In autumn of 1892, a new building was going up in Brooklyn. The cellar was still open and Atlas Iron had just about completed the iron framework for the first floor. Some of their men were moving a derrick and knocked over a pile of bricks... which fell into the cellar where one or several of the bricks struck a worker named Thomas Reilly. He took Atlas Iron to court over the incident. While the nature of his injuries aren't specified in the records, they were referred to as being very serious. In June of 1895, a jury awarded Mr. Reilly $5000 in damages (half of what he sought; the amount translates to roughly $150,000 today). Atlas Iron filed several appeals, but the original judgement was always upheld.
I learned about this court case several months ago. What I wanted to know was where the accident took place. No street name or even neighborhood was given for the building site. The court records include testimony from a witness who said the building was "about 100 feet square," and clearly describes it as "next to Smith & Gray's." A newspaper article said that the accident happened while Atlas was "putting up the iron skeleton work in Smith & Gray's big building in November, 1892." So... which building were they working on? (I suppose they could have even worked on both, but have operated on the premise that it was just one.)
To complicate matters, Smith, Gray & Company owned half a dozen buildings in Brooklyn. Without further clues to guide my search, I was stumped for a long while. I was inclined to trust the court record over the newspaper article, but I didn't know which buildings to look at. I recently decided to try and solve the mystery.
I started by searching again for details on the court case, and came across a new record with three key pieces of information. First, Thomas Reilly was employed by a T. J. or P. J. Castin & Co, though searches on these names turned up nothing other than references back to this same trial. Second, the date of the accident was given as the 15th of September 1892. Finally, the building site was described as being on Fulton Street. This narrowed things down considerably, to one of Smith & Gray's buildings and its neighbors.
Smith, Gray & Company produced ready-made clothes for boys and children, and they were highly successful. In 1888 they had an eight story building constructed on the irregular corner of Nevins St., Flatbush Ave. and Fulton St. in Brooklyn's downtown shopping district. This building had a tower with a prominent clock - a local landmark.
On the 28th of February 1892, a major fire broke out which destroyed this building and damaged several others around it. The clock tower split... half of it falling on three adjacent buildings on Fulton Street and the other half damaging the elevated railroad tracks which ran along Flatbush Avenue. The total damage from the fire was estimated at around $750,000.
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| This sketch is from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 29 February 1892. |
Armed with this information, I searched the Real Estate Record's listings of building projects in Brooklyn during 1892. By early August of that year, plans were filed to construct a new Smith & Gray building - ten stories tall - on that corner lot. When I reached the listings for September, I thought that I wouldn't find anything else (recall that the accident was said to take place on the 15th of September). However, I continued on and found the answer.
By mid-September, plans had been filed for a new building at numbers 532-540 Fulton Street, just next door to Smith & Gray's. This site was owned by the estate of the late John D. Cocks and the contractors were... P. J. Carlin & Co. This is where everything clicked together for me. I can easily see how a handwritten Carlin in the court record could be mistakenly transcribed as Castin, and this backs up the testimony that the accident happened at a work site adjacent to Smith & Gray's.
What's more, Google Street View shows both of the buildings still in place, though they have both suffered over the years.
Smith & Gray's new building only climbed three stories rather than the intended ten. At some point, a seventeen story clock tower was added on the Nevins Street side, again standing as a local landmark. In 1941, the tower was damaged by a fire in the adjacent building on Nevins Street. It was declared unsafe and cut down to seven stories, which is how it stands today.
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| The Flatbush Ave. facade of the old Smith & Gray Building. #532-540 Fulton St. is barely visible to the right. Photo courtesy of Google. |
Meanwhile, I've gathered quite a bit of information about 532-540 Fulton Street. It seems that John Cocks purchased those five lots before the Civil War for $800 apiece. At the end of 1891, a row of four-story brick buildings stood there. Plans were well under way to replace them with a new building encompassing all five addresses. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle gave a lengthy description of the project. It was hoped to be an attractive six-story building in granite and terra cotta. An unnamed, "large New York furniture firm" was expected to occupy the new building, though the contracts were not final. The architects were Ross & Marvin. Work was expected to begin in the spring.
The five buildings were still occupied at the time of the fire, and at least three of them were heavily damaged. The construction plans were changed. By the time they were filed again, A. W. Ross was listed alone as the architect. I presume this is the same Ross, but haven't found any other details about him or his erstwhile partner. The plans filed by September called for a three-story brick and terra cotta building with a tin roof and iron cornice. After the unfortunate accident involving Mr. Reilly, the building was completed and opened for business by the spring of 1893.
The first tenants to move in were indeed a furniture and carpet firm: Murray, Conway & Company. The building was divided into three storefronts at first. Some of the other businesses there over the next two decades were clothiers, a lamp store, and piano stores. A Woolworth's five-and-dime store opened in one storefront in 1895, and by 1911 had expanded to take up all five storefronts. They remained there until the early 1940s.
The Rosemont Dance Hall opened on the second floor, probably in the 1920s, and the third floor was rented out as storage space. Fire struck once again on the 19th of February 1942. This one started in the dance hall and spread up through the third floor - which the Eagle declared "destroyed" - and the roof (the Eagle even had a photo of this fire). The ground floor and adjacent buildings were damaged by water and smoke, but not by flames. Damage from this fire was estimated at $250,000.
While I have not found evidence to back this up, I believe the building's third story was removed after that fire. By September of that year, the Nevins Bowling Center opened on the second floor, boasting 20 "alleys."
Since the building was still standing, I decided to visit. I wanted to get a closer look and take photos (which I intended to include in this post). However, when I made the trek to Brooklyn this past weekend I was in for a surprise... the building has been torn down! Only an empty lot remains there at the moment. It seems the building was razed just last December, and plans have been filed to put a 19-story retail and office building on the site. Therefore, here's a photo from Google Street View which shows the building in September 2014.
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| #532-540 Fulton St. Photo courtesy of Google. |
Sources:
New York State Reporter, v64, p332.
New York Supplement, v38, p485.
Real Estate Record and Builder's Guide, 26 Dec 1891, p828; 6 Aug 1892, p195; 17 Sept 1892, p367; 22 June 1895, p1057.
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 15 Dec 1891, p6; 29 Feb 1892, p4 and 6; 14 Aug 1941, p2; 19 Feb 1942, p1.
The Sun (New York), 14 June 1895, p5.
The New York Times, 20 Feb 2005.
Smith, Gray & Company Building Designation Report, Landmarks Preservation Commission, 2005. This is primarily about Smith & Gray's first building, on Broadway in Williamsburg. It also gives good details of their company history and other buildings.
Brownstoner blog: 532-540 Fulton Street and 2-4 Nevins Street (Smith & Gray's building). These two posts have additional photos.
