Former NYPD 65th and 73rd Precinct Stationhouse

If you walk down East New York Avenue, it is easy to miss the old police station that once watched over the block. Your eyes go first to the Howard Houses, those tall brick towers that rise on the left like a wall. The former precinct squats beside them, low and dignified, its stone face worn by nearly a century of weather and worry.

By the time I began paying attention to it, the building already had an expiration date. The city had picked it as the site of new affordable housing. Demolition was set to begin in full in November 2025. On paper, it was a win for a neighborhood that has carried more than its share of struggles. For the building itself, it was a quiet death sentence.

I wanted to see it before it went.

The main trolley line that ran down East New York Avenue was the Bergen-East New York Line, operated by the Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit Corporation (BMT). It served as a key east-west route in the Brownsville area until many city trolley lines were converted to bus routes starting in the 1940s. 

One sharp winter day, I came up with a plan. I had spent hours online, reading what I could about the precinct’s history, tracing old photos, trying to match them to the doorway and the stonework that were still there.

This place had once been a nerve center for the New York Police Department. People were brought here in cuffs. Families waited on those steps for news. Officers marched in and out on shifts that blurred into one another. Not all of that history was proud. Some of it was heavy and painful, especially in a neighborhood like this one.

Now, the station house was empty on the inside and full of promises on the outside. City officials talked about hundreds of new apartments for low-income families. Advocates for housing cheered. Some longtime residents shook their heads at the thought of losing one more piece of old Brooklyn, even if it had been a symbol of power and fear.

I was not there to debate policy. I was there to get inside.

What I ran into instead was a wave of bad timing and a knot of nerves in my stomach. Work crews were already moving in and out. The first stage was asbestos abatement. That meant sealed doors, taped-off zones, and workers in suits that looked like something out of a sci-fi movie. Even on weekends, there was activity at the site.

I walked back and forth across the street, trying to look casual, trying to read every opening like it might be a door into another time. The longer I waited, the more I could feel that mix of guilt and excitement that comes with any attempt to slip into a place that is supposed to be closed.

In the end, anxiety won. I told myself it was not safe. I told myself there would be another chance. I circled the block one more time, then gave up and left. For a while, I chased other locations, some in New York State, some out of state, places that seemed easier and less watched.

The precinct stayed in my head. Weeks later, I came back to East New York Avenue and knew right away that the clock was close to running out.

Riseboro Apartment Building to the left rose into the sky most recently a year and a couple of months ago.

The roofline had changed. Workers had begun taking the building apart by hand, starting from the top and working their way down. A heavy backhoe sat in the temporary construction yard, quiet for the moment but clearly waiting for its turn to finish what the crews had started.

This time, I did not pace. I slipped through a gap in the fence, squeezed myself into the construction zone, and hugged the building, listening for voices. The yard was empty. My heart was not.

I made it to the side of the building only to find every ground-floor window still sealed with thick cross-sectioned boards, tight and stubborn. Not even a torso-width crack. I pressed my hands against the wood and felt stupid for thinking it would be easy. I had come all that way to touch plywood.

Angry at myself and at the timing, I backed out the way I came in, brushing dirt from my coat. I told myself, out loud this time, that I would be back again in a week. Either the place would be gone for good, or I would finally find a way in.

I slid through and felt the fence scrape my shoulder. On the other side, a simple construction tool, left behind or forgotten, gave me the extra reach and leverage I needed into an open invitation.

My pulse jumped. My face felt hot despite the cold air. I pushed my bag through the opening, then tried to follow. A rusted window nail grabbed at my coat as I squeezed. There was a sharp ripping sound. A part of my winter coat’s shoulder had torn. For a brief second, I was stuck, half inside, half out, like the building itself, suspended between past and future. Then I was in.

The air inside was colder than outside and carried that mix of old chalky dust smell and new damage. Light sliced in through wooden window frames, drawing bright lines on the floor. Somewhere above me, something banged and then settled, sending a soft shiver through the frame of the building.

I stood there, coat ripped, face flushed, breathing hard, and felt a wave of victory that was far larger than the small act that caused it. This place that I had watched from the sidewalk, this brick box that had once been a stage for authority and fear, was now open and quiet, almost shy.

