
I will use a shot from Street View today. I have been past Washington and Park Avenues in Clinton Hill a few times over the last few years, but somehow I missed this magnificent complex of brick buildings on the NW corner, probably because I always used that side of Washington Avenue and didn’t notice it! What a magnificent old building. Brothers John and Henry Von Glahn built it in 1890 as a produce warehouse. The Von Glahn company packaged and canned goods, shipping them in the mainland USA in an era when horses and wagons did most of the work. This building served as a warehouse and as offices for the company.

Why was this location a prime area for a comestibles warehouse? Prior to World War Two, the eastern side of the Navy Yard was the site of Wallabout Market, a charming and crowded Dutch-revival collection of buildings that served as Brooklyn’s wholesale food market. Its architectural style and name were inspired by Wallabout Creek and Wallabout Bay, the bend in the East River where Walloon settlers established their farms in the early colonial period. The creek flowed past the market, with a retractile drawbridge carrying Washington Avenue across the creek.
The market’s location adjacent to the Navy Yard sealed its fate. With World War Two raging across the Atlantic, the federal government demanded tighter security and more space for the shipyard. The Wallabout market was condemned in favor of Brooklyn Terminal Market in Canarsie. On June 14, 1941, a ceremony marked the closing of Wallabout Market with a procession of the trucks to its new location.

The building’s slanted, or chamfered, corner allowed the brothers to place this ornate terra cotta sign visible from western approach. Today Park avenue is shrouded by the Brooklyn Queens Expressway, but that wasn’t a concern in 1890.
Amazingly the Von Glahns only occupied the building until 1907, a span of 17 years. For the next 50 years, this building served as a Rockwood and Company candy factory, which built an additional factory building along Park Avenue to Waverly Place. The company was the first to introduce chocolate sprinkles, now a staple on ice cream cones. For a time, Rockwood was the country’s biggest candy manufacturer, second only to Hershey. Tootsie Rolls were manufactured here during the building’s final decade as a factory. For much more, see Suzanne Spellen’s substack. Rockwood sold out to Sweets & Co. in 1957.
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6/23/25
2 comments
For over fifty years, while crawling along on the Brooklyn Queens Expressway, I admired this terra cotta plaque and the brickwork of this handsome building and wondered about its ultimate fate.. It is wonderful to see it being appreciated and repurposed.
Uh, if Dear Readers don’t mind indulging my lunacy here, when I entered “Washington & Park, Brooklyn” into “Gergle” Maps, it brought up a building with a ver-r-ry similarly chamfered exterior… also on the NW corner… but the plaque and much of the decor was gone… plus, the top floor was missing! (Peep “746 Washington Ave.”) Even a deep dive into previous photos, all the way back to 2011, was obviously not enough to solve the “mystery”, although it was good to see that the “Cepeda Grocery” has hung in there all this time. FWIW, that intersection was over to the NE of Prospect Park so I’m wondering, *boy*, does Kenneth have a set of eyes on him if he can see it from the BQE! Ah, but that’s Park *Place*, not Park *Ave.*… and meanwhile I can see that Kevin managed to find an older pic of the building WITHOUT the customary construction scaffolding around the bottom. OK, never mind! Carry on! Nothing to see here! (Aside from FOUR “Captcha” challenges. Wow…)