Completed in 1895, the 83rd Precinct Police Station and Stable sits on the corner of Dekalb and Wilson Avenue. The architect, William Tubby, was well known in Brooklyn during the late-19th century. His other designs included the Charles Pratt House, the Pratt Library, and the Wallabout&nbsp;Market buildings. Evident by the name of many of his buildings, Tubby was one of the main architects for Charles Pratt, who was a wealthy oil distributor.&nbsp; The 83rd Precinct, originally the 20th, was built in Bushwick, a neighborhood of Brooklyn. The neighborhood was known for heavy crime and poverty after a population increase following the Civil War. To intimidate these criminals, the 83rd Precinct was designed in a Romanesque Revival style, which gave it a fortress-like presence. The building was constructed with different colored bricks, including red, yellow and ochre. A corner tower and clock peered over the neighborhood, making the building much more intimidating. At the entrance, the portico was supported by four columnns. The building was also connected to a stable by a cell block wing. All of these features made the 83rd Precinct a castle inside a city neighborhood. &nbsp;&nbsp; The Precinct was named the 20th Precinct for many years. In 1929, it became the 83rd Precinct. However, the 83rd was moved to 480 Knickerbocker Avenue in 1983. Luckily, the building was not torn down like many of the other police precincts built around the same time. Eventually, the Brooklyn North Task Force called it home, and they are still located there today. The building received landmark status in 1977, and it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.&nbsp;

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The 83rd Precinct Police Station and Stable was built between 1894 and 1895 to house the police department for the Bushwick area in Brooklyn, New York. The building was designed by William Tubby in a Romanesque Revival style of architecture. This Precinct was originally called the 20th, but it was renamed the 83rd in 1929. The building remained with the 83rd until they found a new home on Knickerbocker Avenue in 1983. Today, the building is used by the Brooklyn North Task Force. In 1977, the 83rd Precinct was named a landmark, and it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. 

The 83rd Precinct Police Station and Stable

Start at the 1890s police station and stable for the 83rd Precinct and drive to some of the most historical spots in Bushwick. Among the sights you'll see are a brewer's mansion and a school from the 19th century; a WWI monument; and a reminder of social unrest in the 1970s.

This bronze figure was made in 1919 to commemorate soldiers from the communities of Bushwhick or Ridgewood who fought in the first World War. The figure was sculpted by Italian-American artist Pietro Montana (1890–1978) and was the first of six so called "Doughboy" status of his to be displayed publicly, with the other being located in Suffern, New York, Riverdale, New Jersey, North Arlington, New Jersey, Wanaque, New Jersey, and Alliance, Ohio.The sculpture was unveiled in 1921 following parades and and placement of floral wreaths around its base, as per tradition floral wreaths remain at the base of the statue. Following the parade and ceremonial removal of the shroud by daughters of the soldiers, the statue was officially offered to Mayor John F. Hylan by Municipal Court Judge Harrison Glore, chairman of the monument committee.$7,000 dollars of the statues funding was provided by citizens of Bushwick and Ridgewood contributed $7,000 towards the commission, which adjusted for inflation is $102,425.70, with the rest of the funding coming from the city. The statue underwent cleaning and renovation after sustaining considerable wear and tear in 2001.

This bronze figure was made in 1919 to commemorate soldiers from the communities of Bushwhick or Ridgewood who fought in the first World War. The figure was sculpted by Italian-American artist Pietro Montana (1890–1978) and was the first of six so called "Doughboy" status of his to be displayed publicly, with the other being located in Suffern, New York, Riverdale, New Jersey, North Arlington, New Jersey, Wanaque, New Jersey, and Alliance, Ohio.
The sculpture was unveiled in 1921 following parades and and placement of floral wreaths around its base, as per tradition floral wreaths remain at the base of the statue. Following the parade and ceremonial removal of the shroud by daughters of the soldiers, the statue was officially offered to Mayor John F. Hylan by Municipal Court Judge Harrison Glore, chairman of the monument committee. 
$7,000 dollars of the statues funding was provided by citizens of Bushwick and Ridgewood contributed $7,000 towards the commission, which adjusted for inflation is $102,425.70, with the rest of the funding coming from the city. The statue underwent cleaning and renovation after sustaining considerable wear and tear in 2001.

