Building of the Day: 33 Flatbush Avenue
The BOTD is a no-frills look at interesting structures of all types and from all neighborhoods. There will be old, new, important, forgotten, public, private, good and bad. Whatever strikes our fancy. We hope you enjoy. Address: 33 Flatbush Avenue, between Fulton and Lafayette Name: Metropolitan Exchange, formerly Corn Exchange Bank Neighborhood: Downtown Brooklyn Year…
The BOTD is a no-frills look at interesting structures of all types and from all neighborhoods. There will be old, new, important, forgotten, public, private, good and bad. Whatever strikes our fancy. We hope you enjoy.
Address: 33 Flatbush Avenue, between Fulton and Lafayette
Name: Metropolitan Exchange, formerly Corn Exchange Bank
Neighborhood: Downtown Brooklyn
Year Built: somewhere between 1910 and 1930
Architectural Style: pared down Neo-Classic
Architects: Unknown
Landmarked: No
Why chosen: The wonderfully named Corn Exchange Bank was founded here in NYC in 1853. It became one of NY’s most successful banks, and eventually had branches in the Midwest and other parts of the country. It was well known in the early years before the Great Depression as a merger king, buying up a lot of smaller local banks, which gave them offices in different parts of Brooklyn. Prior to moving here in 1929, another Corn Exchange branch was only a couple of doors away, and this building was an expansion into a larger space. I was not able to find out if the building was built for them, or was here before. In 1954, the Corn Exchange Bank merged with Chemical, becoming the Chemical Corn Exchange Bank, which became Chemical Bank in 1969, until it was taken over by Chase in 1996. 33 Flatbush was empty for a while, as Chase left, and in 2006, the building was bought by environmental designer and activist, Al Atarra, for use as a cooperative of like minded architects, urban planners and researchers. When he bought the building, it had been recently used for a movie shoot, and the old Corn Exchange facade had been replaced by Metropolitan Exchange Bank, a fictional bank for the movie. Atarra kept the signage and named his company M Ex, the Metropolitan Exchange. He planned for a public exhibition spaces, and today much of the rest of the building is tenanted by a mix of web, industrial design, media and other creative companies.
Yeah, I met Al earlier this year and took a tour, and he’s talked about owning it since the 70s. 2006 may be when the city’s eminent domain lien was up – he only found out after he bought the place that it was slated for take over for a transit project that never came about, so only recently has he been able to do real work on the space.
There’s also a commercial kitchen and some architects in there as well.
Pretty sure that Al’s owned the building for quite some years longer than 2006–it’s filled with piles of his architectural salvage. I visited him there in 2005, when the “Corn Exchange Bank” sign was still up.
Yes, Chemical bought up Chase and Manny Hanny and turned them all into Chase. Pretty tough to beat that Chemical Corn Exchange Bank moniker.
I think it was Chemical which bought Chase btw, but retained the Chase name.
Very subdued in comparison to the Corn Exchange Bank in Philadelphia:
http://people.csail.mit.edu/mip/photos/2006/philly/6.jpg
I like the idea of “Chemical Corn Bank”
sounds a little spooky but potentially hallucinatory.
I have never focused on this building, the adjacent cold storage is rather overpowering.
There is, or rather was, a very ornate Corn Exchange Bank on 125th Street in Harlem adjacent to the elevated Netro North station. It was designed by Lamb and Rich in the 1880’s. It has been sad watching that building slowly shrink first by two stories, then another three.
It was a real masterpiece, this is really not, but it is a pleasant old building that has survived the test of time.
“and today much of the rest of the building is tenanted by a mix of web, industrial design, media and other creative companies. ”
Or in other words – essentially vacant
MM, hasn’t Atarra owned this building since the ’70’s?