Brooklyn Boro

Lovable Lesser-Known Landmarks: A firehouse, a chocolate factory and more

Eye On Real Estate

September 2, 2015 By Lore Croghan Brooklyn Daily Eagle
The Old Brooklyn Fire Headquarters in Downtown Brooklyn is used for affordable housing now. Eagle photos by Lore Croghan
Share this:

Romanesque Revival reigns supreme at a fine old firehouse and a stellar stable.

These buildings are two of the stars on a list of lovable lesser-known Brooklyn landmarks that we devised from consulting the National Register of Historic Places.

The Old Brooklyn Fire Headquarters at 365 Jay St. has an ornately decorated arched exit for fire engines and a lookout tower where fire spotters once stood like sentries.

The Downtown Brooklyn property, built in 1892, was designated as an individual city landmark in 1966. It is now an affordable-housing building for low- and middle-income tenants.

Subscribe to our newsletters

A Pratt Area Community Council and MDG Design & Construction joint venture bought the building from the city for $1 in 2013 and did a long-overdue renovation that was completed this past May.

There are no horses anymore at Feuchtwanger Stable, an eye-pleasing red-brick Romanesque Revival building at 159 Carlton Ave. in Fort Greene.

A developer named Anderson Associates converted the shut-down 1880s-vintage stable to condos.

Here are three other lovable properties from the National Register of Historic Places that began their existence as non-residential buildings:

* The Lincoln Club at 65 Putnam Ave., which looks like a sweet little castle from Fantasyland, was built in 1889 as an exclusive spot for the rich men of Clinton Hill to socialize.

In the 1940s, the clubhouse was sold to the Independent United Order of Mechanics of the Western Hemisphere, according to a report about the building’s 1981 designation as a city landmark. The group uses the property as its world headquarters.

* The Nassau Brewing Co. in Crown Heights is industrial eye candy. Two buildings in the 1860s-vintage complex, 1024 Dean St. and 925 Bergen St., were listed on the National Register of Historic Places last year.

They’re looking good because Susan Boyle and Benton Brown purchased the properties more than a decade ago. Their development firm, Big Sue LLC, turned the Dean Street building into six loft-style apartments and created 30 commercial spaces in the Bergen Street building.  

* Candy is dandy.

So is the 1890s-vintage Rockwood Chocolate Factory Historic District in Wallabout, a complex of heroic proportions that rises up alongside the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway near the Brooklyn Navy Yard. The building addresses are 54-88 Washington Ave., 255-275 Park Ave. and 13-53 Waverly Ave.

An LLC led by developer Aleksander Goldin turned part of the closed-down candy plant into an apartment building called the Chocolate Factory.

In 2014, Goldin’s LLC sold the 123-unit rental apartment property, whose main address is 255-275 Park Ave., for $68 million, Finance Department records indicate. The buyer was the HK Organization, which made the purchase through an LLC. The firm is headed by Harry Kotowitz and Howard Klaus.  


Leave a Comment


Leave a Comment