Heisser Triangle Bushwick-Ridgewood Memorial

<h4>Timeline of the 1977 Blackout</h4>
Aside from the Blackout, the year 1977 was already becoming a year to remember, with events such as the hunt for the serial killer known as the Son of Sam to the New York Yankees road to the World Series amidst clubhouse feuds. More importantly, 1977 marked the continuation of an&nbsp;economic downturn and recession that had been prominent since 1973 (reaching a peak in 1975, and after a period of economic growth, another great downturn in 1977). Thus, tensions were high during the summer of ’77, and the week when the Blackout occurred, New York and Brooklyn were suffering from an immense heat wave with daily temperatures surpassing the 100s.&nbsp;
On the evening of July 13th, around 8:30 pm, a severe lightning storm rolled over the entire region, and with it,&nbsp;two lightning strikes hit extra-high-voltage lines in Westchester County, in the northern area of Con Edison’s power service area. Despite the strikes, the system balanced itself out and continued functioning normally. Near 9:00 pm, however, two more lightning strikes hit two critical transmission lines in Yonkers, and the entire system became dangerously overloaded. By 9:20 pm, due to overloading and other reasons, transformers began shutting down because they were surpassing their load capacities. Then, by 9:36 pm, after generators shut down en masse, the power went out across New York City and a greater part of Westchester County.&nbsp;
Within ten minutes of the Blackout, the looting began, starting spontaneously and across the five Burroughs. Looting, vandalism, theft, arson, and other criminal acts exploded over the next couple hours, and between 1:30 and 2:30 AM, most of the 3,776 arrests were made by police. By 10:40 pm the following evening, July 14th, restoration of all power was completed.1
<h4>Arson and Looting in Brooklyn</h4>
Some of the hardest hit areas of greater&nbsp;New York City included Crown Heights, Bedford-Stuyvesant, and Bushwick, all located near Downtown Brooklyn. In Crown Heights, over 75 stores in a five-block range were looted; in Bushwick, more than 25 arson fires still burned the morning of July 14th; on Broadway between Bushwick and Bedford-Stuyvesant, nearly two blocks were on fire. About 35 blocks of Broadway were also destroyed, which comprised of 134 stores looted and 45 of them set ablaze. Once the Blackout hit, witnesses remember hearing shops slamming their grates; yet, youths were seen backing cars into stores, tying ropes around the grates, and using cars to tear away grates before then looting the store.&nbsp;
Although numbers in Brooklyn are not specified, a total of 1,616 stores in New York were damaged from looting and rioting, over 1,000 fires were reported (including 14 multiple alarm fires), and 3,776 people were arrested, making it the largest mass arrest in city history.2&nbsp;

An extended power outage in 1977 caused widespread Blackouts throughout Brooklyn. The event facilitated looting, and to this day, memories of the Blackout and the widespread chaos and destruction shape part of the city’s collective memory. 

Around 9:34 PM on July 13th, 1977, after a series of unfortunate lightning strikes that hit transmission lines and substations, NYC power provider Con Edison shut down, and among Manhattan, Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn, the entire city went Black. In Brooklyn, the Bedford-Stuyvesant area and Broadway were among the hardest hit. Thousands upon thousands of people poured into the streets, broke into shops, pillaged everything, and destroyed, often by fire, hundreds of shops. 

Throughout the 25-hour Blackout in some parts of the city, including Brooklyn, more than 1,600 stores were pillaged with property losses running as high as $300 million. A mile and a half of Brooklyn’s Broadway was set aflame. Following the Blackout, there were few stores around the Broadway area and throughout Bedford-Stuyvesant (and even in Downtown Brooklyn) where people could buy food, clothing, and other items, as shops had been stripped, destroyed, torched, or abandoned. In Brooklyn, as well as other parts of New York City, the 1977 Blackout was one of its most destructive periods, essentially reflecting the great malaise that had been striking the city that year.

