Some police precincts are luckier than others. Many of New York's Finest have to inhabit a graceless bunker day in and day out. I'm thinking of awful modern concrete police buildings like the 76th Precinct on Union Street in my own Carroll Gardens.
Other officers, meanwhile, get to report to work every day at a castle.
This is the princely 22nd Precinct Station, at the corner of Grand Street and Park Place in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn. It was designed by architect George Ingram and was one of several handsome and austere, red-brick police stations he erected in Brooklyn in the late 19th century. (The 18th Precinct on Fourth Avenue in the 40s—also his—is a sad ruin in need of restoration.) He was also the engineer of the wonderful retractable Carroll Street Bridge which stretches across the Gowanus Canal!
The City awarded a contract of $35,000 to build the precinct building in 1891. Unlike some other Ingram works, the 22nd is still in use by the police. Police cars, standard and unmarked, are parked at the diagonal all around it. The building seems in fine condition. I have to guess it's had a restoration in the last 15 years. It's just too spruce. It dominates the area in bold, rosy color alone. And yet it's not mentioned at all in the current AIA Guide to New York City.
The outside looks great, but I wonder what condition the inside is in. A lot of precinct houses, especially the older ones, are really shabby, with crumbling bathrooms, inadequate wiring, etc.
ReplyDeleteThe outside would look great but I cannot appreciate the building with cops personal cars parked all over the sidewalk - and the crosswalk. Why do these bullies get to flout the law?
ReplyDeleteHere's a website showing a couple of inside pics. I'm not sure how recent they are, but you can get an idea...
ReplyDeletehttp://megacontractinginc.com/77th-precinct.html#