Eagle Warehouse & Storage Company, 28 Old Fulton Street: Review and Ratings

Review of 28 Old Fulton Street by Carter Horsley

One of the city’s great Romanesque-style landmarks, the Eagle Warehouse at 28 Old Fulton Street in in the Fulton Ferry District of Brooklyn one block from the Brooklyn Bridge is an imposing, fortress-like structure with a great arched entrance.

It was designed by Frank Freeman in 1893.

Mr. Freeman designed the Brooklyn Fire Headquarters at 365 Jay Street, which, according to a February 26, 1995 article by Christopher Gray in The New York Times, was “a cluster of giant sandstone and brick columns rising to a huge peaked roof, with terra cotta ornament resembling lizard skin.” 

Mr. Gray said that this building is “his masterpiece,” a “medieval brick fortress recalls the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, with a massive entry arch, barred windows and a machiolated cornice.”

The building was converted to a residential co-operative in 1980.  Benjamin Rothzeid of Rothzeid Kaiserman & Thomson was the architect for the conversion, which created 85 apartments and was undertaken by Benjamin Fishbein.

Bottom Line

Handsome and large apartments in an historic building close to the Brooklyn Bridge Park.

Description

The building is distinguished by its very large and handsome arched entrance with a cast-iron gate with a dragon-head ornament.

The site was formerly occupied by a three-story building that was the pressroom for the Brooklyn Eagle newspaper that was incorporated into the 1893 building that was erected above and around it in 1893 on a street that subsequently became 28 Cadman Plaza West before being renamed to 28 Old Fulton Street.

The city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission permitted Mr. Fishbein to cut windows through a blank wall on Elizabeth Street without which the residential conversions would not have been possible.  It did not permit a new line windows to be cut into the Cadman Plaza façade but an article by Alan S. Oser in the August 8, 1980 edition of The New York Times said that adequate interior light was “provided though an immense open atrium gouged out of the center of the property” that is 16 by 55 feet.  He noted that “a huge clock, 11 feet in diameter, advertising the Eagle Warehouse stood atop the property for years, facing motorists crossing the bridge toward Brooklyn,” adding that the developer “dismantled the clock, rewelded it, replaced its wooden hands with light-weight aluminum hands and inserted it in the skylight of a top-floor apartment.”  Mr. Oser said that the clock is “still visible from afar.”

Amenities

The building has a doorman, a live-in superintendent, a bicycle room, a fitness center, storage and a laundry room on every floor.  It is pet-friendly.

Apartments

Apartments have 11-foot-high ceilings.

Townhouse A is a three-level unit with a 25-foot-wide living room next to an 11-foot-long open kitchen adjacent to a 20-foot-wide dining room on the first floor with three bedrooms on the upper floor and a 21-foot-wide den and a 14-foot-wide office in the basement.

Townhouse C is a three-level unit with a 15-foot-wide dining area at the entrance next to a 12-foot-wide open kitchen with an island and a 20-foot-long living room on the first floor with a master bedroom and an 11-foot-wide home office on the second floor and a 36-foot-long media room on the lower level.

Penthouse K is a two-bedroom unit with an open, pass-through, 9-foot-long kitchen adjacent to a skylit, 28-foot-long living/dining room.

Apartment 7B is a three-bedroom unit with a 12-foot-long entry foyer that leads past an open 13-foot-wide kitchen to a 34-foot-long living/dining room.  One of the bedrooms has a curved wall.

Apartment 7E is a one-bedroom unit with a 29-foot-long, open living room, a 14-foot-long open kitchen with an island, a 22-foot-long, open dining area and a 20-foot-foot-long open library.

Apartment 7C is a two-bedroom unit with a 7-foot-square entry foyer next to 10-foot-long, pass-through kitchen next to a 30-foot-long living/dining room.  The unit also has an 8-foot-wide nursery.

Apartment 8B is a one-bedroom unit with a 12-foot-long den near the entry and a 13-foot-long open kitchen with a breakfast bar, a 30-foot-long living room and a 14-foot-long office.

Apartment 3F is a two-bedroom unit with a 14-foot-long, open kitchen that leads to a 15-foot-long dining room and a 22-foot-long living room and a 13-foot-long “sleeping” area.