A tour of the Gowanus buildings being considered for landmarking

Eye on Real Estate: Make your voice heard at a Sept. 24 landmarking hearing.

September 11, 2019 Lore Croghan

The Union Street Bridge affords a fine view of the toxic but trendy Gowanus Canal. Eagle photo by Lore Croghan

Left off the landmarking list

Earlier this year, LPC staffers told preservationists they’d be open to naming two or three more Gowanus buildings as designation candidates. If the Control Tower is one of your favorite choices, you should say so on Sept. 24.

As for the bridge, it opened in 1905 and is a “double-leaf rolling lift bascule” designed by an engineer named William Donald Scherzer.

Down the block from the Union Street Bridge Control House, there’s an industrial building called the National Packing Box Factory that now houses artists’ studios. The Gowanus Landmarking Coalition thinks this property on the corner of Union and Nevins streets should be considered for designation.

The National Packing Box Factory is a not a designation candidate, but preservationists think it is landmark-worthy. Eagle photo by Lore Croghan

A box-factory owner named James Dyckeman constructed the building around 1910 and architect Robert Dixon designed it, a posting by the Historic Districts Council says. Again, if you’re a fan of this building — or the nearby Green Building at 452 Union St. — you should say so at the Sept. 24 hearings.

One good route to take on this stroll is to turn right onto Bond Street and pass a beloved building that’s covered with a mural by graffiti artist LilKool. Its address is 287 Bond St.

This mural by artist LilKool can be found on the facade of 287 Bond St. Eagle photo by Lore Croghan

If you turn onto Degraw Street and walk to the banks of the Gowanus Canal, you will get an idea of the staggering pollution that makes this waterway a federal Superfund cleanup site. The day I was there, large objects were sticking out of the slimy opposite shore, including two shopping carts, a baby carriage and a chair.

The water smelled bad that day, too. It does, sometimes. The toxins in the 1.8-mile canal could give you dysentery or arsenic poisoning if you drank the water, Popular Science reported in 2013.

The Gowanus Canal shoreline at the end of Degraw Street is littered with debris including two shopping carts, a baby carriage and a chair.

One pumping station is calendared; one is doomed

After that, loop back onto Bond Street and turn down Douglass Street. Where the street dead-ends at the canal, you will find the Gowanus Canal Flushing Tunnel Pumping Station and Gate House at 201 Douglass St. It is one of the five candidates for landmark designation.

Edwin J. Fort, who was the Brooklyn Bureau of Sewers’ chief engineer, designed the Colonial Revival-style pumping station, which has a few Secessionist-style architectural details thrown in for good measure, a report by Landmarks Preservation Commission researchers says.

The bench outside the Gowanus Pumping Station and Flushing Tunnel — which is a landmarking candidate — is a very quiet place to sit and read. Eagle photo by Lore Croghan

The red brick pumping station’s construction was completed in 1911. It is currently in operation, drawing more than 250 million gallons per day of Upper New York Bay water into the Gowanus Canal.

The property also has a Butler Street address, but a high wall on that street obscures this landmarking candidate from public view.

Speaking of Butler Street, you should go there by backtracking onto Bond Street once again. There’s a building at 234 Butler St. called the Gowanus Station that preservationists asked to have landmarked in 2017. They got turned down.

It, too, was constructed a century ago to pump the waters of the Gowanus Canal. Take a good look at this handsome Beaux-Arts building. It’s going to be torn down.

A new sewage facility will be constructed in its place. City Finance Department records show the City of New York used eminent domain to take possession of it and two other properties in September 2018.

The Gowanus Station at 234 Butler St. is in shadow — but that’s only fitting, since it’s doomed. Eagle photo by Lore Croghan

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency agreed that after demolishing the building, the Pumping Station’s Nevins Street facade and 25 to 30 feet of its Butler Street facade will “to the extent practicable” be incorporated into the new sewage facility, the EPA announced in February.

The ASPCA and R.G. Dun buildings

If you need a drink after looking at the doomed Pumping Station, a record store that’s also a bar and vegan cafe and a place to listen to a DJ spin tunes is located on the opposite side of the street.

Public Records, which my colleague Scott Enman wrote about before it opened earlier this year, is inside 233 Butler St., which is a landmark designation candidate.

The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals constructed this building as its Brooklyn “dog and cat shelter” in 1913 and expanded it in 1922 to serve as its borough headquarters and “ambulance house,” a report by LPC researchers says. Architecture firm Renwick, Aspinwall & Tucker designed the Neo-Romanesque building.

