2525 Tilden Ave, Healey's, Jim Henderson for Wikimedia

Brooklyn, one building at a time.

Name: Storage warehouse
Address: 2525 Tilden Avenue
Cross Streets: Lott Street and Veronica Place
Neighborhood: Flatbush
Year Built: 1923-24
Architectural Style: Colonial Revival-ish
Architect: Unknown
Landmarked: No

The story: You can’t miss this building. That was probably the intent. It looms over this side of the block of Tilden Avenue between the larger blocks of Bedford and Rogers Avenues. It’s six stories high, towering over the two story houses that once filled this block. Today, the scale is mitigated by some newer and taller buildings, but when it was built, it must have soared. I wonder how they got away with that.

The largely windowless building was home to Healey’s Storage and Warehouse. We modern people aren’t the only ones who needed storage for extra furniture and miscellaneous stuff. Ever since Americans became mass consumers of purchased goods, at the end of the 19th century, outside storage space has been needed, especially by city dwellers. In the beginning of the storage wars, it was only rich people who needed storage, but today, just about everyone has more possessions than they have room for.

The building was constructed in 1923 and opened in 1924. The first ads are help-wanted ads in the Eagle for experienced warehouse workers. The building is a rather severe but handsome example of storage warehouse architecture with Beaux-Arts/Colonial Revival style ornamentation in the form of cast stone decorative elements on the roofline, and a cast stone clad ground floor and entryway.

Healey’s stored clients’ furniture and other goods from 1924 until about 1946. During that time Flatbush was still growing, as the larger six story elevator apartment buildings continued to go up all over Flatbush, at about the same time this building did. They augmented their business by running a furniture store on the ground floor. Ads show them selling furniture job lots and overruns, pianos, and sales of unclaimed stored furniture. By 1945-46, the ads change to include Healey’s Carpet Cleaning Company.

Their ads disappear in the 1950s, but the building itself is back in 1962, as the Bargain Barn, selling appliances such as washing machines. They list the address and also note that they are located in “Healey’s Warehouse.” Whether or not Healey’s had anything to do with Bargain Barn, the name recognition was still a valuable marketing tool.

By the 1980s, up until the present time, the building has been run by several moving companies, including Two Five Two Five Moving and Storage, Father and Son Moving, and most recently, All Star Moving and Storage. All of these companies utilized the storage facilities upstairs for their clients, and rent out storage space.

Buildings that were built specifically as storage warehouses don’t have very many windows, and it’s one way to tell what warehouse building like this were used for in the first place. Stored goods are best preserved without light and damaging dust, bugs, etc. The walls are very thick, as they were built to be fireproof.

If the building ever ceases to be a moving and storage company, I hope it is repurposed as housing. These buildings make great apartments, as the thick walls and sturdy construction allow for the necessary changes needed for conversion. Also the architect may not have put many windows in the façade, but it’s easy to see where they could go, and if done right, wouldn’t mar the overall character of the building. Many storage buildings, such as the Eagle Warehouse in Dumbo and the Jenkins Warehouse building on Nostrand and Gates, in Bedford Stuyvesant, were converted into housing quite successfully.

(Photograph:Jim Henderson on Wikimedia)

GMAP

Photo: Google Maps
Photo: Google Maps
1931 Brooklyn Eagle Ad. Brooklyn Public Library
1931 Brooklyn Eagle Ad. Brooklyn Public Library
1946 Brooklyn Eagle Ad. Brooklyn Public Library
1946 Brooklyn Eagle Ad. Brooklyn Public Library
1962 Brooklyn Eagle Ad. Brooklyn Public Library
1962 Brooklyn Eagle Ad. Brooklyn Public Library
Photo: Nicholas Strini for Property Shark
Photo: Nicholas Strini for Property Shark

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