FLATBUSH Avenue cuts across the Park Slope grid on a diagonal, making it a convenient place to put a subway line and indeed, two separate subway lines employ it, the IRT (2,3,4,5) and the BMT (B, Q) each built in two separate tunnels in the 1910s. It also creates several triangle-shaped plots, one of which can be found at Flatbush, 5th Avenue and Dean Street. For nearly a century, from 1912-2012, the wedge-shaped building in the plot housed a sporting goods store. By the 1960s, when I began riding by in a bus, the store was called Triangle Sports, quite reasonably enough.
Though the plot sold for over $4M in 2012, the building itself has stood empty since Triangle Sports moved out. This is, of course, the west end of the vast Pacific Park complex (formerly Atlantic Yards), which was spearheaded by the opening of Barclays Center in 2012.
It’s a miracle the building was spared at all but the left side of Flatbush Avenue (I don’t know whether to call it the south side or west side) was mostly left intact during the demolitions and construction of Barclays Center and Pacific Park. In April 2024, the building was employed as a billboard, with pop star Rihanna in her underwear promoting her line of lingerie, Signature Script.
This 1940 photo of the plot, 182 Flatbush Avenue, shows a sporting goods store in place, with ads for Lee clothing, Boy Scout equipment, and firearms. A photographer occupied the second floor. If you look on the right, you can see an elevated train. Until 1940, the 5th Avenue El turned here from Flatbush Avenue; the line originated on the Manhattan end of the Brooklyn Bridge, near City Hall, and its southern terminal was at 3rd Avenue and 65th Street.
When I was a kid, I was in the Cub Scouts. We got my uniform, belts, handbooks etc. from Triangle Sports — but not this one. There was a convenient branch at 5th Avenue and 83rd Street, a block from my house. That particular outlet closed in the 1970s or 1980s.
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4/22/24
10 comments
I remember there being a Triangle Sports on Grand St. and Leonard St in Williamsburg, Brooklyn in the 1980s. I was a boy scout and this was the place to get uniforms, lanyards, whistles, socks, etc.
Actually, it was between Graham & Manhattan.
Contemporary building looks to be only about half the length compared to 1940.
Same building
https://1940s.nyc/map/photo/nynyma_rec0040_3_00929_0001b#16.8/40.681899/-73.975825
Sorry, but I have to agree with Clark. The original building has six (6) windows on both the upper and lower floors. If you can get past Rihanna’s dreamy gaze long enough, you can make out four (4) windows on each floor. The right side of the building has been taken down, likely for the widening of the street when the el was torn down. The building originally had a rounded right end (a mirror image of the existing end on the left). Currently, the right end of the building is at a right angle. However, they did a good job of manipulating the cornice when the building was shortened. It looks like it had always been there.
(Very belated response) Having lived a couple of blocks away for 20 years, the two phots above show different sides of the building. The shot taken showing the Rihanna advertisement was taken from across Fifth Avenue, with Flatbush Ave. towards the left with a small segment of the Barclays Center and the new(is) 461 Deam apartment tower; Dean Street is on the right with traffic pointing away from our viewpoint. The old tax photo was taken from the far side of Flatbush, right by where that small part of Barclays is; Fifth Ave. is on the extreme right (with the tracks for the elevated line) and Dean St. is mostly blocked off by the extension to the Triangle Sports building towards the left.
In all the years that I lived close by, I only recall going inside Triangle Sports twice, once to look for a backpack for overnight hiking, and once for some small weights for physical rehab. Well before the Atlantic Yards development and the Barclays Center construction, Triangle Sports seemed pretty much doomed because of the Modell’s Sporting Goods location that had opened two blocks away at Flatbush and Atlantic.
The trolly pole is gone. What was the corner store & hanging sign. any ideas.
Prim and proper bus passengers disturbed by the billboard:
Rihanna’s remarkable rackular region rankles righteous rider.
For some buildings, there is more money to be made as a billboard than to have tenants. The exemplar for that is #1 Times Square.
Counting the corbels below the cornice hightlights the difference in length between color photo and the 1940 view