Building of the Day: 797 Broadway

Brooklyn, one building at a time.

Name: Mixed use commercial loft building
Address: 797 Broadway
Cross Streets: Corner Fayette Street
Neighborhood: Bushwick
Year Built: Mid to late 1880s
Architectural Style: Romanesque Revival
Architect: Probably/perhaps Theobald Engelhardt
Other Buildings by Architect: Factories, breweries, row houses, private homes, churches, loft buildings, warehouses, and more, mostly here in the Eastern District of Bushwick/Williamsburg/Eastern Bed Stuy
Landmarked: No

The story: Brooklyn’s Broadway is one of those great streets that needs to be walked. If you are interested in architecture, Broadway can be immensely frustrating, because the elevated tracks obscure everything, including some great commercial architecture. The tracks also make decent photography of those buildings next to impossible. If you are in a car, you miss a lot of details, and if you are driving that car, your eyes should be on the street, because Broadway seems to bring out the crazy in drivers. But the good stuff is there, nonetheless, and if you get a chance, start walking and look up once in a while. One of the buildings you see may be this one, on the corner of Broadway and Fayette Street, between Park and Flushing Avenues.

Broadway was the Eastern District’s main street. Due to the riots and urban unrest of the late 20th century, many of the older buildings are gone, replaced by modern taxpayers, if replaced at all. But most of the old buildings do remain, and some represent the best of late 19th and early 20th century commercial architecture, many buildings designed by well-known Brooklyn architects of their day.

The most prolific of those architects was Theobald Engelhard, the son of German immigrants. His father was a carpenter and builder, and Theo grew up helping his father build the breweries and other businesses and homes for the German immigrant community that made the Eastern District a wealthy and successful community. He is on record for hundreds of buildings in this area, including buildings built for the developer who was at this address in 1880. He even built a house and office about two doors down from here, on Fayette Street. I think this building dates from at least 1885 or a bit later, and perhaps Engelhardt did not design it, there were plenty of good architects working then, but then again, he may well have.

Whoever did design it did a fine job. It is a classic Romanesque Revival building with arches galore. Unfortunately the years have been unkind to the ground floor façade, as well as the second floor. It’s hard to tell what’s going on there. The first tenant of record I found for the ground floor retail space was L. Baumann & Co, who had an ad in the Eagle in 1899. Leopold and Will Baumann were the owners of a fine furniture emporium at this site. They also had two storefronts in Manhattan. They were in business here when they went bankrupt in 1900.

Next was the fine clothing store belonging to Lewis M. Stern & Co. They manufactured and retailed their ladies’ suits, shirtwaists, and other garments here. They also sold shoes in the store. They were at this location from at least 1903 until 1914. In 1909, Stern’s advertised the storefront for rent, noting that it would be an ideal location for a shoe store. They continued to manufacture their clothing in the loft spaces upstairs.

In 1914, a fire broke out in their garment factory. The flames were seen by a motorman passing in the elevated train. He sounded his whistle until he attracted the attention of a patrolling policeman, who turned in the alarm. The fire caused a lot of damage to Stern’s factory, and also to the shop of a tailor who worked on the second floor.

In the next few years, the address would be home to several other garment manufacturers, all of whom advertised in the Eagle’s help wanted columns. Yale Waist Manufacturers (ladies’ shirts and blouses) was here in 1917, so was the Crystal Knitting Mill, the same year. Alfred Hirach, another tenant, made coats and suits. The building remained a garment factory for many years.

By the 1950s, the second floor became the Bedford Furniture Showroom. They may be the company that painted the Bedford American signage above the second floor, and perhaps put in the rather awful bank of windows. I was not able to find any information about a company, restaurant, or any business by that name. In 1968, the Bedford American Consumer Products Company sold the building. Today it is owned by the owners of the Beauty Supply Company on the ground floor. It does not look like the rest of the building is in use at all. Too bad, one could do a lot with this one.

(Photograph:Scott Bintner for Property Shark)

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