411-415 Bedford Avenue, ca. 1975.

Cast iron architecture is most well known in New York City in the SoHo and a few excellent examples in Fulton Ferry and Downtown Brooklyn. Williamsburg also had a smattering of cast iron building, including most notably the Smith, Gray & Co. building on Broadway and Bedford Avenue. This pair of cast iron facades, seen here in a 1970s era photograph, are unfortunately, no longer extant. The buildings still stand but the facades are now brick, and the fenestration (the arrangement of windows) has been drastically altered.