Building of the Day: 165 Remsen Street

Brooklyn, one building at a time.

Name: Office Building
Address: 165 Remsen Street
Cross Streets: Court and Clinton Streets
Neighborhood: Brooklyn Heights
Year Built: 1924-25
Architectural Style: Neo-classical
Architect: Unknown
Landmarked: Yes, part of Brooklyn Skyscraper HD (2012)

The story: On the face of it, this is a nice three story office building on a side street in the new Brooklyn Skyscraper Historic District. But this little building’s history is much more complicated than its surface appearance. Its fortunes are tied to its backyard neighbor, and while quite picturesque with its banks of upper story windows, the stories behind these doors have yet to be revealed.

Before this building and its neighbors were constructed in the early to mid-20th century, Remsen Street was completely residential, filled with four and five story brownstone row houses, equal to those up the street, further into the Heights. 165 Remsen was home for many years to Dr. Frederich W. Wunderlich, a prominent physician, and his family.

By the ‘teens, this block of Remsen was becoming more and more a business destination, as office space turned the corner from Court Street, and began to encroach on this block. The Wunderlich family gave up the house by 1914, and moved around the corner to Sidney Place, and the house became the headquarters of two very different organizations, the Brooklyn Chapter of the Red Cross, and the Kings County Republican Campaign. I suspect the Red Cross had more of the building.

The Red Cross was here until the old brownstone was torn down in 1924. In its place rose this quite attractive small office building, only three stories tall. The architect’s name is lost to history, not even the LPC’s expert researchers could find it. The interesting thing is that the lot is tied to the lot directly behind it, which faces Montague Street. The office building on that lot, 188-90 Montague, is taken up by the Lawyer’s Title Insurance Building, a fine structure designed in 1904 by Helmle, Huberty & Hudswell, one of the better firms in Brooklyn. The two buildings were built twenty years apart, but were joined as one lot by taxes at some point, and so the fate of one is legally tied to the other.

165 is a really attractive little building. The classical entryway and banks of continuous windows across the second and third stories are really nice, as is the carved limestone trim. I’d love an office there, or an apartment. What great light. But what a mystery, as well. For a building in a major commercial corridor, nothing happened here. I could find no on-line references to tenants, except for one lawyer, way back when. Remsen Graphics is the only business that seems to have spent any real time here. Whoever else did business here may have been linked with 188 Montague, and it would take time to separate them from the businesses of this much larger building.

At any rate, let’s just enjoy this little gem. It’s being worked on now, and hopefully will soon sport a cleaning and perhaps a new paint job. This little unknown building is a bonafide landmark now. GMAP