The vaulted ceilings inside the basement, where the jail's cells were located. 

Only later, once I had explored the rooms and peered into the basement, did I realize there had been an easier way. Near the front, in a low, hidden part towards the side of the building, a large opening yawned where workers had created a walking path of boards for their scaffolding covering its entry. 

While I had crawled my way in like a raccoon, there had been a wide, simple entrance waiting for anyone who took the time to see it beneath the darkness. 

C’est la vie.

Color Altered Black & White Tax Photo
Photo courtesy of New York City Finance Department tax photo/1940s.nyc

Just a block from the grand sweep of Eastern Parkway, at 1546 East New York Avenue, sits a tired beauty of a building that has seen almost everything Brooklyn can throw at it. Its story, like so many in Brooklyn, is layered with history, drama, and the slow, grinding churn of urban change.

For most people walking by, its imposing structure was built on power and fear. But this was once the 65th Precinct station house, later the 73rd Precinct, and the stories tied to it reach from old black and white TV dramas to one of the most troubling wrongful convictions in New York City history.

The station house went up in the early 1900s as the home of the 65th Precinct. Sometime in the 1910s, the NYPD reshuffled its map, and the building took on a new name. From then on, it was the 73rd Precinct.

For decades, officers here patrolled Brownsville and the surrounding streets. That continued until 1985, when the department moved into a modern station house one block down East New York Avenue. The new building hummed with fluorescent light, tall jail walls, and fresh paint. The old one was left behind.

Since then, the original precinct house has sat empty, back wall sagging, a roost for the local pigeons, its stone and brick still handsome but clearly worn.

The building’s number has been confused over the years. Some sources claim that the classic ABC TV series Naked City (which ran from 1958 to 1963) was set in the 65th Precinct, and people sometimes link that back to this Brownsville station. In reality, the show used Midtown North in Manhattan for its shots, and by the time the series was even imagined, this building had been known as the 73rd Precinct for decades.

The 73rd did make it into crime history in a darker way. In 1963, Brownsville resident George Whitmore Jr. was arrested and brought to this station in connection with what the press called the Career Girl Murders. Two young women had been killed in their Upper East Side apartment. Police said Whitmore confessed. He was convicted.

Years later, evidence and advocacy showed that Whitmore’s so-called confession was false. He was exonerated, and his case became one of the most famous examples of wrongful conviction in the city. It also helped inspire The Marcus-Nelson Murders, a 1973 TV movie that served as the pilot for the cop show Kojak.

In this clip from the crime thriller The Marcus Nelson Murders, we see the former 73rd Precinct, Howard Houses, Burger Flame, Mays Deli, Otiz Funeral Home, Sun Lighting, Liberty Lighting, and, farther in the background, Loew’s Pitkin Theatre. The scene was filmed in 1972 on East New York Avenue and Rockaway Avenue. The movie later aired on CBS and served as the pilot for the Kojak series, starring Telly Savalas and Ned Beatty.

Even long after the NYPD left this house, the neighborhood kept appearing on screen. The 2010 film Brooklyn’s Finest is set in Brownsville at a fictional 65th Precinct, a kind of shadow version of the real history on East New York Avenue.

Once the police moved out, the building entered a long, messy chapter that will be familiar to anyone who follows New York real estate.

Property records show that in 2002, the Family Services Network of New York bought the lot for about half a million dollars. The Brooklyn-based nonprofit works with HIV positive youth, people struggling with addiction, and New Yorkers living with mental illness. The idea was to turn the old precinct into something new and useful, likely tied to housing and support services.

On paper, the plan looked hopeful. In practice, it was expensive. Family Services tried to take on about 3.8 million in renovation costs. That is a heavy lift for a nonprofit, especially with an aging, complicated structure like a former station house. Somewhere along the line, the numbers stopped working.

According to the records, the city eventually sold the property to the Chen family. In 2004, Family Services took out a 1.1 million mortgage with Banco Popular North America and bought it back from the Chens, still chasing the dream of rebuilding the site.

In 2017, the group partnered with a developer, Xenolith, to push forward an affordable housing project. On paper, once again, the timing was right. The need for low-cost housing in Brownsville is huge, and the city has been leaning on public-private partnerships to get those buildings up.

