals in 1912. His widow, Susan Gladwish, lived here until her death in 1899.

Afterwards, the estate sold the house. By 1911, it had become a Norwegian meeting hall called Norge Hall. There were many Scandinavians in Carroll Gardens and Cobble Hill at that time, employed by the shipping yards and the factories in the Red Hook area. Norge Hall was active by this name, hosting various clubs and associations, until about 1916. It was also home to a lodge of the Knights Templar; the Guiding Star Lodge or the International Order of Good Templars, and was sometimes referred to as “Templar Hall,” at least by the Templars themselves.

I think that the building was cut down during this time. If you look at the map from 1916, the twin house and the carriage houses are long gone, replaced by a tenement building, and the shape of this building has changed, as a very large addition was built in the rear. I don’t know why they would do that; perhaps it was easier to accommodate the one large and one small meeting room in the building this way.

In 1918, an ad in the Eagle shows the house for sale. It is only two stories at this point. The ad touts the building as an ideal club. Others thought so as well, and for most of the 1920s, the house became Assembly Hall, home to many different local political and community organizations. It housed the headquarters of the 8th Assembly District Democratic Club, the 8th Assembly Republican Club, women’s clubs for both parties, and the O’Growney Gaelic Society, which met here between 1923 and at least 1927.

After the 1920s, the building disappears from the news. It must have changed hands again, and was perhaps made into apartments at that point. Today, the building has five units. I would imagine there are two per floor and a basement unit. No one would ever know that this was once a community hall, or was the rather expansive home of a shipping executive. Brooklyn is always changing. GMAP

(Photo: Nicholas Strini for PropertyShark)