RIP IBPOE OF W

In the spring of 2016 I was teetering around the edge of Bedford-Stuyvesant on Fulton Street just east of Classon when I spotted this lengthy brown stucco-surfaced building at #1068. Alas, it was already being prepped for demolition. I was intrigued by the inscription at the top of the building:

The “Benevolent and Protective Order of the Elks” is a fraternal organization numbering over 1 million members nationwide in over 2100 “lodges.” Charles Vivian founded the “Jolly Corks,” a social organization to help families of members in need, in 1867; the Jolly Corks became the B.P.O. Elks the following year. However, this is a branch from the original shoot. The Improved Benevolent and Protective Order of the Elks of the World was founded in 1898 in Cincinnati, OH by African Americans who were not allowed to enter the Elks because of the prevailing racism of the era. By 1918, the original Elks had relaxed somewhat, and welcomed the IBPOE as a brother organization.

According to Brownstoner’s Suzanne Spellen (Montrose Morris) #1068 Fulton is actually a row of seven individual buildings, built as residences in the Italianate style (a favorite style in central and northern Brooklyn) and comined into what you see here in the 1920s. In a situation similar to the Elks Lodge in Elmhurst, the organization sold the building around 1990, but continued to use the building for meetings and gatherings; the building known as Elks Plaza, also hosted parties and gatherings not affiliated with the organization. After gunfire erupted at a party in January 2009, the building sat empty until it was torn down in 2018, and a rather nondescript 7-story apartment building rose in its place rather quickly.

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12/19/23