Columbia Commons Sheds Crocodile Tears for Hamberger Factory

The developers of Columbia Commons, the successful condo development just west of Cobble Hill, were more than happy to lay a wrecking ball into the old Hamberger Christmas Display Factory back the summer and fall of 2008, knocking the century-and-a-half old structure down in about a week's time, in order to clear the path for making a quick buck on cheap-looking housing. (You can read more about the long and storied history of the handsome old building here.)

Columbia Commons has been a rocking success for the builders, filling its half-mil apartments up quickly. I guess they were feeling flush enough that they sprung for this cheapo plaque honoring the lost factory. Wow. That should last, what?, maybe five years or so.

Your Daily Hamberger Factory Destruction Photo: All Gone

Naught but rubble after the week of Sept. 8-12 at the former site of the Hamberger Christmas display factory, on the corner of Hicks and Warren in Cobble Hill West.

Somewhere, automated elves and reindeer, mothballed in storage until the yuletide, are shedding a tear.

Now commences the digging of a pit in which to place the foundation of Condos Sur La BQE.

Your Daily Hamberger Factory Destruction Photo: Whoa, What Happened?

The construction workers at the site of the vanishing Hamberger Christmas display factory, at Hicks and Warren in Brooklyn, went to freaking town yesterday Friday, demolishing nearly an entire floor. This progress came as something of a shock after a week of slow going dismantling the main building. Can't be many more days left for the old girl.

Your Daily Hamberger Factory Destruction Photo: Flattop

Nothing resembling a roof left on this baby. Two stories to go.

Your Daily Hamberger Factory Destruction Photo: Jagged Facade

The facade of the old Hamberger Christmas display factory is looking less and less like itself as workers on the Hicks Street site slowly chip away at the former Face of Christmas Past. A worker out front is wielding a hose, washing down the local parked cars, which are continually coated with construction dust.

Your Daily Hamberger Factory Destruction Photo: Fresh at It

After a long weekend, the boys at the Hamberger Christmas display factory were fresh at it, hacking and pounding away at the century-old building on Warren and Hicks Streets. By the looks of their comparatively slow work on the main building, the structure was put together fairly solidly. It's brick-by-brick time.

Your Daily Hamberger Factory Destruction Photo: Termites

It was termite time today at the former Hamberger Christmas display factory. Little construction workers were rooting around the old Brooklyn building that only yesterday lost its roof, herding up debris and dumping it out the open windows. One such termite periodically appeared at the little window below with a wheelbarrow and sent wood and bricks cascading to the ground.

Another chute (seen below) was fashioned out of a former second-story side door. Below sidewalk level, one could a very solid section of former basement wall.

Your Daily Hamberger Factory Destruction Photo: Flattop

The main building of the former Hamberger Christmas display factory now has not roof whatsoever. And for the first time, the destruction of the Cobble Hill West structure is visible from the Warren Street side. Will Hamberger live to see Labor Day?

Your Daily Hamberger Factory Destruction Photo: Burger Blows Its Top

Workers clawed off the roof of the old Hamberger Christmas display factory's main building today, letting a little sun shine into the long cemented-over edifice. One can see the beams of the exposed attic. I imagine we'll see a lot more exposed tomorrow.

Your Daily Hamberger Factory Destruction Photo: Bye Bye Beam

The main building of the former Hamberger Christmas display factory on Warren Street remains standing, but that should change pretty soon. The major achievement of Monday, Aug. 25, appears to have been the removal of a large steel beam that once held up the roof of a rear extension of the factory. A lot of digging below ground level, too.

Your Daily Hamberger Factory Destruction Photo: Cleaning Up

Work on the dismantling of the Hamberger Christmas display factory on Friday, Aug. 22, was mostly about cleaning up after all the destruction that had gone forth the four days previous. Nice work, chaps! Looks pretty spic and span.

Thanks to a loyal reader for this find picture.

There will be no photos for Saturday and Sunday; construction workers get weekends off, too. Looks like the main building will get the wrecking ball treatment come Monday.

Your Daily Hamberger Factory Destruction Photo: Look Ma, No Roof!

The roof that we saw fall in yesterday has now been disappeared by the magical and super-efficient destruction crew at the Hamberger Christmas ornament factory site on Hicks and Baltic in west Cobble Hill. Only the shadow the former church building's annex can now be seen, along with several gaping windows.

Your Daily Hamberger Factory Destruction Photo: The Roof Caves In

In Lost City's continuing coverage of the demise the Hamberger Christmas display factory, here's what's going on Aug. 20. The row of fine arched windows are gone, baby, gone. And without them, the wooden roof caved in. Doesn't look like the roof was nearly as sturdy as the walls.

Of interest are a kind of balcony supported by white pillars that can now be seen. Old "Exit" signs point onetime churchgoers/basketball players/factory workers (see building history here) to the front doors of the Warren Street building.

What Lies Underneath

New York City gets continually built on and over and around. When you tear down an old building, there's no telling what you'll find inside, behind or under it. Old painted advertisements? An ancient, forgotten graveyard? The foundation of another building long thought lost to history? There's no telling.

