North Side Bank of Brooklyn, ca. 1978. The 1889 Romanesque Revival building by Theobald Engelhardt was the original location on the North Side Bank of Brooklyn. The bank was acquired by the Manufacturer’s Trust Bank in 1922. The Grand Street branch shuttered during the 20th century, as Manufacturer’s Trust went through a series of mergers, eventually becoming part of Chase Bank. In recent years, the building has been a retail location and event space; its weathered exterior continues to recall the rapidly-developing neighborhood’s industrial roots.

Austin, Nichols and Company Warehouse, April 6, 1915. The Austin, Nichols and Company Warehouse was constructed in 1914 and 1915 for its namesake, the largest importing and manufacturing wholesale grocery business in the world. Critics at the time described the Cass Gilbert-designed, massive, reinforced concrete building, as an outstanding example of Egyptian Revival architecture rarely found in New York City and the United States. The warehouse utilized piers, railway tracks, freight elevators, conveyor belts, and pneumatic tubes for the production of foodstuffs under the Sunbeam Foods label. The building remained the headquarters for Austin, Nichols & Co. until the late 1950s. The building was acquired by 184 Kent Avenue Associates in 1986 and rented to residential and commercial tenants.

Austin, Nichols and Co Warehouse In 1915, Austin Nichols & Co., the largest wholesale grocers at the time, moved from lower Manhattan's wholesale food district-- today's TriBeCa-- to a new superblock site on the Williamsburg waterfront. The imposing structure was designed by Cass Gilbert, architect of the just-completed world's tallest skyscraper, the Woolworth Building. Developed as a warehouse and production plant where goods were prepared, processed, and packaged under the Sunbeam Foods label, the immense plant provided 450,000 sq. ft. of floor space on four floors. Financiers Havemeyer & Elder, who owned the nearby sugar refinery, directed Gilbert to make the Manhattan (west) façade monumental in appearance to publicize the factory and the expanding rail terminal. The reinforced-concrete structure, built by Turner Construction Company in the Ransome patented system, was lauded as a "Model of Modern Construction and Efficiency" (Brooklyn Daily Eagle) and won praise from European Modern architects, Le Corbusier and Walter Gropius. In 2009, the building has been redeveloped as a 300-unit residential complex.

Sugar refining was one of New York City's leading industries from colonial times, when thick-walled masonry "sugar houses" of five to seven stories were some of the tallest structures in Manhattan. The first of these vertical factories was erected on Wall Street in 1729, and at least four similar sugar houses operated in lower Manhattan through the mid-1830s, when new machinery and methods transformed the production process. In 1884, Havemeyer & Elder constructed the world's largest sugar refinery on the Brooklyn waterfront. The burgeoning industry consolidated in 1897 under a cartel led by the Havemeyer family's Sugar Refineries Company (later renamed the American Sugar Refining Company), at its peak it controlled 98% of the country's sugar production. The Filter, Pan & Finishing House of Havemeyer & Elder was a three-building complex for filtering and reducing, drying, refining, grading, and packaging sugar-- all carried out in vertical production process. The deep waters of Wallabout Bay and Bushwick Creek allowed direct docking for ships unloading raw sugar and taking on packaged goods as cargo. The refinery continued to evolve with additions to the complex in the 1920s and the name was changed to Domino Sugar Corporation in 1991. With a workforce of 4,500, it had a minimum capacity of 1,200 pounds of sugar a day. Refining ceased in 2009, leaving only a packaging operation until the factory closed in 2004. In 2007, the Landmark Preservation Commission designated the original three-building complex as a New York City landmark, noting that, at 155 feet tall, it was the tallest building on the Brooklyn waterfront, approaching the height of early skyscrapers in lower Manhattan's financial district." Plans are underway by developer CPC Resources for a large-scale residential and commercial complex that will restore the Filter, Pan & Finishing House as a community center by Beyer Blinder & Belle Architects and replace the remainder of the site with new high-rise apartment buildings designed by Rafael Vinoly Architects.