Brooklyn in the 1977 Blackout

A group of 20 local farmers and their families, who were mainly part of the congregation of the old Reformed Church of Bushwick, petitioned the North Classis of Long Island to form a new church in their area. In November 1851, the Reformed Dutch Church of South Bushwick was organized. Six lots were donated by brothers and parishioners Abraham and Andrew Stockholm to build a church; in the meantime, services were held in a local Methodist church. This church building was constructed beginning in September 1852; it was dedicated on Sunday, February 27, 1853. The building is a mixture of Classical Revival styles and features a double temple front. two giant fluted Ionic columns flanking the doorway, with the central, square tower topped by an octagonal lantern and spire. The building was 70 feet long on the sides and 55 feet wide on the front and rear. The interior fit about 500 worshipers. The first pastor of the church was the Reverend John S. Himrod, beginning in January 1854; the street along the side of the church was later named for him.The Sunday School building facing Himrod St. was built as a free-standing structure in 1880 to 1881, designed by J.J. Buck. During expansion in the mid-1880s, the building was connected to the rear of the church. The building was a combination chapel and Sunday school.The Rev. George D. Hulst later became the pastor and remained in the post for 33 years. He was followed by the Rev. Edward Niles from 1900 to 1910. The church saw an increase of 140 members between 1904 and 1905. A reception was held to welcome them in December 1905, where speeches were made by the pastor Niles and Sunday school superintendent F. Booth. The three hundred church members who also were in attendance were entertained by several recitations by Miss Myrtle Phillips, playing of the "latest and best" phonograph music, and live violin and mandolin solos. The Rev. Harry Nelson Pfeiffer became the new pastor in December 1910; he was a local and a graduate of Boys' High School, NYU, Dartmouth College, and the Oberlin Theological Seminary.The Ladies Guild of the church split themselves into two teams - the Kings Division and the Queens Division - in 1929 for a friendly fund-raising competition for the church. The groups planned to hold bunco parties, bazaars, and luncheons. Time was almost up when the Kings and Queens met for a luncheon at the Eagle Home Guild in March 1930. Neither side knew how much money the other team had raised. The deadline was April 1st 1930; the losers had to throw a luncheon for the winners. Noone spilled the beans at the March luncheon, including the Ladies Guild president Mrs. Bertha Guscott and the pastor's wife, Mrs. A. J. Meyer (see their photos below). A magnificent pipe organ in the church dates to 1893 and was created by William B. Williams of New York City. The organ in the chapel (Sunday School) was built in 1887 by Hook &amp; Hastings for a church in Brighton, Massachusetts. The South Bushwick congregation purchased the organ in 1930 for $1,600, probably thanks to the Kings and Queens fundraising.The church parsonage on Himrod St. next to the Sunday school building is not part of the historic complex; the wood frame house has been covered with modern vinyl siding. A garage is in a rear corner of the rectory lot. The main church building was damaged by a storm several years ago. Volunteers have been working on renovating the building while funds are being raised. While closed for repair, the pastor and Brooklyn native, Rev. James E. Steward II, provides virtual sermons and Bible study sessions.

The South Bushwick Reformed Church building, on the corner of Bushwick Ave. and Himrod St., is nicknamed the "White Church." The wood-frame, two-story structure with a towering steeple was finished in 1853. The Classical Revival designs were drawn up by men with the surname Morgan in 1852, but their identity remains a mystery. The Sunday school building on Himrod St. was finished in 1881 and then connected to the rear of the church a couple years later. The church became a New York City landmark in 1968. The church complex was listed in the New York State and National Registers of Historic Places in 1982. The active congregation of "South Bushwick Church" has been meeting virtually since 2021 while the building slowly undergoes a multi-million-dollar renovation after a storm damaged the roof and steeple.

South Bushwick Reformed Church

The Freedom Triangle memorial features a statue and its pedestal within a patch of trees and bushes in otherwise concrete section of Brooklyn. The monument commemorates the soldiers native to this borough who lost their lives fighting in Europe during the First World War. Approximately ten percent of the soldiers who served in the US Army came from the state of New York. Men from Nassau and Suffolk counties account for 347 casualties, and a few dozen of these men are listed on the Freedom Triangle pedestal.  New York also served a wider logistical role during the war. Being the United State's chief port in the Atlantic across from the European theater, New York's shipping networks were responsible for much of the maritime supply lines. New York is also the port city where many of the soldiers embarked from and returned, including the thousands of coffins for which the Freedom Triangle commemorates those who lost their lives from the sprawling borough.

Freedom Triangle is located between the busy avenues of Bushwick and Mytrle in the heart of the bustling borough of Bushwick in NYC.  The monument commemorates the Brooklyn soldiers who lost their lives while serving overseas in the First World War. 

Freedom Triangle, Brooklyn World War I Monument 

Following the 1848 revolutions in Europe, thousands of Germans immigrated to New York and settled in Bushwick. With them came the skills and knowledge of German beer brewing, which quickly became the major local industry thanks to the ample water supply in the surrounding land and excellent rail and water connections to the growing labor pools of nearby towns. One of the numerous breweries that emerged in the late 19th century was the Claus Lipsius Brewing Company, located at 471 Bushwick Avenue. Henry Claus founded the company in 1865&nbsp;but died seven years later. His German widow, Catherina, remarried to Rudolph Lipsius who did much to expand the brewery and added further branches to the enterprise. However, he also died in 1882. Catherina subsequently assumed ownership of the brewery herself and managed the company until her son, Henry, took over.&nbsp; The house is built in an American round-arched style. The style originated in Germany between the 1820s and 1860s, where it was known as Rundbogenstil&nbsp;and was brought to the USA with the immigrants that left Europe. The red brick house features a three story round tower and an entrance vestibule flanked by round-arched windows. A cast iron cornice crowns the building, above which rises the mansard roof with plastered dormer windows. The incorporation of rough-faced stone moldings gives the building a rustic, medieval appearance that combines well with the classical elements of the architecture. Although a “no-trespassing” sign presently drives away visitors, the building can be admired from almost all angles from the surrounding streets.&nbsp;

The Lipsius-Cook Mansion, also known as the Catherina Lipsius House and the Dr. Frederick A. Cook House, was originally built for the widowed Catherine Lipsius in 1889. During this time, the widowed Lipsius was running the Claus-Lipsius Brewery. She commissioned the construction of this house on an undeveloped plot of land between Bushwick and Willoughby Avenues. The mansion was designed by Theobald Engelhardt, a Brooklyn-born architect and well-known individual in Brooklyn’s German community that would go on to design a number of other important buildings in the city, such as the William Ulmer Brewery complex and the Eberhard Faber Pencil Company. 

