Walkabout: Our Favorite Brooklyn Buildings
For December, I’d like to feature my favorite buildings, and yours. Each column will highlight favorite buildings in mostly Brownstone Brooklyn: row houses, apartment houses, free standing homes, churches, commercial buildings, schools and civic buildings, as well as favorite architectural features or ornament. My Tuesday column will feature some of my choices. I’d like to…
For December, I’d like to feature my favorite buildings, and yours. Each column will highlight favorite buildings in mostly Brownstone Brooklyn: row houses, apartment houses, free standing homes, churches, commercial buildings, schools and civic buildings, as well as favorite architectural features or ornament.
My Tuesday column will feature some of my choices. I’d like to have people write and tell me your choices, so Thursday’s column can show what the readers think are the most interesting buildings. I don’t have a car, and can’t get to a lot of far-flung locations, so if you have photographs to accompany them, that’s even better.
I’ll feature them in the article, find out what I can about them, and put all of them in my Flickr pages, of course, crediting your screen name for photos and entries.
If not enough people reply, you’ll just get my faves. So send in those entries. Leave building names (if any) and addresses, and suggestions in the comments below, as well as links to Flickr or other photo sharing sites. Photos can be sent to my email: montrosemorrisATyahooDOTcom.
Buildings don’t have to be old, important, or great, just enjoyed by you. I’m looking forward to your participation. Have a safe and Happy Thanksgiving.
Thanks, everyone. Keep the suggestions coming!
brenda- I was going to nominate the Hebron School too! I live a few blocks from it- come visit and we’ll go see it.
“Benson
****The moment of truth on Brownstoner****”
Mwaah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!!!!!
Zinka;
Thanks!
Benson
****The moment of truth on Brownstoner****
“..because of the redlining and the disinvestment, whole areas were frozen in time and preserved. Poverty can sometimes be the preservationist’s best friend. “
Posted by: Minard Lafever at November 24, 2009 1:12 PM
That is an interesting picture because there must have been such high expecations for that important corner. And yet the property was never fully developed and as a result the taxpayer building is still there to this day (I believe).
What that corner needs is an imposing bank or commercial building with a corner domed tower topped by a gilded angel or goddess celebrating the very important downtown intersection.
It could still happen…I’m placing my hopes on the New Classicism.
Brenda, you’re thinking of the Hebron school, east side of New York Ave, between Sterling and Park Place. Better viewed from Park Place. It’s an amazing building!
benson, the warehouse was marketed to a high-end audience, with wine storage, a giant safe, etc.
There’s an excellent history of the warehouse’s history, from 1988 (when it was supposed to be demolished for urban renewal!), here:
http://www.nytimes.com/1988/02/07/realestate/streetscapes-pioneer-warehouses-brooklyn-romanesque-revival-repository-complex.html
The Brooklyn Historical Society is one of the boro’s great buildings.
The Jay Street firehouse (one of Frank Freeman’s few surviving works) is great.
I love the row of houses on Duffield STreet that were moved across Flatbush Avenue twenty years ago and that are adjacent to the brick church.
The Litchfield Villa is one of the great greats.
The Tower Building and adjacent Warren Street mews in Cobble Hill are just incredibly picturesque.
the Kings County Savings Bank in Williamsburg is the best second empire building in the boro, now it is owned by an arts group I think.
So many wonderful resources in the Boro….
Good luck with your selections!
PS Packer Collegiate School by Minard Lafever is interesting too….
Zinka;
I have trouble believing that building started out life as a warehouse (though I might be wrong). My reason for thinking so is simple: why would they build a warehouse on that stretch of Flatbush Ave???? This was not a manufacturing zone. It was a prime commercial strip, so it doesn’t seem to make sense that they would put a warehouse there, just from an economic point of view.
There’s a huge block-long abandoned school or something in Crown Heights somewhere north of Eastern Parkway, I think–stumbled on it years ago and never forgot it but can’t find it again (and seldom get over there to look for it!) It looked like an English boarding school, even had what looked like a chapel with stained-glass windows, and some group like the Seventh-day Adventists had put a little banner up proclaiming that they had a school (clearly only holed up in part of this vast holding). It became my instant Walter Mitty fantasy to own it and start an Oprah-like boarding school for kids from troubled homes…anyone know where/what it is/was?