Brooklyn City Railroad Company Building
8 Old Fulton Street | Brooklyn Heights | built 1861
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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.
- 1800
Gabriel Furman, the future Brooklyn historian, is born in the Furman house that stood on this corner
Before the railroad office, the corner held the house of Judge William Furman, a county judge from 1808 to 1823. His son Gabriel, a lawyer and Brooklyn historian with one of the finest libraries in the country in his day, was born there in 1800. The house sat right at the water, directly in front of the ferry stairs, and tradition says William ran an oyster house from its basement.
“His son, Gabriel, a lawyer and Brooklyn historian... was born in the old Furman house in 1800.”
- 1860
The Brooklyn City Railroad Company builds its headquarters beside the Fulton Ferry
The five-story building at the corner of Fulton and Furman Streets went up in 1860-61 as the office of the Brooklyn City Railroad Company. The company, incorporated in 1853, had replaced the old stage lines that carried passengers to Fulton Ferry. The Landmarks Preservation Commission called it a physical sign of the growing traffic between Brooklyn and New York.
“It was built as an office for the Brooklyn City Railroad Company, which had been incorporated in 1853 and had replaced the old stage lines…”
- 1861
Cast-iron piers by a Manhattan foundry frame the ground floor of the Italianate office
The brick building has granite quoins, carved console brackets at the second and third stories and shallow pediments over the paired second-story windows. Along the Fulton Street front, its channeled cast-iron piers came from E. B. Jackson & Company, a respected Manhattan foundry. The Landmarks Preservation Commission lists the style as Italianate with British commercial influence.
- 1867
Brooklyn's oldest horse-car company carries twenty-two million passengers a year to the ferry
Incorporated in 1853, the Brooklyn City Railroad was the oldest of Brooklyn's horse-car companies and the first allowed to use city streets for transit. Twelve lines converged on Fulton Ferry, covering about thirty-seven miles to places such as Greenpoint, Greenwood and Fort Hamilton. By 1867 they carried some twenty-two million riders a year, and the company's offices stood at Furman and Fulton Streets.
- 1973
The old railroad office is designated a New York City landmark
The Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the old Brooklyn City Railroad Company building a landmark on February 20, 1973. The district's designation report treats the building's conversion into apartments as the first sign of real activity along Cadman Plaza West.
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