Building of the Day: 77 Clinton Avenue

Brooklyn, one building at a time.

Name: Benjamin Banneker Academy, formerly Drakes Bakeries, Inc.
Address: 77 Clinton Avenue
Cross Streets: Corner Park Avenue
Neighborhood: Wallabout
Year Built: 1913-1914
Architectural Style: Arts & Crafts facade on early 20th C. factory
Architect: Dodge & Morrison
Other Works by Architect: Bedford Central Presbyterian Church, Crown Heights North; rebuild after fire: Baptist Temple, Schermerhorn St.; Christ Evangelical English Lutheran Church, Bedford Stuyvesant.
Landmarked: No, proposed for a Wallabout Industrial District, currently going nowhere.

The story: Drake’s Bakery was founded in Brooklyn, in 1888, by Newman P. Drake. The first Drake’s cakes were pound cakes sold by the slice. Drake’s was always a snack cake maker, not a fancy bakery, like Entenmann’s or Ebinger’s, and the earliest establishment of the company was in the old Wallabout Market, called Drake Brothers Company. In 1900, they became Drake Bakeries, Inc., and in 1903, the first Drake factory and office was located here at 77 Clinton Avenue.

In 1913, the company had outgrown their first facility, and hired the firm of Dodge & Morrison to design a larger and more modern factory. Dodge & Morrison were an odd choice, as most of their work in Brooklyn was of an ecclesiastical nature, but they delivered, designing this handsome Arts & Crafts inspired façade on a fireproof, reinforced concrete factory.

By 1914, Drake’s was one of the Northeast’s largest commercial cake bakeries, producing ring dings, yodels, devil-dogs and coffee cakes. They produced 15 tons of pound cake a day, according to Baker’s Weekly, a trade paper. The factory was set up to make the baking and production process flow from floor to floor. The cakes were mixed on the fourth floor, and sent to ovens on the fifth floor. They then were packaged on the third floor, and shipped from below. The company offices were on the second floor, and there was a rooftop laundry to take care of the worker’s white uniforms. In 1924-25, the factory was extended all the way back to Waverly Avenue.

Drake’s was also one of the few kosher snack cake companies in the US. Their business continued to grow strong throughout the century, but eventually, the company sold out in 1960 to a food conglomerate. After several other sales to different companies, today it is part of Hostess Foods. They still make ring dings, yodels, and all of the other snack cakes they are famous for. I always liked the coffee cakes, myself.

The building was sold in 1987, and was held by several individuals over the years. In 2011, the building became the Benjamin Banneker Academy for Community Development, a charter school, named after the 18th century African American astronomer, surveyor, mathematician and almanac writer, who helped lay out the city of Washington, D.C. GMAP

(Above photograph: Christopher Bride for Property Shark, 2012)