Raymond F. Almirall, 1905 The 200-foot tower of St. Michael’s was the second tallest building in Brooklyn after the Williamsburgh Savings Bank until the early 21st century when high-rise residential towers began to sprout up across the borough. The tower’s egg-shaped dome recalls the famous basilica of Sacré-Cœur in Paris, a French connection made through its École des Beaux Artstrained architect. Almirall also designed the Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank Building at 51 Chambers Street in Manhattan, as well as most of the campus of Seaview Hospital in Staten Island.

"ONE OF THE LARGEST WAREHOUSES IN BROOKLYN- Bush Terminal, recently taken over by the U.S. Government, 1918." Bush Terminal (now called Industry City) is a series of large warehouse buildings on the waterfront in Sunset Park. The buildings and additional infrastructure were constructed over a 30 years period. (The warehouses were built circa 1892–1910, the railroad from 1896 to 1915, and the factory lofts between 1905 and 1925.) The intermodal shipping, warehousing, and manufacturing complex was originally referred to as Bush's Folly as most railroad officials would not ship directly to Brooklyn. But Irving Bush persevered and started some of his own shipping and warehousing businesses to prove the usefulness of his massive complex to prospective tenants. By 1918, Bush Terminal owned 3,100 feet of waterfront and covered 20 waterfront blocks. The complex included seven piers and had more than 20 miles of railroad tracks. In 1918 (as noted in the original caption for this photograph) a large section of the terminal was commandeered for use by the U.S. Navy.

Originally part of Bay Ridge, the area got its own name with the creation of Sunset Park in 1891. Today, the neighborhood extends from Prospect Expressway to 65th Street and Eighth Avenue to the waterfront. Sunset Park’s first major development began after the Civil War, when manufacturing enterprises were established on its waterfront. Beginning in the 1880s, the inland area developed as a residential neighborhood for middle- and workingclass families, including many who worked on the waterfront. A major stimulant to its growth was the establishment in 1889 of a ferry service to and from Manhattan at Second Avenue and 39th Street. Sunset Park’s first waves of immigrants were Irish, German and Scandinavian, but by the late 19th century, immigrants from Italy, Greece and Poland also arrived. To accommodate them, large swaths of rowhouses were built. Puerto Rican and other Latin American populations began settling here in the 1940s, and large numbers of Asian immigrants arrived in the 1980s, establishing Brooklyn’s first and New York City’s third “Chinatown.” Sunset Park’s standout building type is the masonry rowhouse. In fact, Sunset Park contains one of the earliest and most extensive concentrations of two-family masonry rowhouses in the city. Mostly built between 1885 and 1912, these stunning blocks are accented by commercial thoroughfares and institutional and religious buildings mostly completed by the early 1930s. The area also has many multiple-family dwellings and tenements, with some early examples of non-profit cooperative apartment buildings. The neighborhood’s most pronounced architectural styles are neo-Grec, Romanesque Revival and Renaissance Revival, all popular at the end of the 19th century. While these rows are attributed to specific architects, it is believed that at this time, architects mostly worked on interior layouts, as exterior designs were repeated in modest neighborhoods like this one. In 1988, an area encompassing 3,237 buildings was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. All of the sites in this brochure are part of the district except numbers 7, 12a and 18. Despite this designation, Sunset Park currently remains unprotected by local landmark status, aside from a few individual landmarks. Though not covered on this tour, Sunset Park’s waterfront is occupied by several notable institutions. To the northwest is Bush Terminal, an enormous industrial complex developed by Irving T. Bush beginning in the 1890s, which at its height consisted of roughly 200 acres. The first facility in the city to integrate shipping, manufacturing and warehousing, it was also the largest multi-tenant industrial complex in the country. In the mid-1980s, Bush Terminal was renamed Industry City, and there remain roughly 40 acres and 16 buildings housing artisans, garment manufacturing and warehousing. Just south of Industry City is the Brooklyn Army Terminal, constructed by the Federal government in 1918. During World War II, roughly 85% of army equipment and personnel were shipped overseas from this 95-acre complex. Sold to the City in 1981 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983, it now houses light manufacturing, warehousing and small businesses.

"41st Street, north side, east from Third Avenue. A very old frame dwelling can be seen nestling against the two-story brick homes. On the right is Public School No. 136. September 8, 1940" Public School 136 originally opened in November of 1902. It was more than 1300 regular day students, as well as an evening public elementary school for boys and men.

