49-65 Meserole St. CB, PS 1

Brooklyn, one building at a time.

Name: Verizon Communications Center
Address: 49-65 Meserole Street
Cross Streets: Corner Lorimer and Leonard streets
Neighborhood: Williamsburg
Year Built: 1975
Architectural Style: Brutalist
Architect: John Carl Warnecke & Associates
Other Work by Architect: In Manhattan – AT&T Long Lines Building. Elsewhere – JFK Eternal Flame Gravesite, Arlington Cemetery; Hawaii State Capitol, Honolulu; US Naval Academy, Annapolis; Hart Senate Office Bldg, Wash. DC.
Landmarked: No

The story: When the Zombie Apocalypse comes, I’d want to be here. What a bunker this is! Ironically, this fortress was designed by an architect who gained great international acclaim for his advancing of the practice of contextual architecture. More on that in a minute.

Long before the Borg ship landed on this corner, this was home to houses and businesses in a very busy part of Williamsburg. At the turn of the 20th century, there was a brewery just across the street, working class tenement buildings all around, and storefront businesses with apartments above. 49 Meserole had a wholesale leather business operating here. The DeLong family lived here in 1901. George DeLong was a stone and marble cutter, working for one of the monument companies near the cemeteries at the end of Bushwick. This was a vibrant and productive neighborhood.

Over the century, that changed. The businesses left, and so did many of the people. Empty lots began popping up here and there, and the neighborhood had a bad reputation. Perhaps that is why AT&T, the phone company, decided to put an equipment and communications center here. The land was cheap, and no one was going to object. It’s a central location, and the nature of the equipment did not necessitate a large contingent of workers. Which, of course, could have helped the neighborhood with jobs, which would have made the area more conducive for other positive change. But they didn’t do that.

Instead, they built an impregnable bunker that takes up half the block. It is made of iron spotted brick, with huge overhanging hoods over the minimal windows. Even larger hoods cover the entrances. An enormous wall of brick and steel plates surrounds the building, and closed circuit cameras bristle from the walls. It looks like a supermax prison from a post-apocalyptic science fiction movie. Inside, the tons of specialized communications equipment is protected from the environment. It’s probably necessary, but it sure ain’t pretty.

The building was designed by John Carl Warnecke, a prominent architect working during the mid-20th century. He was the son of a prominent San Francisco architect, was educated at Stanford, in his home state of California. He got his masters at Harvard, where he studied with famed modern architect Walter Gropius. His first jobs were as a draftsman for his father, who designed Beaux-Arts type buildings, and for the housing authority of California.

Warnecke worked steadily during the 1940s and 50s, designing school and university buildings. His career really took off after he was asked by the Kennedy administration to come up with a plan to save the historic buildings of Lafayette Square in Washington, and design new buildings that were needed for government offices. He and First Lady Jacquie Kennedy formulized a plan that advanced the architectural theory of contextualism. His buildings for Lafayette Square were the first buildings in DC to utilize contextualism as a design philosophy.

The new buildings complemented the historic buildings, and in some cases were joined with new entryways and courtyards. It was a design success, causing Warnecke to make Washington his home, and open an office there. John Kennedy’s assassination cut short any other major project he might have been in line for. He had forged a friendship with Mrs. Kennedy that allowed her to ask him to design the Kennedy gravesite at Arlington. They worked on the project together, along with Senator Robert Kennedy.

John Carl Warnecke, who by this time had a firm of associates, opened an office in NYC in 1967. By 1977, it was the largest architectural firm in the country. During this time, he designed at least two buildings for AT&T. One was the huge Long Lines building in Lower Manhattan near the World Trade Center. This windowless building, also a Brutalist gem, was designed in 1974. This building in Williamsburg was built a year later, also designed to hold sensitive equipment and little staff. Warnecke retired soon afterwards, and died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 91, in 2010. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, his buildings are an iconic part of the city and part of his legacy.

(Photograph:Christopher Bride for PropertyShark)

GMAP

Photo: Christopher Bride for Property Shark
Photo: Christopher Bride for PropertyShark

What's Your Take? Leave a Comment

  1. God, what an ugly building. After its construction, its forbidding apearance – it actually seems taller than it is when viewed from the ground – plus the large number of vacant lots in the area created a non-natural barrier that effectively cut off the Lindsey Park community from the area north of Maujer St.

    By the way, by the time this area started to become more than farmland, it had been annexed from Bushwick and was very much a part of the Village – and then City – of Williamsburgh. This was the neighborhood known as Dutchtown, a heavily German community which included the area situated between Union Ave. and Bushwick Ave.