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REAL ESTATE
AND
BUILDERS
NEW YORK, MARCH 1, 1913
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CHANGES IN LOWER BROADWAY, BROOKLYN
Once the Premier Part of "Williamsburg, This Part of Broad¬
way Was Impaired by the Opening of Williamsburg Bridge
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BRO.-\DWAY, in Brooklyn, from the
ferry east to Driggs avenue, a dis¬
tance of four long blocks, has lost caste
to a great extent as a result of the open¬
ing of the Williamsburg bridge, whose
easterly end opens on a plaza two blocks
wide and ends at Havemeyer street.
From the most important part of the
Eastern District, lower Broadway has be¬
come inconsequential and the Williams¬
burg Bridge has had the same effect on
the street as the New York and Brook¬
lyn Bridge has had on Fulton street be¬
tween the river and Pierrepont street,
in Brooklyn. East of Havemeyer
street Broadway is one of the most
important business thoroughfares of
the city and k-.i-ril lu oi)LTantiL; com¬
panies; but. it took much persistent agi¬
tation by the manufacturing interests of
Williamsburg and Greenpoint to get the
city to do anything in the premises.
The corporation that had acquired
much of the ferry property from the old
ferry company oflfered to sell it to the
city at a figure which the city deemed
excessive; and, the municipality accord¬
ingly asked the Supreme Court to ap¬
point commissioners of estimate and as¬
sessment to determine the fair value of
the property in discussion. The commis¬
sioners appointed were Bernard Gal¬
lagher, who' is a former fire commis¬
sioner of the old city of Brooklyn and
iiiaining near the ferry is the building
of the Brooklyn Daily Times, at 24 and
26 Broadway, which is still occupied by
that paper; but, it is understood that
within a year this paper will remove to
the vicinity of Flatbush avenue aftd
Fulton street, in the central part of
Brooklyn; and, if this happens, then all
of the old institutions in lower Broad¬
way will have vanished except Thomas
Wallace^s haberdashery, a block away,
which has been on one corner for 40
years or more. Since the decline of
traffic in the blocks adjacent to the ferry
the following institutions have removed
from them to the vicinity of the Wil¬
liamsburg Bridge Plaza: the Firit Na-
BROADWAY, AT BEDFORD AVENUE. LROOKLYX.
FOOT OF BROADWAY, BROOKLYN'. NEAU THE FERRY.
the greater city; but, this part of
the street will be dealt with in an¬
other article in the near future. In low¬
er Broadway the street lost business
strength and rental productiveness on
account not only of the opening of the
bridge, but by the closing of all the
Williamsburg ferries to Manhattan that
had their Brooklyn terminals at the
foot of Broadway. These ferries con¬
nected with 23d street, 42d street. Grand
street and Roosevelt street, in Manhat¬
tan, and until bridges became the vogue
these water routes yielded large profits
to their operator, the New York &
Brooklyn Ferry Company, More than
five years ago practically all of these
ferries were abandoned because it was
no longer profitable for the company
to run them. Shipping interests in
Williamsburg felt the closing of them
severely because they led to both up and
down town in Manhattan and it meant
a great deal of additional hauling by
teams. After a long period of idleness
some of these ferries were reopened by
a prominent builder of Williamsburg;
Thomas E. Pearsall, a prominent law¬
yer of Brooklyn, and William D. Walsh,
of Williamsburg. The latter made a
minority report criticising the report of
his fellow commissioners. Comptroller
Prendergast also was opposed to the
majority report. The result has been
that the court has disapproved the find¬
ings of the majority of the commission¬
ers and has appointed new commission¬
ers to make their findings in the prem¬
ises. This committee has not yet fin¬
ished its work.
Car and pedestrian traffic has fallen
ofif to so great an extent in lower Broad¬
way that there are now 27 vacant stores
and a few empty buildings from Driggs
avenue west to the river. Vacant stores
predominate in the north side of the
street. Before the conditions changed
for the worse in this part of Broadway
nearly all of the important banks and
other financial institutions in Williams¬
burg were situated within two blocks
of the ferry. The only landmark re-
tional Bank, the Dime Savings Bank of
Williamsburg, the Williamsburg City
Fire Insurance Company, the Meserole
City Surveying Company (Gen. J. V.
Meserole), and several well-known res¬
taurants, cafes, law firms, cigar stores
and what not. Minden's famous cafe,
which was right at the ferry, has van¬
ished to other parts, while the cars that
go to the ferry are few in number.
The rental power of property in either
side of Broadway west of Bedford ave¬
nue is inconsequential compared to the
incomes it produced when the ferries
were the great traffic feeders of the
street. True, the Manufacturers' Na¬
tional Bank, the Nassau Trust Com¬
pany and the Kings County Savings
Institution still hold forth in their old
quarters, which are between Bedford
aveune and Berry street, but in the opin¬
ion of those who are qualified to know
it is believed that even these banks will
eventually find it worth while to do
business either farther east on Broad¬
way or elsewhere in Brooklyn. At the