[7th Avenue face of Acme Hall at 9th Street and 7th Avenue along the 8th Avenue IND Line]
Survey photograph prior to construction of the 8th Avenue IND subway line looking northwest at 9th Street and 7th Avenue and showing 7th Avenue face of Acme Hall building, Brooklyn, NY.
1928
[7th Avenue face of Acme Hall at 9th Street and 7th Avenue along the 8th Avenue IND Line]
Survey photograph prior to construction of the 8th Avenue IND subway line looking northwest at 9th Street and 7th Avenue and showing 7th Avenue face of Acme Hall building, Brooklyn, NY.
Acme Hall was a prominent social club built in 1890. It was designed in the Romanesque style by architect C. Nickenig. The original building was adorned with a crenelated roofline and a tower that jutted out of its southeast corner. The tower bore its name, "The Acme," in an Amherst stone carving.
The hall lost its elite status however: in the 1930s it was raided for showing stag films - quite a departure from its well-to-do upbringings. By then, the eatery downstairs was "Diamonds," a bar and grill infamous for a shooting in 1938. A patron, Robert Joyce, was upset over a comment about the Brooklyn Dodger's defeat by the Giants in the National League. Joyce, who had reportedly consumed 18 glasses of beer that evening, shot two people - one of them was the son of the bar's owner.
In 1945 , The Acme was turned over to become a mixture of stores and lofts after being purchased by Ernest S. Felzman. An illegal garment factory and loft residencies also found their way into the building around this time.
The Acme was turned over once again to Howard Pronsky in 1986. Sometime before the new ownership, the tower was removed and the whimsical crenelation was replaced by a more modest roofline. The space was converted to offices after a $750,000 renovation, making it one of the first non-brownstone buildings with office space in the neighborhood. Today, it operates as a music studio.