“An old home some what modernized.” P.L. Sperr, September 1, 1936. The wood-frame building appears on insurance maps as early as 1868.

In the wake of excessive new construction and urban renewal initiatives across the country there are growing trends of gentrification and community displacement. Using NYC as a case study, how could we consider adaptive reuse of older structures and thoughtful architectural additions to building sites as a way to create not only sustainable architectural precedents, but community-oriented structures? As examples of older structures that have been renovated and established new uses for their building types, the Domino Sugar Factory, Cooper Square CLT Housing Units, and the 122 Community Center serve as examples of adaptive reuse, but comparatively all for different reasons.

“American Sugar Refining Company, East River, Kent Avenue, Between South First and South Second Streets. The Largest in the World.” Ca. 1915. Williamsburg’s East River waterfront was once home to America’s largest concentration of sugar refining facilities — in 1870, the American Sugar refinery processed more than half of the sugar consumed nationally. The original factory, built in 1856, was damaged in an 1882 fire. The current 10-story brick structure was built as a fire-proof replacement. The factory continued to operate until 2004. The site is currently being redeveloped as a residential complex.

Listen to the Gotham Center and Brendan Cooper's podcast on the history on the Domino Sugar Refinery, a monument of New York Industry, while examining these related archival images!

"In the fall of 1975, Williamsburg-Greenpoint residents faced plans to eliminate schools, libraries, police stations, fire stations, bus lines, and hospitals. Angry about the planned cuts, as well as about noise and pollution from the expressway and leaking sewers at the derelict Brooklyn Navy Yard, residents conducted a series of dramatic protests. Encouraged by \[Mobilization for Youth (MFY) social worker Jan] Peterson, Northside residents mobilized a long-term campaign to save their local firehouse, No. 212, which the city planned to close in November 1975 when it reduced its firefighting force by 900…With the aid of the local firefighters, residents organized an eighteen-month-long civil disobedience campaign designed to keep the firehouse open. On Thanksgiving Day 1975, when fire commissioner John T. O’Hagan sent a crew of twenty-four to remove Engine 212, more than 200 residents occupied the station, holding the engine and the firemen hostage. The next day, after negotiations with O’Hagan, the residents set the firemen free but continued to occupy the firehouse, which they renamed People’s Firehouse No. 1." For more on this story, check out this excerpt from Tamar Carroll's Mobilizing New York in Gotham: A Blog for Scholars of New York City History.

33-35 Grand Street, ca. 1978. Built in 1889 by Theobald Engelhardt, a Brooklyn architect who mostly worked in Williamsburg and Bushwick, this Romanesque Revival style building was the first location for the newly chartered North Side Savings Bank. Smaller in size than many of Brooklyn's other banks from this time period, the bank fit in with the industrial and commercial feel of the neighborhood. The bank was particularly successful, garnering clients not only from the local industries but also using their location right near the ferry terminal to attract commuters. The bank became a part of the Manufacturer’s Trust Bank in 1922. Manufacturer's Trust, through various mergers and renaming, is today J.P. Morgan Chase. The little building became a new branch of the larger bank in 1992 but closed sometime in the mid century. The building has been a clothing store, a hip barber shop, and an event space in recent years. There is a large, renovated apartment on the second floor. Despite the drastic changes that Williamsburg has seen in the last two decades, this building, with its darkened rough cut stone facade and pressed metal pediment, has remained largely the same as when this photograph was taken, and likely for much of its history.

261 Bedford Avenue, ca. 1923. Though called the Greenpoint Bathhouse in a number of sources, this building is firmly located in Williamsburg. Design by Henry Bacon, architect of the Lincoln Memorial in D.C., the structure was opened in 1922. Saved from demolition in 1983 by an intrepid city Parks and Recreation Commissioner named Henry J. Stern, the facility remains a community pool and recreation center. The ceiling above the pool is a striking peaked skylight surrounded by a pressed copper ceiling. The entire building, including the natatorium, had a major renovation in the late 1990s.