Fotos: Red Building Knick/Menahan
from brooklyn_instrument_ museum’s flickr page
I think this is a school, on Knickerbocker between Menahan and Grove. The photographer artfully omitted the projects just across the street from the buildings beyond. This is also right across the street from the All Hands Fire in 1977. You can see the school in this photo, surrounded by buildings long gone.
That bilding is an elementary school though I do not recall its number.
But that old photograph is amazing I do not even remember a church being over there. I wonder what its name was and the denomination.
If this building is at the corner of Knickerbocker and Menahan, then it’s PS 116. I attending this elementery school in the late fifties to early sixties. I don’t think the building was red in those days.
The church across the street that burned in the fire in 1977 was the Knickerbocker Methodist Church. The church rebuilt, in a pretty ugle 1970’s style building, but is still there across from PS116. The police station is next to the church.
You can see the new church building in this aerial photo, it’s right to the left of the ball field across from the school, between the ballfield and the 83rd Police Precinct.
Ooops, forgot to include the link….here it is:
http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&cp=qsgsg38v67jy&style=o&lvl=1&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&scene=1957477&encType=1
The school is indeed PS 116 and until its recent renovation its color was a pretty ugly battleship gray. The frequently vilified School Construction Authority really did a bang up job in returning the building to its late 19th century glory.
Incidently, during the All Hands fire in 1977, PS 116 served as the emergency Red Cross center for fire victims and emergency workers. It itself barely survived being caught up in that dreadful conflagation.
There is a great story about the Methodist Church. When the old building – which itself was nothing to write home about – was destroyed in the fire, those of us who were trying to create a redevelopment plan for the fire site just assumed that this small congregation was history and would never return to the area. Thus, the Community Board’s initial proposal to relocate the 83rd Precinct here assumed that the church area would be part of the site. We were thus astounded when this small parish, out of nowhere, submitted a building permit to replace the church and raised the financing to pull it off. This actually wound up being the first new construction project in Bushwick to actually occur in the aftermath of the blackout and fire of 1977 – and they pulled it off without any outside assistance. So you really have to hand it to those dogged Methodists!
re Red School Building. I attended PS 116 1954-1960(then to Halsey–JHS 85 becoming 296) The building was red when I attended it. I think it was called the Pilgrim School. There were mottos in the stairways. I left the area after the black out and left the city in 1978. The old zip code 11227 is gone.
I MARRIED MY WIFE ROSE IN 1954 AND LIVED ON STANHOPE STREET BTWN KNICKERBOCKER AND IRVING.
WE WERE BLESSED WITH TWO CHILDREN AND OFTEN SHOPPED ON KNICKERBOCKER AVE. I WORKED FOR A&P ON KNICKERBOCKER AND STARR ST
There are some nice buildings out here.