New York and New Jersey Telephone and Telegraph Building
81 Willoughby Street | Downtown Brooklyn | built 1898
Open on the map7 entries
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.
- 1896
A stable and four houses give way to the telephone company's new Brooklyn headquarters
Before the telephone company built here, the northeast corner of Willoughby and Lawrence Streets held four houses fronting Willoughby and a stable on Lawrence. In 1896 the New York and New Jersey Telephone Company agreed to buy the corner for its central office, and Rudolphe Daus sketched a ten-story building that May. The plan was later cut to eight and a half stories.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1897
Plumbers' union dispute sets off a strike while the telephone building is going up
During construction, the contractors hired plumbers tied to a union in New York City, then a separate city from Brooklyn. Workers in the Brooklyn union struck in response in August 1897. In September, union roofers, tin workers and sheet iron workers walked out for higher wages for the men installing cornices and skylights, and when they struck again in October their bosses finished those jobs themselves.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1898
Rudolphe Daus gives the telephone building a Beaux-Arts design with telephone-themed terra cotta
Daus, a prominent Brooklyn architect, gave the building a Beaux-Arts design that reflects his early training. A broad projecting cornice and an ornate oculus window emphasize its corner location. Finely laid masonry contrasts with terra-cotta details that identify the building's purpose. The Landmarks Preservation Commission later ranked it among downtown Brooklyn's most distinguished 19th-century office buildings.
“…one of the most distinguished nineteenth century office buildings in downtown Brooklyn; that it was designed and constructed in 1897-98 by prominent Brooklyn architect Rudolphe L. Daus…”
- 1899
The company's main Brooklyn telephone exchange opens on the eighth floor
The building was finished by February 1898, and the main telephone exchange began operating here in November 1899. It filled the eighth floor, which could serve 5,000 to 6,000 subscribers and housed the company's mostly female operators, known as the 'hello girls'. The lower floors held supply, repair and executive departments.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1929
New York Telephone buys the building it had been renting
New York Telephone moved its Long Island headquarters here from Manhattan in 1927, and formally acquired the building in 1929 after years of renting it. When its new tower at 101 Willoughby Street opened in October 1931, the company kept central office equipment in the older building. It sold the building in 1943 to a Manhattan investor.
“New York Telephone, which had long rented 81 Willoughby Street, formally acquired the structure in 1929.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1946
Poly Tech's polymer research institute sets up five laboratories in the old telephone building
After the telephone company sold the building in 1943, Sperry Gyroscope was already a tenant, and in 1946 it moved a training school onto the second floor with room for 80 students a day. The same year Poly Tech's Institute of Polymer Research moved in and ran five laboratories. By the early 1950s the institute took three of the eight floors and had 520 graduate-level students.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2004
The Landmarks Preservation Commission designates the former telephone building
Civic groups including the Municipal Art Society and the Brooklyn Heights Association began petitioning in 2003 to landmark Downtown Brooklyn buildings. The Landmarks Preservation Commission designated 81 Willoughby Street in June 2004, and the company's later tower at 101 Willoughby Street the same year. The New York Times later described the building as home to nonprofit organizations and doctors' and dentists' offices.
Source: Wikipedia
Further reading
- 81 Willoughby StreetWikipedia
Nearby
- The Brooklyner111 Lawrence Street | 3 entries
- 388 Bridge Street384 Bridge Street | 2 entries
- Old Brooklyn Fire Headquarters365 Jay Street | 9 entries
- BellTel Lofts101 Willoughby Street | 8 entries
- AVA DoBro100 Willoughby Street | 1 entry
- Transportation Building370 Jay Street | 8 entries