MAS Proposed Downtown Landmark #5
Where: 423 Fulton Street When: 1931 Why: During the depression, as investment in large construction projects waned, a series of small Art Deco style commercial buildings were erected in Downtown Brooklyn. The finest of these is the four-story office building with ground-floor shops on the corner of Fulton and Pearl Streets. The building was designed…
Where: 423 Fulton Street
When: 1931
Why: During the depression, as investment in large construction projects waned, a series of small Art Deco style commercial buildings were erected in Downtown Brooklyn. The finest of these is the four-story office building with ground-floor shops on the corner of Fulton and Pearl Streets. The building was designed by one of the most talented New York architectural firms involved in apartment house and commercial construction in the early decades of the twentieth century. As on their larger Art Deco apartment buildings, George & Edward Blum dramatically employed polychrome terra cotta on the facades of this structure. The building was marketed as “New Modern Building in the heart of Brooklyn’s Shopping District.” In the mid-1930s, the building was the Brooklyn headquarters of the New York Times.
Architecturally Significant Buildings [Municipal Arts Society] GMAP
Funny how so many of these proposed landmark buildings only reveal their architectural glories when you look up. If the city were to introduce some basic standards for the ground floor of historically significant buildings and the commercial signage adorning them, their appearance — and thus the whole streetscape — would be improved immeasurably. There are plenty of good examples of this existing already, eg. the storefronts along the south side of Fulton between Hanson Pl and South Oxford (or thereabouts); also, the storefronts on Bergen St just west of Pintchik in the Slope.