Downtown Brooklyn from Temple Bar Building

A look at Brooklyn, then and now.

Downtown Brooklyn is one of my favorite neighborhoods to compare what was with what is. Because it was the center of civic and commercial life in the city, changes in that part of town happened often, sometimes dramatically. But also because of the area’s importance, many of the buildings there are now important landmarks, and still stand. Because of this, we have a wonderful frame of reference when looking at old photographs and postcards. Here’s another example.

The photograph was probably shot from the roof or an upper floor of the Temple Bar Building. It was the tallest building in Brooklyn at that time, the only building that would have looked down on the cupola of Borough Hall in that manner. That dates the photo to be from at least 1901, even though the postcard’s caption calls Borough Hall “City Hall.” Even if I am wrong about that, we lost the City Hall name in 1898, when Brooklyn became a borough. So if the postcard was published around that time, we’re still talking about a window of three or so years. Another dating factor is the cupola on Borough Hall, itself. It’s a replacement for the original one which burned down in 1895, and wasn’t finished until 1898, so the photo can’t be any earlier than that date.

There is so much here. First of all, there’s the elevated train line snaking around the curve of Fulton Street, headed towards Bedford Stuyvesant and East New York, via Fulton. This is the Kings County Elevated Railway, which originated at Fulton Ferry. It would be an integral part of Downtown Brooklyn until it was torn down in the early 1940s. There’s Borough Hall in the left foreground, as mentioned earlier, and on the right we have the old Municipal Building in the right foreground, with the Brooklyn Court House next door, and the Hall of Records next to that.

The old Municipal Building was replaced by the current Municipal Building in 1927. The Court House, which should have been a keeper, and the Hall of Records, which was also pretty impressive, were torn down for the two buildings and plaza of the Brooklyn Law School. Behind Borough Hall, the tall white building was the Williamsburg Trust bank and offices. The white building on the corner was the offices of the Brooklyn Citizen, a local newspaper which published from 1886-1947. They did not do their own reporting, they reprinted the stories of other local newspapers, a forerunner of papers like USA today. That entire row behind Borough Hall met the wrecking ball when this part of Cadman Plaza was excavated in the late 1940s.

Staying on the left side of the photograph, and looking east, you can see Frank Freeman’s Brooklyn Fire Headquarters Building rising behind the Williamsburg Trust Building. A couple of doors down, but a block away, the large white building with the arched windows is the New York and New Jersey Telephone Company Building, designed in 1898 by Rudolf Daus. Far behind that building, you can see the trees of Fort Greene Park.

In the center of the photo, along Fulton Street, where Willoughby Street begins, the row of buildings that end at an angle, is a group of brownstone storefront buildings. They are no longer there. Beyond that, further up Fulton, near the el station, is the Offermann Building, which up until recently had a Conway’s, but is best known for the years it was a Martin’s Department Store. It is being developed as condos now. At the time of this photo, it was a department store called Chapman & Co. The large brown building in the center, way in the back, is probably the Montauk Theater, which was one of downtown’s premiere theaters, built in 1895.

On the other side of Fulton Street, just behind the dome of the Brooklyn Courthouse was the Thomas Jefferson Association Building. It looks a bit like the Fire Headquarters Building because they were both designed by the same architect; Frank Freeman. The Jefferson Building was headquarters for the Democratic Party in Brooklyn. That building would last until 1960, when Boerum Place was widened to accommodate traffic to the Brooklyn Bridge.

The tiny sliver of white building behind the Jefferson Building, on Fulton Street, was the A. D. Matthew’s & Sons Department Store. It was on the western corner of Gallatin Place and Fulton Street, next door to Abraham & Straus, which is the large building behind it, and the white building behind that is either part of Abraham & Straus, or perhaps part of Loeser’s Department Store, which was further along on Fulton. I was not able to enlarge it enough to make out details, or get good perspective.

Moving towards the rear of the photograph, behind the large white building rises the corner towers on the large roof of the Brooklyn Warehouse and Storage Company, a massive warehouse storage facility on Schermerhorn between Nevins and Bond. It was designed by William B. Tubby, and was built between 1892 and 1894.

To the left of that is the Brooklyn Opera House, and directly behind the theater stands the clock tower of the Smith Gray Building, which stands, still, on Nevins Street, near Fulton Street and Flatbush Avenue. The tower was cut down to only a few stories in the 1940s. Smith Gray was the largest men’s and boy’s clothing store in New York City, with a factory and headquarters in Williamsburg, and retail stores here, In Manhattan, and other cities.

Most of the taller buildings in this photograph were less than ten years old when it was taken. Since the turn of the century, many buildings have disappeared, replaced by new ones, some quite good, some passable, and some just taxpayers or just awful. How many buildings can you recognize? And if you recognize any I didn’t mention, please comment.

GMAP

(1901 postcard: eBay)


What's Your Take? Leave a Comment

  1. I agree partially with your definition of the problem with Fulton Mall, but not the solution. Rather than opening it back up to all traffic, we should make it entirely vehicle-free, maybe from Bridge to Boerum, like some of the better shopping districts in Europe. Cross street entries to Fulton can be controlled by keypad-activated bollards, which will lower for deliveries destined for the street, which would be allowed only during certain hours (maybe that’s getting greedy for a first version).

    Belching street traffic is not what makes a city a city, and is not something to long for in and of itself.