The mansion was completed in 1890, and Catherina moved in with her four children. In 1902, the house was sold to Dr. Frederick A. Cook, an arctic explorer that would later claim to have reached the North Pole one year before Robert Peary. In 1920, ownership of the house passed to an Italian, Guiseppe Giambalvo. He occupied the building with his family until 1952, when the property was sold to the local branch of the Daughters of Wisdom – a Roman Catholic Christian organization that moved to New York from France in the early 20th century. The house changed ownership twice more; it was purchased by Dr. Clement Davis in 1960 and by the current owners in 2000.

The Lipsius-Cook Mansion

Joseph S. Beattie lived at 247 Schenectady Avenue. His time as a private in Company G of the 305th Infantry was brief. He died in battle on October 5, 1918 of multiple wounds. One of the oldest parks in Brooklyn, it was first dedicated in 1884 and officially named in honor of Private Beattie in 1921.In 1884, Anton and Mary Vigelius dedicated a small plot of land to the city of Brooklyn on the condition that it would forever remain a park open to the public. Fifteen years later, Brooklyn was incorporated into New York City and the park came under the authority of the New York City Parks Department. Upon the insistence of the Beattie Post of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the park was given the name Beattie Square on February 1, 1921. In May of 1924, a 12,000-pound German Krupp gun captured by the British during the War was mounted on a concrete base in the center of the park. It was later removed and melted for scrap metal to be used for arms during World War II. Regardless, the concrete base still remains on that spot. The park itself offers a forest-like charm that makes it stand out from the surrounding area. The pathway at the entrance leads to the right of the triangle where an American flag is flown, serving as a patriotic salute to a man who sacrificed for his country.

Bordering the neighborhoods of Bushwick and Bedford-Stuyvesant, Beattie Square is dedicated to Joseph S. Beattie, a local soldier who served in the United States Army during the First World War.  Beattie Square is a very small park spanning less than a tenth of an acre. It is enclosed by a Black four-foot-high fence with Broadway on its northeastern side, Vernon Avenue to the south, and Stuyvesant Avenue to the west.

Beattie Square

The first schools in Bushwick were established in the late 1600s by the first settlers of New Netherland. Following the American Revolution, funding and land were provided for towns across the state. With this money, a new schoolhouse was erected in 1815 at the corner of Noll and Stanwix Streets - Public School 24. Over the next century, Brooklyn experienced a rise in industrialisation and urban growth, as well as school expansion, and in 1883, Public School 24 moved its primary school building to its present-day location on Ellery Street. However, the growth of educational institutions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries decreased in the 1940s, and in 1945, the building was sold to a subsidiary of the Kalmon Dolgin real estate and manufacturing company.

In 1996, the decrepit building was listed for rent and was noticed by a local artist, Erin McGonigle. Together with five friends, she rented the enormous space and began refurbishing the interior. Five months later, they moved in and renamed the building ORT, the German word for home and an acronym for “organizing resources together.” In 2002, they finished restoring the second story, allowing five additional residents to move in. Since then, the third story has been refurbished, and presently, it can accommodate&nbsp;up to twenty artists at a time.

The three-story building was designed by James Naughton, the superintendent of buildings for the Board of Education of the City of Brooklyn, in 1883. The red masonry building was constructed in a classical 19th-century Italianate style, though the structure hous<a target="_blank" rel="nofollow"></a>es an eclectic interior décor of homemade furniture and art in progress. The three occupied stories contain bedrooms and workspaces for the artists, a dance studio, a communal kitchen and living room, and a roof garden. Although it is not a commune – the artists all work and earn their living independently – they share the cost of utilities and rent. They have made integration with the local community one of their top priorities and throw regular block parties. They also host a number of events and workshops in the warren of rooms and corridors, as well as concerts by musicians such as Neutral Milk Hotel.

The Bushwick Schoolhouse, also known as the Old Red Schoolhouse, is the home of a group of independent artists that share the space as a solution for the high cost of living in New York. The building has been the home of numerous well-known photographers, filmmakers, critics, composers, dancers, designers, and artists during its twenty-year occupation, though it has a history as an educational institute for the first Dutch Colony that goes as far back as the 17th century.  

Historical Bushwick Neighborhood Driving Tour, Brooklyn

The 83rd Precinct Police Station and Stable

Introduction

Images

Backstory and Context

Sources

Additional Information