The Vitagraph Smokestack will live on.
This iconic remnant of a bygone Brooklyn film studio will not be torn down by Hampshire Properties, which owns the site on which it stands.
The development firm is building an eight-story, 302-unit residential building on the property at 1277 East 14th St., city Buildings Department records indicate.
The smokestack was part of Vitagraph Studios, which made silent films in Midwood more than a century ago.
Actress Norma Talmadge got her start in the movies at Vitagraph’s Midwood facilities. America’s first film versions of William Shakespeare’s plays were shot there.
“We’ve gone to great lengths to keep the smokestack intact as we realize its historical significance both to the site and the neighborhood,” Hampshire Properties’ Robert Rosenthal recently told the Brooklyn Eagle via email.
The smokestack is more than four stories tall. The letters of the word “Vitagraph” are arranged vertically on it.
It stands near the Q subway line’s elevated tracks. You can get an eyeful of it from the Avenue M station’s Manhattan-bound train platform. Down on street level, a good spot from which to see the smokestack is the corner of Locust Avenue and East 15th Street.
In 2014, an LLC whose president is Tomas Rosenthal bought the Vitagraph site for $20 million from Shulamith School for Girls Inc., city Finance Department records indicate. He’s Hampshire Properties’ president and chief executive officer.
That year, neighborhood activists called for the preservation of the distinctive brick smokestack. The city Landmarks Preservation Commission had said the iconic smokestack “lacked architectural merit,” the Daily News reported at that time.
