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The building seemed to sag against the Trenton sky, its walls leaning in a way that looked both tired and dangerous. I was driving, searching for a lunch spot after a morning spent exploring the city's industrial skeletons, when I saw it. A questionable choice, maybe, but curiosity is a powerful guide. I pulled over. Getting inside was one of the sketchiest entrances I’ve ever attempted. But once my feet were on the dusty floor, the danger faded. An enormous space stretched before me. It was sparse, cleaned out. My footsteps echoed where a stage once stood, a fact I’d later confirm in a NNKH YouTube video about the building’s past life as an underground punk club. The video showed a vibrant scene, an electric place. But the ghosts of that life were mostly gone. The long, rounded bar, where thousands of hands must have slapped down crumpled bills, had vanished. The dust-coated wine and shot glasses that once lined its shelves were gone, too. The club’s glittering crown jewel, a l...
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Historic S.W. Bowne Grain Storehouse
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What had remained from the continuing demolition with the BQE highway in the background.
Consisting of a two-block complex this four-story 200 by 80-foot brick building featured end-gabled structures with a central transverse firewall and eight round-arched window bay openings. This storehouse was accompanied by a feed mill removed in 1904-1915 and a feed storage building also on the lot.
A warehouse that once fueled New York City's four-legged transports throughout the area. The warehouse was established in 1886 as a storehouse for grain, feed, and hay processing which also included a feed mill. The large property owner and independent operator Samuel Winter Bowne became noted on the New York Produce Exchange as having the commercial capacity to store 600,000 bushels onsite.
Eventually, the storehouse complex no longer became a major economic engine for the City once in the 1930s the city moved away from horses to cars and trucks as canal grain traffic started to dry up as grain processing started to shift away from canals to containerization, large capacity grain floating elevators, and bulk railroad cars. For a time the property was being used for cargo and stevedoring companies but became abandoned by 1960.
In 2018, a fire broke out on the property causing severe damage to the storehouse. Unbeknownst to the city and preservationists, the building was demolished over the Labor Day weekend without a permit or demolition order from the city.
Today the property is owned by the Chetrit Group which has developed several projects throughout Brooklyn including Hotel Bossert in Brooklyn Heights, 9 Dekalb in Downtown Brooklyn, and M500 Hotel in Williamsburg.
Location: 595-611 Smith Street, Brooklyn, NY
Status: Demolished during the summer of 2018
Sources:
1. Corcoran, Cate, "Owner Demolishes Red Hook's Historic Bowne Warehouse After Arson Fire", October 11, 2019, Brownstoner
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