The Many Lives of Downtown Brooklyn’s Offerman Building

Editor’s note: We’re thrilled to announce Brownstoner columnist Suzanne Spellen will be writing stories about Brooklyn history and historic architecture once a month here, in addition to her features for the Brownstoner print magazine. Also in the pipeline for the fall is a mini-site where all her works will be collected and easy to find in one place. Welcome, Suzanne!

By the beginning of the 1890s, Fulton Street between City Hall and Flatbush Avenue was fast evolving as one of the largest and most prosperous retail shopping districts in the nation. Large department stores such as Weschler & Abraham, Frederick Loeser and A.D. Matthews dominated, all housed in new and ever-larger multi-storied buildings along the length of the blocks.

Henry Offerman was a millionaire sugar baron, president of the Brooklyn Sugar Refining Company, a powerful allegiance of Williamsburg’s sugar businesses, the largest of which was Henry Havemeyer’s Domino Sugar company. For a time, Offerman lived in Hoboken and worked in Williamsburg, before moving to Clinton Hill, and like many wealthy men of his day, had real estate investments everywhere.

He saw the financial potential of the growing shopping district and purchased eight lots on Fulton Street opening onto both Bridge and Duffield streets with the purpose of building a large investment property that could be leased to the right merchant. His lots were in between and facing Weschler & Abraham and Frederick Loeser, the two most successful merchants on the street.

Construction of his building began in 1890. It was designed by Peter J. Lauritzen, a Danish-born architect who was making a name for himself as a fine architect in wealthy Brooklyn circles. It didn’t hurt that he also lived near Offerman’s company in Williamsburg. He designed the building in the popular Romanesque Revival style of the day, a powerful and massive style best suited for large buildings.

The building has the massing, mix of materials and textures, large arched openings and florid stone ornamentation that gives it great beauty. Lauritzen’s design was executed in limestone, light-colored brick and terra-cotta, distinguishing it from the other buildings on the street. It was also, at eight stories with very high ceilings, one of the tallest buildings in Brooklyn at the time.

Offerman built his building with a tenant already lined up. It was S. Weschler & Brother, the brothers of Joseph Weschler, across the street. The entire family had been in the dry goods business. The brother’s business was also very successful, moving into ever larger buildings as it grew. By the time the Wechsler brothers were getting ready to open in the Offerman building, Joseph Weschler had sold his interest, and Weschler & Abraham was now Abraham & Straus.

On May 1, 1891, the new store at 503 Fulton Street opened with great fanfare. Weschler’s was a true department store, selling ready-made clothing and accessories of all kinds as well as home furnishings and decorative items. The store had a long central aisle leading to an atrium with a huge domed skylight six stories above. The floors of the store all opened onto the atrium, with railings and counters highlighting the space. The building had its own electrical generator, lighting the store and powering seven elevators. Everyone who entered the store was impressed.

In 1892, Offerman was able to buy 10 more lots, all facing Duffield, which Lauritzen designed as an adjoining annex. The Duffield Street building was completed in 1893, incorporating more interior retail space as well as loading docks. The Fulton Street side of the building is 100 feet wide, the Duffield side is even longer, at 180 feet. The name of the building and the dates of construction appear in relief on stone bands on both facades.

Weschler & Brother expanded into the entire building but were only in business until 1895. The nation was still coming out of the Panic of ’93, and the store didn’t survive it. It was probably too large a space, too. Henry Offerman and his eldest son poured a lot of money into the business to prop up their investment while the Weschlers struggled to keep it going.

In September 1895, the newspapers printed an announcement that Offerman was going to take over the store and its merchandise and run it himself. The announcement also advertised an enormous sale to liquidate the old merchandise. He called it the “Gigantic Sacrifice Sale.” The Weschler brothers moved to a much smaller building near Flatbush Avenue.

Henry Offerman died in 1896 at the age of 74. His son took over the business while running ads across the country looking to lease it. In 1897, it was announced that the building had been leased to Joseph Bauland of Morgenthal & Bauland, owners of a successful chain of stores in Chicago. The new store’s chairman was H.B. Claflin. The Joseph H. Bauland Great Cash Store opened in 1897 with a huge sale on the Offerman’s stock.

But, they couldn’t make it work either, and in 1903 the business and the lease were sold to one of Claflin’s employees, William Chapman, who ran the business as Chapman & Company. The public welcomed the new emporium, but wondered if it, too, would only be around for a few years. They had good reason to wonder. Three years later, in 1907, Chapman’s was gone. The last day of business was January 8, 1907.

