Tag Archives: civic

Engine Company 33

Manhattan, , , , , , , ,

Engine Company 33 firehouse embodies New York fire department architecture: big, bold, and colorful – like the men who live, work and sometimes die there.

The house dominates Great Jones Street on the block between Lafayette Street and The Bowery. Its monumental limestone Beaux Arts arch, scooped out of the four-story red brick facade like a band shell, recalls the top of New York’s demolished Singer Building. That tower, also designed by Ernest Flagg, was the world’s tallest building when completed in 1909 – 11 years after this firehouse.

The firehouse, now shared by Ladder Company 9, was among the first designed by Flagg. Until 1895, Napoleon Le Brun (and sons) had been the NYFD chief architect; the firm designed 40 firehouses in 16 years.

Tragically, this house lost 10 of its 14 firefighters on September 11, 2001. (The NY Times article was incorrect on this point.)

Engine Company 33 Vital Statistics
  • Location: 42 Great Jones Street between Lafayette Street and the Bowery
  • Year completed: 1898
  • Architect: Ernest Flagg, W. B. Chambers
  • Floors: 4
  • Style: Beaux Arts
  • New York City Landmark: 1968
  • National Register of Historic Places: 1972
Engine Company 33 Recommended Reading

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Memorial Sloan-Kettering Mortimer B. Zuckerman Research Center

Manhattan, , , , , , ,

Memorial Sloan-Kettering Mortimer B. Zuckerman Research Center is a major expansion of previous lab facilities. The distinctive red-sliced slab tower accommodates a neighboring church, which provided the needed land and air rights.

The red terra cotta wall slices through the slab tower, separating laboratories in the western section from supporting offices in the eastern section. Each major facade has its own passive sun shade solution. Fritted glass panels shade the labs; aluminum-pipe louvers shade the offices.

The project had to be completed without disturbing ongoing research at the existing laboratories.

The base of the tower includes a rectory for St. Catherine of Siena Church.

See the architect’s project portfolio and design narrative for a detailed analysis.

Memorial Sloan-Kettering Mortimer B. Zuckerman Research Center Vital Statistics
  • Location: 415 E 68th Street between York and First Avenues (block-through to 410 E 69th Street)
  • Year completed: 2006
  • Architect: Skidmore Owings & Merrill
  • Floors: 23
  • Style: Postmodern
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Mortimer B. Zuckerman Research Center Recommended Reading

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Brooklyn Army Terminal

Brooklyn, , , , , , ,

Brooklyn Army Terminal is Cass Gilbert’s monumental all-concrete intermodal warehouse, rushed to completion for World War I. Also known as the US Army Military Ocean Terminal or the Brooklyn Army Base, it was the largest concrete building, when built, and also the largest military terminal in the U.S. As a strictly utilitarian facility, the buildings totally lack the lavish ornamentation of Gilbert’s Beaux Arts and Gothic masterpieces.

Although completed too late to play a role in WWI, the five-million-square-foot terminal moved three million troops and 37 million tons of military cargo during WWII.

The terminal continued to operate through the cold war, as a supply base for U.S. troops in NATO. The most famous soldier to “ship out” from Brooklyn was Elvis Presley, in 1958. But after Elvis left the building, things were pretty quiet until the ’70s, when the Army itself shipped out. New York City bought the Brooklyn Army Terminal in 1981 and began converting it to civilian use in 1984, a process that is still continuing.

Like other industrial parks, Brooklyn Army Terminal is closed to the general public, but Turnstile Tours now has twice-monthly weekend guided tours of the facility.

(Many thanks to Corey William Schneider and the New York Adventure Club, the Facebook-based group that arranges explorations of lesser-known attractions throughout the city’s five boroughs.)

Brooklyn Army Terminal Vital Statistics
  • Location: 140 58th Street, Sunset Park
  • Year completed: 1919
  • Architect: Cass Gilbert
  • Floors: 8
  • Style: Brutalist
  • National Register of Historic Places: 1983
Brooklyn Army Terminal Recommended Reading

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Main Brooklyn Post Office

Brooklyn, , , , , , , , ,

Main Brooklyn Post Office, aka Conrad B. Duberstein U.S. Bankruptcy Courthouse, is one of downtown Brooklyn’s architectural gems. The four-story (plus tower) granite structure is boldly detailed Romanesque Revival. The building originally included federal courtrooms – but the courts have now pushed the original post office functions into the addition, built in 1933.

Both the original building and the annex were restored, inside and out, from 1996 through 2013. But prior to the restoration, the Federal Government wanted to demolish the annex to build a 415-foot-high courthouse tower – a structure that would dwarf the original building.

As The New York Times reported in 1992, “Deirdre Carson, a vice president for land use for the Brooklyn Heights Association, said that the 1891 building was one of the classic architectural structures in downtown Brooklyn and that putting a large building next to it would ruin its visual impact. ‘We’re trading two years of jobs for generations of ugliness,’ she said.” (full story)

Main Brooklyn Post Office Vital Statistics
  • Location: 271-C Cadman Plaza East
  • Year completed: 1891
  • Architect: Mifflin E. Bell, William A. Freret
  • Floors: 4
  • Style: Romanesque Revival
  • New York City Landmark: 1966
  • National Register of Historic Places: 1974
Main Brooklyn Post Office Recommended Reading

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Poppenhusen Institute

Queens, , , , , , , , , ,

Poppenhusen Institute represents not only post-Civil War architecture in New York, but also the amazing power of a single individual. Or two.

A modest brick and brownstone building, the Institute is five stories high including its mansard roof. Round-arched windows and strong horizontal bands mark it as Italianate style, while the mansard roof crowns the building in French Second Empire.

Conrad Poppenhusen, a German immigrant, became wealthy in the 1800s manufacturing whalebone products: combs, corset stays, etc. In 1852 he switched from whalebone to the just-invented Goodyear-process hard rubber. Poppenhusen’s factory was in what is now College Point, and he was dedicated to the welfare of his community. So dedicated that in 1868 he gave $100,000 to build the Institute, and in 1871 another $100,000 endowment to maintain the building and its work. That work included the country’s first free kindergarten (a German invention, after all), free vocational classes for adults, library, and civic center.

The generous endowment couldn’t last forever. By 1980 the Institute’s Board of Control, after selling art works and other assets, decided to sell the building. Enter Susan Brustmann, who proved to be just as dedicated as Conrad Poppenhusen to continuing the Institute. She organized a grass-roots fight to save and restore the Institute and to this day continues to fight for financial support – NY State assistance ended in 2008. (See Christopher Gray’s Streetscapes column. See the Queens Tribune story for an update.)

The Poppenhusen Institute continues to offer community services, exhibits, classes and events; the Institute is open weekdays – check the website for details. The Institute is close to Flushing’s historic sites and Chinatown (there’s frequent Q65 bus service to/from Main Street).

Poppenhusen Institute Vital Statistics
  • Location: 114-04 14th Road at 114th Street
  • Year completed: 1870
  • Architect: Mundell & Teckritz
  • Floors: 5
  • Style: Italianate with French Second Empire
  • New York City Landmark: 1970
  • National Register of Historic Places: 1977
Poppenhusen Institute Recommended Reading

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