(Click to enlarge)
This is Bond and Carroll Streets in Gowanus way back in the winter of 2003. The reader who sent us this photo, which certainly brings back some memories, wrote:
This is pre-construction bond&carroll street (2003). 346 bond, the roll-gated building, used to be a hansom carriage repair shop complete with a filled in gutter for drainage of horse manure. It was huge on the inside with multiple skylights and on the left wall, you could see where they bricked up the entrance to the building next door which I THINK might have been the actual stable house. At the time this photo was taken, it was a motorcycle repair shop (the shop’s owner grandfathered the “repair shop” thing in to make the business legal). The building next to it with the windows had a family living in it. On the other side was a metalworking shop of some sort. I was pretty disappointed when they tore the buildings down and I can barely understand how it’s even allowed. I mean, how many of those sorts of buildings still exist? Shouldn’t they be worth saving on some level? Such is Bloomberg’s New York (or Marty’s Brooklyn. Same diff.)
There was quite a bit of anger when the carriage repair shop wen down.
Satori! It’s the building we used to call Robert Scarano’s Bunker.
2 responses so far ↓
1 Anonymous // Dec 12, 2008 at 8:59 am
Those were great little buildings. I still can’t believe that they were torn down so that horrible building could be built. They were better built and had much more personality than the crap that is there now. Slowly but surely the true and good parts of Brooklyn are being torn down and covered up by new construction like this.
I have very little respect for developers that come into a neighborhood and tear down something that has been there for close to a century, if not longer, in order to build a poorly built large box that does not fit in with the surrounding neighborhood. The few developers and businesses that have the vision to make something special out of what is already there should be supported. It takes a lot more creativity to use an existing structure in order to fit in with the surrounding area.
2 james // Dec 12, 2008 at 10:32 am
Any one seen those Satori apartments? Are they any good? Loooks like those ridiculous windows would make for a crappy interior