SORRY I “buried the lede” in the title, but I didn’t see any other way around it. In the spring I was wandering in Park Slope, the same day that produced my 13th Street post, when I spotted this handsome 4-story brick building on 12th Street just west of 8th Avenue. I was wondering what it was doing here in heavily residential Park Slope. Could it be a former school building?
A clue is the “A” in the concrete escutcheon at the roofline. I have resources to seize on such clues…
I took a look at the 1929 Belcher Hyde desk atlas of Brooklyn, available for inspection at Historic Map Works. The answer is made clear. The A doesn’t stand for Ansonia, as you might expect since the old Ansonia Clock Works can be found on the south side of 12th Street. It instead stands for Acme Garage and this building was likely a very early car storage building, I’d say dating from 1918 or 1920. The block is dominated by garages and warehouses (though a small woodframe building, denoted by a yellow rectangle, is still there). The large building labeled “Garage” is now called “Ansonia Storage Warehouse,’ one of the only vestiges of the clock works remaining.
You can always ferret out information, you just have to know where to look.
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8/16/21
5 comments
I saw a rather frustrated-looking coyote sniffing around there once.
The building labeled “Garage” is actually now (still?) a public parking garage. I parked my car there for almost 2 decades till they raised the monthly fee to $500. I started there in 2001 when it was $270/mo. I guess the owners figure we’re all millionaires in this neighborhood now and should be able to give them 2-3 times a car payment for the privilege of renting one of their spaces. To me, $500/mo. is one instance of highway robbery too far for me, so now I takes me chances parking on the street. The “Ansonia Storage Warehouse” is there, but it’s the “Dooley Warehouse Corp.” in your pictured Atlas.
“I have resources to seize on such clues…”
Can you please use your resources for this building?
1511 E 24th St, Brooklyn, NY 11210
This building is a mystery to me. It looks like a garage, but there are no signs. When you look at the satellite image it’s very oddly shaped… What is there?
Thank you for your help
I would imagine that the garage entrance was between those two columns in the front. Looks like a pretty good conversion job.
Interestingly perhaps, years later, the “A” tablet would prove entirely appropriate for a future commercial tenant: Atlas Abrasives Corp. ca. 1940