Right after Chapman’s closed, it was announced that a new business called Darlington’s had just signed a lease for multiple years in the building. The papers noted that the new owners planned a massive renovation to the main floor, which would include the construction of a new mezzanine level. They planned new mahogany casework, ivory and gold colored trim everywhere, and the latest in ventilation and cooling, including air conditioning.

The Duffield Annex to the store would become the electric plant for the building, as well as a massive kitchen and sanitary ice cream plant that would prepare meals and desserts for the three different restaurants that would be located in various parts of the store. Merchandise in the store would include the usual dry goods and home furnishings, but also a grocery, where shoppers could purchase all kinds of raw and prepared foods.

Darlington’s never opened. The president and vice-president of Darlington’s were also the principal owners of the Kingston Realty Company, one of the large developers working in Brooklyn. Real estate was not doing well, due to another financial panic and Darlington’s expenses were sucking all its money out of the firm. Banks refused to renegotiate their loans, and both businesses went into bankruptcy.

The owners expended a great deal of money in materials and expenses to contractors and employees. A mechanics’ lien was filed against them, and long story short, they went totally under, both business-wise and personally.

The Offerman building seemed to be cursed; no one could make it work. People started to call this side of Fulton the “wrong side of the street.” The only person who seemed to be interested in the Offerman was a big-time vaudeville impresario who wanted to gut the ground floors and create a huge vaudeville theater. The owners turned him down.

Unable to attract any other large stores, the Offerman heirs announced in 1908 their decision to subdivide the huge building and establish offices on the upper floors and subdivide the storefront space. The building was closed for two years as the new layout was constructed.

In 1909, a bowling alley took up residence in the building’s basement. It was entered on the Duffield Street side. Cordes and Walker’s Grand Central Bowling establishment had 16 alleys and was one of the largest bowling alleys in Brooklyn. Bowling was enjoying its place as the most popular amateur sport at the time, something that almost anyone could take part in. Cordes hosted many different tournaments and offered lessons and alleys to the public. It had the latest in mechanical pin setters and featured a rathskeller and cafe for their patrons’ enjoyment.

Silsbe & Sons, a popular local restaurant chain, signed a 21-year lease for the main floor, mezzanine, and part of the basement, about 35,000 square feet, for their new Brooklyn restaurant. They signed in 1910 and opened on St. Patrick’s Day in 1911. The new restaurant could seat 800, on that day an orchestra played Irish songs, and the room was festooned in green. The newspapers called it a “place of luxury, refinement, and comfort.”

1910 also saw the upper floors of the building become home to several different city agencies. The city’s Tenement Department relocated there, as well as the coroner’s general offices, the 6th District Municipal Court and the Supreme Court’s stenographer’s pool. A year later, Brooklyn’s Appellate Court moved in as well. They took over an entire floor.

In 1914, the Brooklyn Hall of Records and the Municipal Building (the old one, not the current one) were both undergoing major renovations. The borough’s Department of Taxation moved in as did the Hall of Records Department and its store of Brooklyn’s records. Many objected to the move saying that the records would not be safe in the building unless a fireproof vault was put in. Others pointed out that the records stored in the Hall were not in a fireproof vault either, so the objection was not valid. One bureaucrat complained that it wasn’t right to hear bowling going on below city business.

Next door, on the corner of Bridge and Fulton streets, Hyman Zeitz had a cloak and suit store above a shop named Martin’s. His business continued to grow rapidly, he bought out Martin’s owner, and filled both his building and the one next door on Bridge. Working with his four sons, he purchased the Offerman Building from the Offerman heirs in 1922. He intended to beat the “wrong side of the street” jinx once and for all and open a spectacular new department store. He allowed all the leases in the building to expire one by one and gained new floors and spaces.

Silsbe’s restaurant was one of the first leases to expire, and Zeitz immediately reclaimed most of the ground floor and the mezzanine for his store. A huge renovation took place, restoring the space as a retail establishment with new woodwork, lighting, and accoutrements. An army of male and female employees was busy stocking shelves and arranging the store, featuring goods from around the world. The grand opening of the store took place on November 3, 1924.

The store was called Greater Martin’s on opening day, when 20,000 shoppers poured into the store over the course of the day. Three entrances were available for shoppers to enter, on Fulton, Bridge, and Duffield streets. They marveled at the gracious interiors, furnished with fine wood display cases and woodwork, soft, elegant lighting, a new rubber mosaic floor, and much more. The mezzanine level contained restrooms and a ladies’ lounge, fine furniture was on display, and an exhibit of Cluny tapestries. Everything was geared towards the female shopper, and it was a huge success.

