Industrial Waterfront and Adaptive Reuse

Brooklyn’s economic dominance in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was driven almost entirely by its deep-water ports and vast manufacturing sectors. The architectural legacy of this industrial zenith is heavily concentrated along the western waterfront, stretching from the sugar refineries of Williamsburg down to the logistics hubs of Sunset Park. The aggressive preservation of these sites highlights a major shift in LPC philosophy over the decades, recognizing that utilitarian and heavy industrial structures are as vital to the historical narrative of New York as the civic palaces of Manhattan.

• 1872–1873Construction of the Coignet Stone Company Building
• 200 acresApproximate area of Bush Terminal
• 1918Year the Brooklyn Army Terminal was designed by Cass Gilbert

The Coignet Stone Company Building

Situated on the banks of the notoriously polluted Gowanus Canal at 360 Third Avenue stands a remarkably delicate and peculiar structure: the New York and Long Island Coignet Stone Company Building. Constructed in 1872–1873 by architects William Field and Son, it is the first known and documented instance of molded concrete construction in New York City.⁴⁵

The building was designed to serve dual purposes: as the factory office and as a physical showroom for a newly patented artificial stone technique called béton-coignet, invented by the Frenchman François Coignet in the 1850s. To demonstrate the versatility, aesthetic potential, and structural strength of the material to prospective clients, the two-story Italianate-style building was cast with highly ornate exterior features, including faux-stone blocks, porticos, ionic columns, and decorative urns, all seamlessly molded from concrete. The material proved a massive commercial success; Coignet stone was famously utilized to cast the clerestory window frames and soaring arches of Manhattan's St. Patrick's Cathedral, as well as the Cleft Ridge Span in Prospect Park.^46,48

While the surrounding five-acre factory complex along the canal was eventually dismantled over a century of industrial decline, the small showroom miraculously survived, utilized variously by the Brooklyn Improvement Company and small automotive radiator shops.⁴⁸

Designated an individual landmark in 2006, the building was fully restored between 2014 and 2016 in a highly publicized agreement tied to the construction of an adjacent Whole Foods Market. The result is a jarring but triumphant juxtaposition of 19th-century industrial history and 21st-century retail development.⁴⁶

Monumental Logistics: Bush Terminal and the Brooklyn Army Terminal

Further south in the neighborhood of Sunset Park lies Bush Terminal (now widely rebranded as Industry City), conceived by the visionary industrialist Irving T. Bush in 1902. Bush envisioned a fully integrated, self-contained industrial metropolis that synthesized shipping, manufacturing, and warehousing within a single massive complex. Covering roughly 200 acres, the terminal featured miles of internal rail lines connecting monumental concrete and brick loft buildings directly to deep-water piers. Today, the complex is undergoing one of the largest adaptive reuse projects in the nation. It is transitioning from heavy manufacturing to a mixed-use hub designated for "M.A.D.E." (Manufacturers, Artisans, Designers, and Entrepreneurs), integrating modern art spaces, tech incubators, and artisanal manufacturing while maintaining the severe, historic facades of the original warehouses.^52,55,53

Directly adjacent to Bush Terminal is the Brooklyn Army Terminal (BAT), designed in 1918 by Cass Gilbert, the architect globally renowned for the highly ornamented Gothic Revival Woolworth Building. Commissioned by the federal government to serve as a military supply base during World War I, the 95-acre complex features over four million square feet of space and employed over 7,400 workers at the peak of its construction. Here, Gilbert entirely eschewed historical ornamentation in favor of an unabashedly brutalist, utilitarian aesthetic. The defining feature of BAT is its breathtaking central atrium, which is flanked by staggered, cantilevered concrete balconies. These balconies were ingeniously designed to allow massive overhead traveling cranes to hoist freight directly from ground-level train cars and deposit it securely onto any floor of the warehouse. Decommissioned by the military in the late 20th century, the terminal is now operated by the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) as an industrial park and a primary testing site for green building technologies.^57,53

Refining the Waterfront

The preservation of industrial infrastructure extends northward to Williamsburg, where the LPC designated the Domino Sugar Refinery (specifically the Havemeyers & Elder Filter, Pan & Finishing House) in 2007, and the massive Austin, Nichols & Co. Warehouse in 2005. These structures, once the economic engines of the East River, have similarly been adaptively reused to anchor waterfront parks and residential developments. Even the mechanics of public transit have been recognized for their architectural merit, as seen with the Gowanus BRT Central Power Station. Originally built in 1904 to generate electricity for the Brooklyn Rapid Transit system, the colossal brick structure sat abandoned for decades—colloquially known by urban explorers as the "Gowanus Batcave"—before being landmarked and spectacularly resurrected in 2023 as Powerhouse Arts, a state-of-the-art fabrication facility and exhibition space for contemporary artists.^15,59