Gage & Tollner Will Likely Be Surrounded by Construction for Years, Then Skyscrapers

Fulton Street’s iconic Gage & Tollner restaurant will likely be the last standing historic building on its Downtown Brooklyn block. Applications for demolition permits have been filed for the entire southern stretch of Fulton Street between Red Hook Lane and Smith Street, aside from the restaurant’s home. The corner buildings on Red Hook Lane have already faced the wrecking ball.

Currently wedged between its scaffolding-covered neighbors, it’s not hard to imagine the landmarked four-story building at 372-374 Fulton Street soon surrounded by skyscrapers, given the neighborhood’s super-tall development trend and that an application for a new-building permit has been filed for a 43-story mixed-use tower next door.

Excepting the Gage & Tollner building, developer Feil Organization owns the entire block, which includes the still-standing buildings 366, 370, 376, and 380 Fulton Street. Permits have been applied for, but not issued, to demolish them all.

In 2022, Extell Development entered a ground lease with Feil for all the sites surrounding Gage & Tollner for $85.9 million. Extell is known for its large luxury buildings in Manhattan, but currently it has only one Brooklyn development to its name: the nearby Brooklyn Point, the third City Point tower.

Also in 2022, the mid-century bank building at 356 Fulton Street and its neighbors at 360 and 362 were demolished to make way for the planned tower.

The demolition exposed old signage on the facade of 366 Fulton Street, dating back to its days as Brooklyn’s first location of The Wiz electronics store. The brothers who founded the store formerly owned the building, and still own the historic Gage & Tollner building, according to city records.

To date, Extell has kept the existing new-building application filed by Feil for the 43-story building (which might actually climb to 46 stories, according to details elsewhere in the application) and which would span from 356-362 Fulton Street, abutting Gage & Tollner.

While SLCE Architects is still listed as the designer behind the project on the permits, a spokesperson for the firm told Brownstoner they are no longer involved. The original filing calls for a 475,474-square-foot tower with 421 residential units, 30 percent of which would be income restricted and rent stabilized under the state’s now-expired 421-a tax break program.

According to a story in The Real Deal in June 2022, Feil started work on the building’s foundations to qualify for the tax break, but any changes made by Extell could mean the developer would forgo the deal. Feil executive Brian Feil told TRD at the time: “Gary [Extell CEO] is very smart in what he does, and I’m sure he’ll want to put his own stamp on it. Whether he wants to keep the 421-a or do something different, that’s up to him.”

So far, no new-building permits have been filed for the sites to the east of Gage & Tollner, but it’s likely, given the square footage of the lot, the area will also house a large mixed-use tower.

To make way for a potential new tower, Extell will demolish the Lane Bryant building at 380 Fulton Street, on the corner of Smith Street. The seven-story structure was completed in 1915 as the Balch, Price & Co. store and designed by Seymour & Schoenwald. Lane Bryant moved into the building in 1950, after a major 1935 redesign. Extell will also demolish its longstanding neighbor at 376 Fulton Street.

Meanwhile, the iconic Gage & Tollner restaurant, which was in operation in Downtown Brooklyn from 1892 to 2004 and reopened in 2021, sits unobtrusively at the center of all the planned work. Construction, particularly pile driving and excavation, can be dangerous to adjacent 19th century buildings, threatening structural stability and causing them to crumble.

Ben Schneider, who owns the restaurant with partners Sohui Kim and St. John Frizell, said while there is open communication between the developer and landlord of the Gage & Tollner building, and he trusts all precautions will be taken to protect the historic building, “accidents happen.”

“Am I afraid of what it’s going to be like? Yes, of course,” he said, adding the project is a major undertaking and conditions next door appear to have allowed water to seep into a shared brick wall during heavy rain.

He said the restaurant would likely be “tucked away in some version of a construction site for four to five years,” depending on whether Extell develops the separate sites at the same time. To get through that period, he said he had asked for the more stylish urban umbrella scaffolding. “The restaurant is a gem and if we have ugly scaffolding it’s going to be just tragic,” he said. “I have made my voice clear throughout the land that that is the one thing we need, that and of course our walls not falling down.”

Schneider said the business plans to keep its regular service hours throughout the construction, but if they have to close due to noise or other issues they will seek compensation so the project “doesn’t tank us.”

Designated by the Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1975 for its importance in capturing the “atmosphere of the Gay Nineties,” the space is also one of only a handful of interior landmarks designated in Brooklyn and the only restaurant among them.

[Photos by Susan De Vries unless noted otherwise]

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• Gage & Tollner Team Prep to Revive One of Brooklyn’s Oldest Restaurants

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