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Real estate record and builders' guide: [v. 90, no. 2334]: December 6, 1912

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mm DECEMBER 6, 1912 LOWER FULTON STREET IN BROOKLYN Once the Premier Business Section, from Borough Hall to Fulton Ferry, It Has Lost Caste—Hopes for Improvement A PROMINENT man of the West once asked Henry Ward Beecher how to get to Plymouth Church, as he wished to hear Beecher preach, and the famous pulpit orator answered, "Take Fulton Ferry from New York to Ful¬ ton street, Brooklyn, and follow the crowd up Fulton street." Beecher's church is in Orange street, which inter¬ sects Fulton street a few blocks above the ferry. Fulton street, from the ferry to Borough Hall, Brookyn, was in Beecher's time a great thoroughfare. The stores that lined it between the points mentioned did a heavy business, and they embraced all kinds of estab¬ lishments from large retail dry goods firms to cigar stores and saloons. captured the rest of the traffic. The writer crossed the East River on a boat of Fulton Ferry at mid-day recent¬ ly and there were only seven passengers on the boat and two trucks. The dam¬ age to traffic in Fulton street extends from the ferry to Pierrepont street, but the few blocks from Clark street to Pierrepont street show more traffic and better property conditions than does Fulton street north and west ot Clark street to the ferry. When the bridge cars only were op¬ erated on the Brooklyn Bridge, there was more traffic on Fulton street north and west of the Borough Hall because there were many persons who walked to the bridge and took a car across it lyn has been discussing in the last year, it is proposed to remove the elevated railroad from the part of Fulton street in discussion and build an elevated rail¬ road in Adams street, from Fulton street to Myrtle avenue, thereby joining the part of the Fulton street elevated above Boerum place to the line running through Adams street north of Myrtle avenue to Brooklyn Bridge. If this plan is carried out, then Fulton street, from Clark street to the ferry, may come in¬ to favor as a manufacturing center. With a subway station at Clark street eventually, the part of Fulton street be¬ low that point would be easily acces¬ sible. But as a matter of fact it is just as accessible now, if not more so, from FULTON STREET—FULTON FERRY HOUSE IN BACKGROUND. FULTON STREET, AT CLINTON STREET, BROOKLTN. The street and car traffic to and from Fulton Ferry was dense. The bronze statue of Robert Fulton that surmounts the entrance to the ferry house looked down on a steadily moving crowd of passengers who crossed the' river for one cent each. Now the fare is five cents each and there are very feW pas¬ sengers, because traffic no longer goes to lower Fulton street. Property there is at a standstill, and the statue of Ful¬ ton looks down on a thoroughfare as still as a country road. The first set¬ tlement of Brooklyn was in the neigh¬ borhood of Fulton Ferry, and there is not as much traffic there now as there was in the days of that part of Brooklyn portrayed in a famous painting of its earliest period. The Knell of Lower Fulton Street. When the Brooklyn Bridge was opened in May, 1883, the doom of lower Fulton street was sealed, because the use of that structure diverted two-thirds of the traffic from Fulton Ferry; and the subway under the East River has to Manhattan and walked home from the Brooklyn end of the bridge in the eve¬ ning. Now these people can take a trolley car for five cents, almost from their door and ride to and across the bridge as well. The proposed subway route through Fulton street to Clark street may tend to tone up property values in the part of Fulton street from Pierrepont to Clark street, but that will be some time in the future; but Fulton street from Clark street to the ferry has no pros¬ pects of betterment, unless the Brook¬ lyn Rapid Transit Company takes down its elevated railroad structure, as has been proposed, from Borough Hall to Fulton Ferry. The elevated trains now run across Brooklyn Bridge; there is little or no traffic to the ferry, and the part of the elevated structure from, the Borough Hall to the river is now a neg¬ ative quantity. Possibly a Manufacturing Center. In connection with the contemplated plan of the City Beautiful, which Brookr the Brooklyn Bridge elevated station, as it ever will be by a Clark street sub¬ way station. The elevated railroad structure in lower Fulton street, it is claimed by real estate men, hurts the chances of renting many buildings there for manufacturing purposes because it impairs the light, and that it does is un¬ disputed. On the other hand, it is argued that before lower Fulton street can attain prestige as a manufacturing center modern factory buildings will have to be erected there. These might be built if the elevated railroad was re¬ moved. It is very probable that the operation of Fulton Ferry will be discontinued altogether, unless the city takes it over as a municipal mode of travel. Wall street ferry has ceased to operate alto¬ gether and Catharine street ferry is op¬ erated only in the morning and eve¬ ning. Fulton street from Clark street to the ferry is a motley aggregation of old brick buildings. They served the pur:.