180 Remsen Street on Track for Landmarking
We’re a little late on this but it took us a few days to take a photo…Last Tuesday, the Landmarks Preservation Commission voted to calendar the former Brooklyn Union Gas building at 180 Remsen Street in Brooklyn Heights. The Brooklyn Heights Blog ran some details about the history of the building last week: Built in…
We’re a little late on this but it took us a few days to take a photo…Last Tuesday, the Landmarks Preservation Commission voted to calendar the former Brooklyn Union Gas building at 180 Remsen Street in Brooklyn Heights. The Brooklyn Heights Blog ran some details about the history of the building last week:
Built in 1914, the former headquarters and general office building of the Brooklyn Union Gas Company was designed by the prominent Brooklyn architect Frank Freeman. Established in 1825 as the Brooklyn Gas Light Company, it originally manufactured gas to illuminate city streets. In 1895, it merged with several rival suppliers to create the Brooklyn Union Gas Company, serving customers in both Brooklyn and Queens. The company prospered, tripling its manufacturing capacity and quadrupling storage. Such developments coincided with the growth of the borough and during the 1910s and 1920s business doubled. It was during this period, under company presidents James Jourdan and James H. Jourdan, that the new headquarters was planned and constructed, consolidating three hundred employees in a single building. A late work by Frank Freeman, the architect’s austere monumental design reflected the current taste for neo-classicism and the client’s desire to be perceived as a public institution. The Brooklyn Union Gas Company occupied the building for 47 years. Sold in 1962, the current owner is St. Francis College.
Bring it on, LPC!
BUG Building to be Landmarked? [BHB] GMAP
The Brooklyn Heights Association has been working on an early-20th century Court Street and vicinity “skyscraper” historic district. I hope that this is just the first of several nominations, as opposed to settling for the easy fruit.
Memory is fuzzy, but didn’t Brooklyn Union Gas also once have a Second Empire headquarters at the northwest corner of South Second or Third and Bedford Avenue? (My AIA guide is at home. That’s all my boss needs to see; me searching through that at my desk.)
This is a consolation prize for the really wondeful 1850’s building that used to be next door. It was the original Gas Company headquarters.
The College demolished it a couple of years ago. All that is left is the photo and entry in the AIA Guide to NYC.
As for this big old clunky building, it is safe with or withour landmarking. The college would not be able to build a bigger one on this site even if it wanted to.