Studebaker Building ARCHITECT: Tooker & Marsh DATE: 1920 STYLE: Neo-Gothic Built in 1920, the Studebaker Building is one of the few automobile showrooms remaining on Brooklyn’s once thriving Automobile Row, the stretch of Bedford Avenue running north and south from Fulton Street to Empire Boulevard in Crown Heights. Designed by New York-based architects Tooker and Marsh, the neo-Gothic style building is brick, clad in white terra cotta manufactured by the Atlantic Terra Cotta Works. An excellent example of a commercial terra-cotta clad structure which served as a company icon, the Studebaker Building retains the original terra-cotta design inscribed with the name “Studebaker” in black cursive on a diagonal banner across the wheel emblem, an image that was used by the corporation on buildings throughout the United States.

Loehmann's Department store was founded in this corner building in 1921 by Frieda Loehmann and her son. Frieda's business plan was to buy overstocks, samples, and discontinued products from top New York designers and sell them at affordable prices; she became known as the Grand Dame of Cut-Rate Fashion (long before Marshalls and T.J.Maxx). She would eventually buy this building and live upstairs. Though only one other Loehmann's opened during her lifetime (in the Bronx on Fordham Road). Following the founder's death in 1963, the store here on Bedford closed, but Charles Loehmann went public with the company and expanded nationwide. The company was bought and sold numerous times through the 1980s and at its peak around the turn of the 21st century, there were more than 100 stores in 17 states. The new century saw a number of bankruptcies before all the brick-and-mortar stores finally closed in 2014. For some time after Loehmann's closed at no. 1476, a similar store that used items purchased from Loehmann's closing auction, set up shop. In 1976 the building was sold to New Life Tabernacle Church of God in Christ, which it remains today.

Sterling Place, west from Franklin Avenue, showing the north side of the street, 1941.

Classon Avenue, east side, north from Prospect Place, showing the Jewish Hospital, 1941. Brooklyn Jewish Hospital was organized 1901 and its building was dedicated in 1903. The original building seen here dates (at least in part) to 1894 when the Memorial Hospital for Women–a homeopathic hospital–moved to this location from a pair of houses on Pacific Street. That hospital, originally organized in 1881 as the Brooklyn Women’s Hospital and Dispensary, was cofounded by Susan McKinney Steward, the first African American doctor in New York State. The Memorial Hospital (whose mission was to "furnish medical and surgical advice and treatment by women physicians to women and children") was sold to the Jewish Hospital for debt in 1903. This structure was only the first of a number of buildings constructed for the hospital. Most of the other facilities were built in 1927 and a few in the 1950s. Einstein was a surgery patient here in the 1950s. By 1979 the hospital was bankrupt and merged with another neighborhood hospital, St. John's Hospital in Bed-Stuy, becoming Interfaith Medical Center. By 2000 the buildings had been purchased by a developer and were being converted to housing. The Classon Avenue building was converted first but the sign for the hospital still remains over the door. The structure seen emerging from the top floor window is likely just a garbage chute.

New Yorkers have seen many changes in voting patterns, locations and technology through the years that echo some of the same challenges we confront today. As election day approaches, we look at election stories from years past and where they happened in the city.

Woodrow Wilson Apartments, ca. 1925. Named for the 28th President and completed in 1924, this apartment building was designed by brothers Joseph and Louis Shampan, who constructed many other similarly sized residential buildings in the surrounding Brooklyn neighborhoods. At six-stories the Early Art Deco building with Gothic details was the new standard for fashionable living on Eastern Parkway. It offered a varied of apartment sizes, ranging from $75 to $210 a month in rent. Conveniently located near subway lines, the nature of Prospect Park and the cultural institution therein, the building also offered its middle class tenants all the best modern amenities, including a 24 hour doorman and apartments with two (!) bathrooms.

Park Place adjoining northeast corner of Franklin Ave, 1941.

23rd Regiment Armory 1322 Bedford Avenue Designed by Fowler & Hough and Isaac Perry, 1891-95 This grand, fortress-like structure was constructed by the State of New York for Brooklyn’s 23rd Regiment, which formed in the 1860s and served briefly in the Civil War. This was the regiment’s second home, after it outgrew its first armory on Clermont Street, built in 1872-73. The armory was used to train soldiers and store equipment, but also as a military club for soldiers and veterans, so in addition to a vast drill hall, the interior also had a library, company rooms, and dining rooms. The imposing brick, stone, and terra cotta exterior has eight crenellated towers, the tallest of which rises to 136 feet. The main entrance on Bedford Avenue is located within a rusticated round archway with a decorative iron gate. Terra cotta friezes display the regimental motto and coat of arms. To the right of the entrance bay is a bronze plaque sculpted by J. Massey Rhind in 1922 to commemorate the regiment’s sacrifices during World War I. In 1905, the vast drill hall was home to Brooklyn’s first automobile show, and in the mid-1920s, it was leased to William Randolph Hearst as a silent film studio. The armory remained in operation until 1982, when the building was converted to a men’s homeless shelter.

Grand Avenue, north from and across St. Marks Avenue, showing a W. P. A. sewer project,1936.

"Bergen Street, north side, west from Franklin Avenue, showing the old H. J. Heinz buildings, 1941." H.J. Heinz Company moved into the large red brick building that can be seen at the far left of this photograph in 1920. They had purchased the building from the Nassau Brewing Company, which has brewed beer from 1860 until 1914 in a series of buildings (including the later Heinz building), under a variety of names. A reminder of the factory's history of producing canned goods can be seen in the faded type on the facade, which still reads Heinz.

Pacific Street, west from Franklin Avenue, passing underneath the BMT "El," 1941. Though the BMT elevated infrastructure (seen in the distance) remains, a number of other details in this photograph are streetscapes one would never see in Brooklyn today. Long gone are the street level trolley tracks and since 1999 cigarette billboards have been banned.

Public School No. 42, 1929. Likely designed by C.B.J Snyder, Public School 42 was first occupied by students in 1907.