In 1925, they opened their “Daylight Subway Store” in the basement. An entrance from the Hoyt Street IRT (2/3) station was planned, with its own turnstiles. The 26,000-square-foot basement was advertised as having light colored walls, was well lit and ventilated, and stocked with a wide assortment of goods. Without the attentive care of salespeople above, this would be more self-service for shoppers in a hurry, with a large selection of bargain priced goods.

In 1926, they claimed the entirety of the ground floor, as a Bickford’s and a cigar shop vacated. The new space would be renovated for a men’s department. Over the years, they expanded floor by floor, establishing new departments in the new spaces. The store was very popular with shoppers, and became best known for its bridal department, which drew customers from across the city.

Hyman Zeitz was a patient and careful man. He learned from mistakes made by other retailers, and regained and renovated the floors of his store slowly and carefully. When he died in 1930, his son Fred. J. Zeitz took over and was president of the business for over 35 years. The store continued to prosper.

Fred was in charge in the 1940s when he hired up-and-coming architect and interior designer Morris Lapidus to give the store a more modern touch. Lapidus, who established his firm in 1944, later said Martin’s was his first client, a relationship that lasted over 10 years. He remodeled many of the interior selling spaces, outfitting them in what was hailed as a “futuristic” design, in what we now refer to as “Midcentury Modern.”

Those could easily be changed, but his most visible and permanent change was to the Fulton Street facade. In 1947 he modified Lauritzen’s large arched display windows and central entrance, eliminating the arches by covering them in polished marble. He installed a band of red marble in the main entrance, significantly lowering it and installed a new “Martin’s” sign in a very mid-century font over the entrance.

The Brooklyn Eagle celebrated the changes, saying that Lapidus’ design was “emphasizing simplicity rather than the gimcracks of the Victorian era.” Lapidus went on to become one of Miami’s most successful architects, best remembered for his now-iconic 1950s beachfront hotels.

Martin’s expanded in the 1950s by opening three suburban branches on Long Island. In 1966 Hyman’s grandson Wilbur Levin took over as president. Martin’s was riding high on its many victories and was one of the most successful family-owned specialty stores in the country. The NY Times called the store “an oasis of calm amidst the hubbub of Fulton Street.” The article compared it favorably to stores on 5th Avenue because of its emphasis on high quality and better pricing. By 1977, Martin’s had opened two more suburban stores, one on Long Island, the other in New Jersey.

But the company was losing money. The city was in the middle of its worst economic downturn in its history, and middle- and upper-class white shoppers, their main customers, were moving out to the suburbs. The Fulton shopping district saw great demographic changes, as bargain stores selling goods catering to a lower income bracket replaced most of the higher end stores. The family sold the business in 1977.

In 1979, the new owners closed the store, citing a forecasts of “long-term unprofitability.” They also made mention that the store “was no longer related to the shopping area.” Over the next few years, all the suburban Martin’s closed as well. It was announced that the Offerman would be torn down in 1979, but fortunately, that didn’t happen. The building was landmarked in 2005.

After being closed for several years, and having several unremarkable tenants, the storefront and basement reopened as a Conway’s discount store, which already had two successful locations in Midtown Manhattan. When the store opened, customers could see for the first time in decades the high ceilings, decorative moldings, and ornate Corinthian support columns that had been covered up by dropped ceilings and sheetrock.

Conway’s offered bargain clothing and accessories for the entire family and the basement was stocked with home furnishing items. In 2010, the building was sold again and Conway’s moved out of the Offerman building to the old Horn and Hardart building near Jay Street, where it remained for another few years before being sold to another discount retailer, which is still there.

Although offices still tenanted the upper floors, it looked as if the retail portion of the Offerman Building was still jinxed. However, in 2012 the building came back to life. The new owners purchased both the Offerman Building and the original Martin’s building next door, which was torn down and rebuilt. New big-box stores moved into both buildings several years later. They now house H&M, TJ Maxx, Old Navy, and Nordstrom Rack. All are popular with a wide demographic and doing well.

In 2017, work began on converting the upper stories and the Duffield Annex to residential use. One hundred twenty-one units were built, taking special advantage of the frontage on Duffield Street, which now houses the lobby and entrance to the apartments. One special find was restored: the original rotunda skylight that had been covered up for years. The architectural firm of GF (short for Greenberg Farrow) was in charge of the conversion project.

Now that the building has been completely redone, and its facade cleaned, the original details that made it so special have once again been revealed. The main storefront thankfully lost the Lapidus alterations but didn’t regain the original arches. However, the new entrance facade is a great improvement and a sympathetic modern touch to this storied building. The saga of the Offerman Building continues in good hands.

[Photos by Susan De Vries unless noted otherwise]

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