Look Up for a Downtown Brooklyn Storefront Remnant by Modern Architect Morris Lapidus

It takes glancing up amidst the jumble of signs on Fulton Street to spot it, but bits of a storefront designed by a modern architect best known for his snazzy mid-century hotels can still be glimpsed, at least for now.

The once sleek storefront design at 453 Fulton Street in Downtown Brooklyn was unveiled in 1947, the latest design by architect Morris Lapidus. Covered for decades by a massive pawnshop billboard, its removal unveiled remnants of Lapidus’ design and clues to the client in the incomplete signage, “ndon Character Shoe.”

While Lapidus, who was born in Russia but grew up in Brooklyn, would make his name designing glamorously exuberant Miami hotels in the 1950s, his distinctively American modern style emerged in his early years as an architect crafting storefronts to lure passersby, and their wallets, off the sidewalk and into a store. Lapidus set up his own practice in 1943 specializing in stores, showrooms, offices and factories.

A regular client was the London Character Shoe Company, which started as a shop on the Lower East Side around 1910 before growing into a retail chain with stores in New York and New Jersey. The Fulton Street store was the first of four new stores planned for Brooklyn in 1947 and the company president told the Brooklyn Eagle at the time that the new store “was probably the most modern in the entire country.”

The design transformed the existing 19th century building with streamlined, illuminated signage running the full width of the store. Below it, a deep vestibule of well-lit display windows allowed views into the store. Above, the eye-catching graphics continued, standing out on a concrete facade ornamented sparingly with a single vertical fluted band, perhaps a nod to a more traditional pilaster.

On the interior, Lapidus, who was living in Midwood at the time, went all in to lure local sports fans. A photo mural dominated by Dodger shortstop Peewee Reese and a depiction of Ebbets Field covered one wall. None of the interior elements, pillars covered in cowhide, a sloping ceiling and porthole lighting, appear to have survived.

It wasn’t the only building Lapidus transformed in the push to modernize the shops along Fulton Street. He was also hired by Martin’s Department Store to give a modern look to the storefront of the grand Romanesque Revival Offerman Building at 503-513 Fulton Street. While his insertion of slabs of marble were removed from the landmarked building in its more recent transformation, in 1947 the Brooklyn Eagle lauded the new design for “emphasizing simplicity rather than the gimcracks of the Victorian era.”

At 453 Fulton Street, the remnants of the Lapidus design were revealed in late 2019 with the removal of the pawnshop billboard. While a banner above the current storefront indicates the property is for sale, records show that it sold to the developer United American Land in January of this year for $5.8 million.

The same developer currently owns 13 of the 24 lots on the block, which they have been accumulating for over a decade. While records don’t show any recent filings, new development is already coming to the block. Three neighboring buildings, located at 457, 459 and 461 Fulton Street, were demolished in 2020 for the construction of a new two-story commercial building that renderings show will include a CityMD.

[Photos by Susan De Vries unless noted otherwise]

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