110 Livingston Street

also 99 Schermerhorn Street | Brooklyn Heights | built 1926

Open on the map5 entries

Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.

  1. 1908

    Brooklyn Union Gas teaches customers to use stoves and refrigerators in a showroom on the lot

    Before the present building, a showroom and demonstration building of the Brooklyn Union Gas Company stood at 108-112 Livingston Street. Gas ranges and refrigerators were catching on by 1908, but not everyone knew how to use them, so the company held classes there. A photograph from 1908 shows the building, and the company's photo series of it runs to 1913. In 1914 the company moved into a large new headquarters at 180 Remsen Street.

    Source: brownstoner.com

  2. 1926

    The Elks build a headquarters with a pool, ballroom and 200 dorm rooms

    The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks built the present building in 1926 as its headquarters, with McKim, Mead & White as architects. It held meeting spaces, about 200 dormitory rooms, a ballroom, a Turkish bath, bowling alleys and a swimming pool. The same source notes that by then the firm's famous founders were dead or retired, so the building is seldom counted among its masterpieces.

    Source: brownstoner.com

  3. 1926

    McKim, Mead & White clad the Elks building in limestone and terra cotta

    The Elks headquarters is a Beaux Arts building by McKim, Mead & White, faced in limestone and terra cotta. Its Renaissance Revival details include balustrades, egg-and-dart ornament and Corinthian columns.

    Source: Wikipedia

  4. 1940

    The building becomes the Board of Education headquarters and a byword for school-system dysfunction

    In 1940 the building was converted into the headquarters of the New York City Board of Education. Over the following decades it became known for entrenched bureaucracy, and the New York Times reporter Michael Cooper wrote that the address came to stand for a failed system, one both imperious and impervious.

    “In 1940, the building was converted to serve as the New York City Board of Education headquarters.”

    Source: Wikipedia

  5. 2003

    New York City sells the old Board of Education building to Two Trees for apartments

    In 2003 the city sold the building to Two Trees Management, a leading developer of Dumbo, to be turned into luxury apartments as part of Downtown Brooklyn's redevelopment. Several floors were added, and Richard Haas painted a trompe-l'oeil mural of architectural features in the courtyard. Beyer Blinder Belle restored the coffered-ceiling lobby, and a historic ground-floor theater was meant for the arts group ISSUE Project Room.

    “In 2003, the government of New York City sold the building to Two Trees Management, a primary developer of the DUMBO neighborhood, for development as luxury residential apartments…”

    Source: Wikipedia

Further reading

Nearby

All 25 buildings with stories in Brooklyn Heights