Then came more delays. By 2020, the project had stalled for financial and COVID-19 reasons. Construction costs kept climbing, funding streams shifted, and the old house kept sinking further into disrepair.

By the time the latest version of the plan came together, the math had changed completely. What began as a renovation measured in the low millions had turned into a full-scale affordable housing complex with a price tag of about 51.5 million dollars.

That figure is now being covered through a mix of tax credits and public-private financing. In simple terms, that means government programs are helping lower the cost for investors and developers, while private money and public policy work together to get the building done.

The new project will sit at the edge of the Howard Houses campus, adding another layer to a landscape already full of stories about policing, poverty, survival, and change.

The front lobby door. Former residents and witnesses have alleged that individuals "On Trips", experiencing mental health issues, were at times handcuffed to radiators in the lobby, in full view of people passing on the street, "bug out." Additional accounts claim that those taken directly to the building’s basement were subjected to severe physical abuse. Such allegations reflect a broader pattern of policing in the 1960s and 1970s that critics and historians have characterized as aggressive and frequently excessive by today’s standards.

Stairs, criminal suspects never wanted to walk down or up inside the stationhouse.

Intricate details of the wrought iron staircase

To make the project work, the city had to get creative with its land. NYCHA agreed to transfer some of its development rights, along with a slim, 6,500 square foot, L-shaped strip of land at the edge of the Howard Houses campus, to the owners of the old precinct lot next door. On paper, it is Brooklyn Block 3489, Lot 1. In real life, it is the kind of leftover space that only becomes valuable when someone figures out how to use it.

That transfer went to 1546 ENY Owner LLC, the entity that controls the former station house site. With the extra land and development rights, the partners can now tear down the boarded-up building, last used in the mid-1980s, and put up an 11-story apartment house in its place.

In return, the two owners, Xenolith Partners and the nonprofit Family Services of New York, agreed to hold at least eight of the planned apartments for residents of the Howard Houses who want to move into the new building. It is a small but notable promise. People who have lived for years in one public housing complex will get a first shot at brand new units a few steps away.

The project calls for 95 apartments with rents capped for low-income tenants. Single adults earning roughly 33,000 to 65,000 dollars a year will qualify, along with families of three making no more than about 84,000 dollars. At least 57 apartments are reserved for people leaving homeless shelters, which means more than half the building is meant as a direct path out of the shelter system.

This is not only a place to sleep. Plans show a community health center on the ground floor and on-site social services staff in the building. Residents will share a fitness room, a community room that opens onto an outdoor terrace, a laundry room, a bike room, and apartments outfitted with Energy Star appliances to help keep utility costs down.

The old 65th and 73rd Precinct station house has gone from a symbol of law and order, to a backdrop for TV and film, to an empty city building that many people forgot. Now, after years of deals, debt, and delay, it is finally being written into a new story about where and how people in Brownsville live. Hopefully, the next chapter will focus on housing, health, and support instead.

If you have a connection to any of these vanished workplaces—whether you spent time here at the 65th Precinct stationhouse, or have preserved a fragment of their history in your family's life, a photo, a video, a product, an employee badge, a catalog, or an old advertisement—I would be honored to share your piece of the story here. These tangible memories and personal accounts are what truly animate the silent shells we see today; they give voice to the past in a way that maps and corporate filings never can. Every image or recollection you share helps to fill the gaps, honoring the skill and community that once filled these now-quiet spaces. Please feel welcome to contribute and comment, knowing that you will be fully credited for helping to preserve this important chapter of our local heritage.

Photo courtesy of Gran Kriegel Associates.

Sources:

1. Brand, D. (2025, March 26). Brooklyn's long-abandoned NYPD stationhouse will become affordable housing. Gothamist

2. Morris, S. (2020, April 29). Redevelopment revealed for century-old police precinct at 1546 East New York Avenue in Brownsville, Brooklyn. New York Nimby. 

3. Spring 3100. (1963). United States: Police Department. p.35.

4. Robbins, C. (2012, March 29). Old NYPD Brownsville stationhouse sits rotting; The nonprofit that bought it can’t afford to rehab it. New York Daily News.