East New York Savings Bank Building
1117 Eastern Parkway | Crown Heights | built 1928
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The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.
Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.
- 1928
The bank throws a dinner in its banking hall for the 250 workers who built it
Before the doors opened to depositors, the East New York Savings Bank's officers and trustees held a testimonial dinner in the 6,000-square-foot banking hall on December 19, 1928. The honored guests were the plumbers, masons, painters, contractors, architects and carpenters among the roughly 250 people who had worked on the branch.
- 1928
The Parkway Branch of the East New York Savings Bank opens
The bank's second and most ambitious branch opened on Eastern Parkway at Utica Avenue on December 22, 1928. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle ranked it among the finest bank buildings of its type in the country, and the design journal Metal Arts called it a delightful building. Construction had cost more than $500,000 and taken about a year.
“The Parkway Branch opened on December 22, 1928.”
- 1928
Sculptor Rene Chambellan makes the bank's bronze doors
Rene Chambellan (1893-1955), an architectural sculptor who also worked on the Chanin Building, created the bronze doors facing Eastern Parkway. Each door is eleven feet tall and has a grid of 21 panels, about half showing stylized seated men and women, some holding oil lamps or books. They were designed as pocket doors, fully visible only when closed after banking hours.
“Each 11-foot-tall door incorporates a grid of 21 panels…”
- 1947
A $300,000 remodeling adds a mezzanine and more room for fur storage
The basement of the 1928 building held a safe deposit department and a cold air storage plant where furs were kept. In 1947-48 Brooklyn architect Alfred H. Ryder reworked the basement, banking hall and second floor at a cost of $300,000. The work put a mezzanine into the banking hall and gave fur storage more room.
“…these interior modifications added a mezzanine to the banking hall and increased the space devoted to fur storage.”
- 1987
First Empire of Buffalo buys the bank, and its Parkway office passes through a series of owners
In late 1987 the East New York Savings Bank was bought by First Empire Corporation of Buffalo, which merged with M&T Bank about a decade later. The building became a Banco Popular branch in 2006, and the bank was renamed Popular Community Bank in 2012. The owners covered the stonework naming the original bank with rectangular panels.
“First Empire Corporation of Buffalo acquired the East New York Savings Bank in late 1987.”
- 2016
The city designates the East New York Savings Bank Building a landmark
The Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the building, designed by Holmes & Winslow, on March 8, 2016. It had held a hearing on June 28, 2011, where one person, speaking for the Historic Districts Council, supported designation and no one opposed it. The report describes the sandstone building as probably influenced by Manhattan's Bowery Savings Bank, with a recessed arch giving it a fortress-like look.
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