The Wurts Brother took a photo of the Kings County1 Savings Bank at the corner of Nostrand Avenue and Eastern Parkway, probably shortly after the building was completed in 1930:
That’s pretty fancy for a local bank branch – the main office of the bank was near the Williamsburg Bridge – but it fits with the grand scale of the Parkway. The cables you see are power for streetcars, with the tracks on Nostrand Avenue visible at the lower left. In any case, I was walking by last fall and the building caught my eye:
It’s not that much of a coincidence that I took the same picture: that’s the main (south) facade. There have been some unfortunate signs added, and the change from a bank to multi-tenant use has changed what’s behind the windows, but it looks much the same. (The fact that it’s now landmarked as part of the Crown Heights North Historic District certainly helps.) The limestone facade looks quite good except at the parapet, and even there its condition is not bad, just not as good.
There’s something to be said for small-scale, background landmarks like this, marking an important intersection for close to a century and capable of doing so for another century.
- That is, Brooklyn ↩︎
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