H. Kohnstamm & Company of Red Hook
By the time I noticed, it was already too late. Another loss. Another familiar silhouette scraped from the skyline. Another piece of Brooklyn's industrial memory folded up and tucked away, replaced by something sleeker, faster, and utterly forgettable. It was sometime around 2018 when I first looked at the former grounds of H. Kohnstamm and Company, a name that once meant something in this part of the borough. The property sat in that peculiar state of half-life so common to old industrial sites in the outer boroughs. One side lay in ruin, a crumbling monument to an era when Brooklyn made things. The other half hummed along just fine, a thriving business still operating in the shadow of the decay, its workers going about their routines as if the ghosts next door didn't exist. I remember thinking I should come back. I should document this. I should put a pin in it. I never did. My attention, as it often was in those days, had drifted to Connecticut, New Jersey, and the former Bo...