The ASPCA’s former Brooklyn headquarters, at left, is a landmarking candidate. Eagle photo by Lore Croghan

In 1902, the ASPCA started operating motorized ambulances for rescuing injured horses, an online newsletter from the organization says.

Next door to the ASPCA, a building that credit reporting service R.G. Dun & Company constructed a century ago at 239-257 Butler St. is considered designation-worthy by the Gowanus Landmarking Coalition. If you’re a fan of it, you should say so at the Sept. 24 LPC hearings.

The reinforced concrete building served as R.G. Dun’s printing plant, a story by Brownstoner’s architectural history expert Suzanne Spellen says.

Preservationists consider the R.G. Dun & Company Building, the white building seen here from the banks of the Gowanus Canal, to be landmark-worthy. Eagle photo by Lore Croghan

A wooden bridge, Whole Foods and artists

For a change of scenery, walk down Nevins Street instead of Bond Street and head for the Carroll Street Bridge. The bridge was designated as a city landmark in 1987.

It’s the only vehicular bridge in all five boroughs that is made of wood planks. It’s a “retractile” bridge, which means it rolls horizontally on wheels that are on steel tracks.

Seen from the Carroll Street Bridge: There’s a boat sinking in the Gowanus Canal. Eagle photo by Lore Croghan

It was constructed in 1888 and 1889.

After you stand on the bridge for a bit and get a good look at the filthy canal water and the stellar view of Downtown Brooklyn, head to Third Avenue and walk towards 3rd Street.

This corner has the distinction of having the landmarked Coignet Building, which is for sale, plus a huge Whole Foods on one side of the street, and the Old American Can Factory, which is a candidate for landmark designation, on the other.

The former can factory at 232 3rd St. is filled with artists’ studios. Several years ago, I was lucky enough to be invited to meet several of the artists there. It was an inspiring visit.

The Old American Can Factory is a landmarking candidate. Eagle photo by Lore Croghan

Daniel McLean Somers was the architect of the American Round Arch-style building, which he and his family constructed in 1884, LPC researchers wrote in a report.

It was originally the Somers Brothers Tinware Factory — which the American Can Company bought in 1901.

Before we leave this corner, I want to say something about the Whole Foods Market. Its December 2013 opening was a significant milestone in the gentrification of Gowanus.

Don’t email me long messages about the price cuts Whole Foods has made to its product lineup to fight its reputation as the Whole Paycheck grocery store. I know all about them.

You can see the Dykes Lumber Building from the esplanade behind the Gowanus Whole Foods Market. Eagle photo by Lore Croghan

My point is that the environmentally conscious supermarket with a bar on its rooftop, which was constructed on a polluted Brownfields site, is an upscale piece of real estate that brought a big change to the neighborhood.

A dead-end view of the Batcave

I didn’t go inside Whole Foods on my stroll. When I’m in there I compulsively take pictures of all the photogenic food. I would have stayed past sunset and missed the chance to visit a must-see Gowanus spot.

You get to that spot by walking down Third Avenue, turning right on Sixth Street and then turning right again on Second Avenue.

The avenue dead-ends at the edge of the Gowanus Canal. Through a clump of weeds, there’s a stellar view.

To the left, there’s a ghostly white and gray industrial complex that casts its reflection in the canal. Yes, the waters are very, very toxic, but it’s a poetic sight nevertheless.

If you walk to the dead end of Second Avenue, you see these industrial buildings and their reflection. Eagle photo by Lore Croghan

To the right, past the Third Street Bridge, there’s a building covered in black construction netting. At this moment, it might not look like something special, but the Batcave is under there.

In this century-plus-old landmarking candidate at 153 Second St., squatters lived and artists drew graffiti murals and party people had fabled festivities.

Current owner Joshua Rechnitz is renovating it and turning it into a studio building called Powerhouse Arts.

Its formal name is the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Central Power Station Engine House. It was an electrical generation plant for the borough’s railroad and street-car lines, an LPC research report says.

The Batcave, as it’s popularly known, is the shrouded building at right. It’s a landmarking candidate. Eagle photo by Lore Croghan

The fifth designation candidate was on the Gowanus Landmarking Coalition’s wish list as the Norge Sailmakers Building at 170 Second Ave.

You find it by turning around from the dead end and walking down to the corner of 13th Street.

The Landmarks Preservation Commission calls this property the Montauk Paint Manufacturing Company Building, which was its original occupant’s name. The red-brick, American Round Arch-style building was constructed in 1908.

Follow reporter Lore Croghan on Twitter.