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February 25, 2009
The Union League Club-House
This is a 1891 photo of The Union League Club-House on Bedford Ave. in Crown Heights Grant Square. With all the talk of the Montauk Club apartment today I thought it would be interesting to see what people thought about this building. You see the similarities in architecture but this building looks even more upscale and larger. I really hope that someone could bring this great building back to its glory days. When I pass this area I try to imagine how it was 100 years ago. Do you think we will ever see this building have its renaissance.
Comments
Lovely, lovely. Thank you for posting, Amzi. The eagles on the top are amazing. I feel the same way about many parts of Bed Stuy that are slumbering beauties waiting for some attention.
Posted by: Schultz at February 25, 2009 2:45 PM
Looks gorgeous. I think I am going to see it this weekend.
The problem with these buildings is that they are really expensive to maintain in the outside. If this building is made up of apartments it could have many more of them, making the maintenance easier... which would be a killer in a place such as the Mountak, with so few share holders... the Mountak needs urgent work (the fences are a disaster) and I bet the upkeeping charges will keep a lot of potential buyers away.
Posted by: Ray at February 25, 2009 2:52 PM
"With all the talk of the Montauk Club apartment today" -- what talk of the MC Apartment????
Posted by: parkslopemom at February 25, 2009 2:56 PM
Oh don't get me started on Bedford Stuyvesant... This is why I think Landmarking is important. We have these great treasures in our faces all over Brooklyn. It is really sad that the city dose not help in trying to preserve buildings like this like they should. In many of the cities in Euorpe they would never let buildings like this come down and get chopped up. This building was designed by P.J. Lauritzen and built the same times as Francis Kimball Montauk Club. This building one time had bowling alleys and shooting galleries in the basement, large dining and reception rooms on the first floor,library and billiard rooms on the second floor. Also had private bachelors apartments on the third floor with a gymnasium on the fourth and a rooftop lounge. This place sounds like it was the place to belong at the turn of the century.
Posted by: Amzi Hill at February 25, 2009 3:07 PM
Ray you might be hurt to see it but the fourth floor is all gone today. No more eagles on the top...
Posted by: Amzi Hill at February 25, 2009 3:10 PM
sorry I guess it is the attic fifth floor that is gone..
Posted by: Amzi Hill at February 25, 2009 3:11 PM
Amzi:
What a beauty! And note the way nearby row houses perfectly complement the Union League's architecture. Grant Square was definitely the place to be back in the day.
By the time my family lived down the block during the 1950s, the club was long gone, but the building remained, as it does to this day. Even before then, the lot to the right in your photo (a great one, by the way) was filled in, so the club didn't quite dominate its surroundings as it once did. Nevertheless, architecturally it was among Brooklyn's most distinguished buildings, and I'm delighted to know its still there.
The club, the Imperial Apartments, the Armory and several other fine structures around the square give this part of Crown Heights great "bones." And, as Montrose Morris points out in another thread, much of the area is landmarked, so as it's improved (with projects like the Dean Street house renovation discussed on another thread), its terrific character will be preserved.
The Union League better than the Montauk? I'd say they're equivalent. The relative austerity of the former befits its roots among Civil War Republicans. Better to be sober than fanciful like the Montauk, given its background. (And talk about severe: Park Avenue's Union League Club, with similar roots, is among the most austere in Manhattan.)
Again, thanks for the great photo. No doubt, Grant Square should be a highlight of Brownstone Brooklyn.
Nostalgic on Park Avenue
Posted by: NOP at February 25, 2009 3:48 PM
Amzi:
What a beauty! And note the way nearby row houses perfectly complement the Union League's architecture. Grant Square was definitely the place to be back in the day.
By the time my family lived down the block during the 1950s, the club was long gone, but the building remained, as it does to this day. Even before then, the lot to the right in your photo (a great one, by the way) was filled in, so the club didn't quite dominate its surroundings as it once did. Nevertheless, architecturally it was among Brooklyn's most distinguished buildings, and I'm delighted to know its still there.
The club, the Imperial Apartments, the Armory and several other fine structures around the square give this part of Crown Heights great "bones." And, as Montrose Morris points out in another thread, much of the area is landmarked, so as it's improved (with projects like the Dean Street house renovation discussed on another thread), its terrific character will be preserved.
The Union League better than the Montauk? I'd say they're equivalent. The relative austerity of the former befits its roots among Civil War Republicans. Better to be sober than fanciful like the Montauk, given its background. (And talk about severe: Park Avenue's Union League Club, with similar roots, is among the most austere in Manhattan.)
Again, thanks for the great photo. No doubt, Grant Square should be a highlight of Brownstone Brooklyn.