"39th Street, west from near Fourth Avenue toward the upper New York Bay, 1940." This westward view towards the water shows, at center, the elevated structure of the old B.M.T line which was in the process of being converted into the roadway of the Gowanus Parkway (now Gowanus Expressway). The streetcar tracks visible on 39th Street lead down to the water and the 39th Street Ferry Terminal from where ferries traveled to both St. George, Staten Island and the Battery Maritime Building in Manhattan. Until 1935 passengers traveling from Manhattan to this Brooklyn terminal could transfer to the South Brooklyn Railway to continue their journey.

Public School 136, 1902. Located on 4th Avenue between 40th and 41st Street in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, this four-story school was designed by C.B.J. Snyder and completed in 1902. C.B.J. Snyder served as the Superintendent of School Buildings in New York City from 1891 to 1923. The building now houses two middle schools: Charles O. Dewey Middle School and Sunset Park Prep Middle School.

"157-159-42nd Street, north side, between First and Second Avenue, showing at the right the frame home of Louis Capponi in 1923."

146 41st Street, 1918. The following is the first paragraph in an advertisement for Great Bear Spring Water in a 1901 Brooklyn Medical Journal: "The importance of pure water as a factor of health, and of a water which by its wholesomeness invites copious drinking, is daily becoming more fully recognized. Distilled water is insipid, and the best medical authorities pronounce it unhealthful." The rest of the ad touts this water as "ideal drinking water" and offers five-gallon glass jugs for 50 cents delivered straight to your door.

B. Manischewitz Company was founded by Rabbi Dov Behr Manischewitz in 1888 in Cincinnati, Ohio. They are well known for producing matzo and kosher wine. In the 1930s the Monarch Wine Company which produced Manischewitz wine arrived in Manhattan. By 1939 they had moved into a 20,000 square foot space in Sunset Park's Bush Terminal. Fifteen years later they occupied a 100,000 square feet in the Terminal. In 1954, seven million gallons of Manischewitz wine were being produced here a year! (No wonder the wine vats are SO HUGE.) Bush Terminal was the perfect location for this operation as its extensive rail connections provided easy transportation for the concord grapes to arrive from upstate New York and allowed for efficient shipping to international consumers via its waterfront. Alas, in the 1980s Monarch sold the company to new owners who moved the facility upstate.

"3rd Avenue, at 46th Street, showing the B. M. T. elevated station thereon. The view is west across the avenue along the north side of 46th Street, 1940." In 1939 Robert Moses got permission from the City Councilto built his Gowanus Parkway, an elevated highway constructed atop of the pillars of the 3rd Avenue BMT Elevated Line, which was not longer in use. Moses realized that to accommodate the roadway and entrance/exit infrastructure, 3rd Avenue would need to be widened. The buildings in this photograph of the corner of 46th Street and 3rd Avenue no longer exist as they were demolished for the street widening, completed in 1941.

View from 39th Street and Second Avenue, looking southwest, Building 19, 1957.

(Former) Sunset Park Court ARCHITECT: Mortimer Dixon Metcalfe DATE: 1931 STYLE: Classical Revival The former Sunset Park Court House is an impressive Classical Revival style building. It is one of only two courthouse buildings known to have been designed by Mortimer D. Metcalfe, a New York architect who assisted with the design of Grand Central Terminal, served as New York State Deputy Architect under State Architect Franklin Ware, and independently designed several buildings in Palm Beach, Florida. The Sunset Park Court House was built in 1931 to house the magistrates’ and municipal courts and today is one of the neighborhood’s few remaining civic buildings. Its imposing Ionic-columned porticos on the 42nd and 43rd street facades and its grand quoins culminating in American eagle capitals, moldings, meticulously-articulated limestone details, and window treatment make the Sunset Park Court House a rich and faithful translation of the Classical Revival style.

For centuries, New York City has been known as a city of opportunities and prosperity. People from far and wide have made the trek to this booming city in search of financial and societal gains. With its prime location on the water, America’s financial leaders in Lower Manhattan, and global cultural ties due to immigrants, New York City is the city for one to begin their business empire. This story explores the business endeavors of Irving T. Bush whose Bush Terminal Company’s success created the Industry City business park in Brooklyn that is still thriving today.

Buildings 19 and 20, looking northwest from the corner of 42 Street and Second Avenue, 1941.