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An increasingly popular destination with tourists and residents, the New York Transit Museum is the largest of its kind in the United States. Exhibits preserve and share the history of New York's fabled underground transportation network as well as the larger history of urban public transportation that includes trolleys and jitney cars as well as buses and ferries. In addition to operating this museum and a small archive, the NY Transit Museum creates exhibits within an annex gallery within Grand Central Terminal.
The Dime Savings Bank of New York was a state-chartered savings bank dating back to 1859, which became New York’s second largest bank during the 1980s and one of the country’s largest bank buildings. The Beaux Arts building that served as its headquarters, based loosely on the Parthenon in Rime, was built in 1906 by architects Mowbray & Uffinger. The misshapen, triangular building was given a rectangular extension on the back in 1918. In 1931, the bank was enlarged by architects Halsey, McCormack & Helmer, who were well-known at the time for designing bank buildings. The classical elements of the building’s pentelic marble architecture were emphasized, with stately Ionic colonnades and a domed roof. The entrance through a chamfered corner crowned with a bracketed cornice and clock led to a large rotunda ringed with red marble columnns. A circular, forty-foot diameter round skylight, made of copper and stained glass, adorned the ceiling. The basement still contains many of these original features, in addition to basement bank vaults and a firing range used by the bank’s past guards.
Home to Harriet and Thomas Truesdell when the couple moved here in 1851, this modest brick building on Brooklyn's Duffield Street was saved from demolition by preservationists and historians owing to its connection to New York's abolitionist movement. The Truesdell's were anti-slavery activists in Rhode Island and close associates of William Lloyd Garrison. In 2020, the New York Landmarks Commission decided to consider this building, known now as "Abolitionist Place" as an official New York landmark. The building is located on a street that included seven buildings that are associated with the anti-slavery movement and were home to supporters of those who resisted the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and actively supported the Underground Railroad. The building was officially named Abolitionist Place in September of 2007.
The four-story brownstone building at 372 Fulton Street has been standing since about 1875. Gage and Tollner's Restaurant began in 1879 and moved to the Fulton Street building in 1892. The wooden storefront was probably added in 1892. The restaurant went through a number of owners before closing in 2004. TGI Fridays then moved into the space and left in 2007, followed by an Arby's in 2010 and a jewelry and coat store by 2012. The interior was designated a New York City Landmark in 1975, to recognize its Late Victorian appearance; the building was listed in the National Register in 1982. Recently, Gage and Tollner reopened as an oyster and chop house under new ownership in its old location after renovations.
When the Romanesque style building at 365-367 Jay Street was completed in 1892, Brooklyn was an independent city, and the building was the city's new Fire Department Headquarters. Six years later in 1898, Brooklyn became a borough in New York City and the fire department's headquarters was in Manhattan. This building then became a neighborhood fire station and continued as this until the 1970s. The Old Brooklyn Fire Headquarters was one of the first buildings added as a New York City Landmark in 1966, soon after the Landmark Preservation Commission (LPC) came to be. The LPC deemed it one of the finest buildings, architecturally, in Brooklyn, with an unusual variety of harmoniously blended colors in costly and attractive materials. The building was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1972. It was converted into affordable housing in the 1980s and was renovated in 2013 to 2014 while preserving the historic exterior.
Built between 1846 and 1851, this building served as city hall for the formerly independent city of Brooklyn until 1898. In that year, the cities of Brooklyn and New York City agreed to a merger and this building later became known as "Brooklyn Borough Hall." Three years prior to that merger, the building was damaged when a fire in a waste receptacle spread throughout the upper floors. The fire damaged the chamber room (a court room today) and destroyed the building's original cupola. Today, the building hosts regular exhibitions of art and history in the rotunda-a beautiful two-story public space that has been completely restored. Visitors to the building should be sure to see the courtroom which was designed in 1903 and features carved wood paneling and a domed ceiling.