Nostalgic on Park Avenue
Posted by: NOP at February 25, 2009 3:48 PM
I read that this club came out of the Manhattan club. I did not know there was still a club in Manhattan. NOP your great source of information. I can read your post all day....
Posted by: Amzi Hill at February 25, 2009 3:54 PM
I know this building well and have always liked it in spite of it being down at the heels. It is landmarked and owned by a private landlord. It has been leased by the City since 1984 as a senior community center (not senior housing as per wikipedia)on the first and basement levels and as ACS offices on the upper floors. The interior has been stripped of any details, yet the rooms have high ceilings and good natural light.
We have faced a number of challenges with this place over the years, especially regarding burglary and graffiti. One weekend the place was broken into three times. The shiny stuff over the paint on the stone is an anti-graffiti coating circa 1998. I can only suppose they painted in the first place because of graffiti.
Unfortunately we are unable to perform any exterior upgrades as our source of funding for renovation is federal and the New York State Office of Historic Preservation makes it nearly impossible for us to do anything to the exterior of historic properties.
Posted by: Bessie at February 25, 2009 4:01 PM
Yes, Amzi, the Union League is still in Manhattan.
My understanding is that it split from the Union Club because of the Union's confederate sympathies. (New York was a big cotton town, believe it or not, where many manufacturers and bankers were sympathetic to the South.)
The result: Park Avenue has two enormous club houses, one the Union (in the East 60s), the other the Union League (in the East 30s).
The first Union League was on Fifth Avenue and looked similar to the Grant Square club house. I wonder if they had the same architect.
And Bessie, sometimes -- not always! -- "deferred maintenance" is a historic structure's best friend (until the right owner with deep enough pockets comes along!)
NOP
Posted by: NOP at February 25, 2009 4:07 PM
http://www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com/bigmap/brooklyn/crownheights/grantsquare/index.htm
Check out this link.
The upper portion and some of the windows have been pretty butchered. The terra cotta is still pretty nice, though.
Posted by: Bessie at February 25, 2009 4:19 PM
Thanks, Bessie.
The club will need a lot of work.
But there's a lot of elegance left.
NOP
Posted by: NOP at February 25, 2009 4:36 PM
Bessie these are such great photos.. The buildings are really nice in Grant Sq. It is really unfair that some areas get whatever they want when it comes to keeping it up and NYC ignores other equally beautiful areas. This is almost like a times square type of intersection and something really nice should happening here... Again thanks Bessie for those photos.
Posted by: Amzi Hill at February 25, 2009 5:21 PM
Great photo, Amzi. I hadn't seen this one before. I was especially glad to see the tower, which is now gone. I have a photo from the Bklyn public library from the same period, but this photo is much better. Not only are the eagles now gone from the dormer on the right, the whole dormer is gone, the roof trim is gone, and the eyebrow windows are now nondescript flat rectangles. I don't know when the roof was converted and the tower taken down.
I'm sorry to hear all of the interior has been stripped and reconfigured, but this building has been through several owners. It was purchased by the Jewish Unity Club in 1946, and was used as a school until converted into a senior citizen's center in '84.
Bessie, I guess the bowling alley, the powerplant, and other period details are long gone. There isn't even an office or auditorium space that wasn't torn out?
I don't think we can wish the past back. A senior citizen's center is a valuable resource to a community with a large senior population. There will also always be the need for a shelter in the Armory, but that doesn't mean a well run, small shelter can't co-exist with a bustling square. We certainly don't have a well run shelter at the moment.
This is a perfect spot for some well though out urban planning, which will have to be done with community involvement, city, state and other funding, and the public will for success. The world has changed, but the tony swells and bejewelled ladies in gowns promenading to parties may someday return, albeit in a more modern and multicultural manner. Landmarking is only the first step. We need to landmark the Chatelaine Hotel, the theatre and the large apt building on the western corner of Dean and Bedford, too.
Posted by: Montrose Morris at February 25, 2009 6:52 PM
What a delightful thread. Thanks everyone, I loved your input.
Posted by: Schultz at February 25, 2009 8:08 PM
Jewish Unity Club! What did they do with it? Run it as a club? Or was that when it was a school?
Posted by: mopar at February 26, 2009 12:01 AM
I went to grade school here and remember the huge classrooms, high ceilings, wide hallways and the rats running around the dining room on the lower level during lunch. Us kids had no appreciation for a historic building and spent most of the time trashing the place until we moved out in the early '70s into a new school building, which we continued to trash as the school did not really discipline the children who learned there and let chaos rule.
Posted by: bklynrocks at February 26, 2009 8:39 AM
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