This blog has previously and exhaustively detailed the past history of the becoming-extinct-as-we-speak Hamberger Christmas display factory on Warren and Hicks Street—how its previous lives include being the gymnasium for St. Peters Church on Hicks Street, which was built by prolific church architect Patrick Charles Keely; and a hall called the Brooklyn Lyceum, where dances were held.

The building is now being knocked into dust. And the destruction is revealing that the Warren Street facade (far below) of the structure was not always its only handsome aspect. The plain brick wall that faced Hicks Street has been destroyed to disclose a handsome row of arched windows quite in keeping with what once was a religious building.

It's a shame that we have to smash something in order to fully illustrate what we're losing. More pictures follow.

UPDATE: 9:30 AM Aug. 19. They're halfway through the wall of windows. It will be gone by day's end.

Hamberger and Churches

Monday's stories posted on Curbed as this week's guest blogger:

The final days of the Hamberger Christmas display factory.

Another church goes condo, this time in Greenpoint.

Remembering Hamberger

As the clock ticks down on the life of the Hamberger Christmas display factory on Warren and Hicks Street, I thought—before it's converted into rubble to make room for more condos—it would be a good idea to take a moment and contemplate what will be lost. Helping me in this is a good friend who lives near the building and, due to her attachment to the old factory, has sleuthed out various facts about the address' long history.

Most of us know the red-brick edifice at the former producer of mechanized elves and bunnies that animate holiday window displays. It was founded in 1922 by David Hamberger. The Hamberger family employed many people from the neighborhood; a few of the descendants of these employees actually still reside on the block today.

Prior to the Hamberger days, however, is was the gymnasium for St.Peters Church on Hicks Street, which was built by prolific church architect Patrick Charles Keely. Rumor has it that The New York Knicks practiced in the gym prior to becoming an NBA team. It was also, at one time, a recreation destination called the Brooklyn Lyceum, where dances were held. Our amateur historian encountered one lady who said she met her husband at such a dance. Brownstones used to stand on either side of the building, but they were torn down in 1942 to prepare for the BQE.

Hamberger sold out in the early '90s to Center Stage Productions and moved out of Brooklyn. He's still alive and well today in Queens. I found a couple of photos of the company's handiwork below.

Heap o' Rubble

That's what the hodgepodge of connected buildings at the corner of Hicks and Congress is now, following in the tracks of the former structure at Columbia and Warren. That only leaves the Hamburger Christmas display factory at Warren and Hicks for L&H Equities to destroy before its Condo Time in Cobble Hill West. These guys are in a hurry.

One Hamberger to Go

L&M Equities has ants in its pants.

Only two days ago I reported that the company— which is planning to build a heap of new housing in Cobble Hill West, between Hicks and Columbia, south of Congress—was busy hacking away at one building at 75 Columbia. Today, I saw their workers fencing off and hammering away at another building at the corner of Hicks and Congress (far below). And still more workers were setting up a ring of scaffolding around the soon-to-be, late, great Hamberger Christmas Tree Ornament Factory (above and below). The blocks surrounded by Columbia, Hicks, Congress and Baltic are a hive of activity. I'm wondering if, at this rate, any of these buildings will be around by the end of the month.

Breaking Bricks on Columbia

L&M Equities has sprung forward with vigor this spring, tearing down 75 Columbia Street with alacrity. They began their work only last week. And look where they stand on Tuesday, May 13! (see above)

As you may recall, L&M has big plans for Cobble Hill West (or whatever you care to call it). They are planning 152 new housing units across three sites: 75 Columbia Street; 86-98 Congress Street and 79 Warren Street; and 104-116 Warren Street and 101-115 Baltic Street (a "site"). They presented their case before Community Board 6 last fall, and, after getting some static from the community, revised their plan a bit. It still, we trust, will be an fairly ugly atrocity when built, but perhaps not as bad as initially planned.

Anyway, they're in a hurry. 75 Columbia was chosen as first to be hammered to the ground. Last to fall to the wrecking ball with be the former Hamberger Christmas ornament factory on Warren Street (below), a building which has a long and storied history, to be related on this blog sometime before the wreckage ensues.

Long Island College Hospital: Enabler of Brooklyn's Desecration

Peek behind half the atrocious, elephantine, misguided examples of overdevelopment in South Brooklyn and you'll find a common culprit: the feckless, irresponsible, fire-sale antics of Long Island College Hospital.

Wonder where L&M Equities got all the land needed to flatten the Hamberger Christmas Tree Ornament Factory on Hicks Street and put up a fat slice of condolife? They bought it off LICH, of course. How did the Clarett Group get its hands on 340 Court Street at the corner of Union, paving the way for their plan to build a much bigger condo/retail building than the squat former Brooklyn Longshoremen's Medical Center that sits there now? By giving LICH a cool $24 million, that's how. And how is it that Time Equities’ is able to annex the landmarked 105-year-old Lamm Institute building at 110 Amity Street with a cram-as-much-housing-in-as-possible plan for six townhouses around the corner, not to mention a rooftop bulkhead on top of the old Lamm? You guessed it! LICH needed some pocket change.

I don't know what's going on over there at ugly old Long Island College Hospital (Ugh. So ugly.). But they sure need some money and have decided that selling off land to the smarmiest bidder is the best way to do it. OK, fine. It's their property. But should the community have to pay for their every windfall? Can LICH only keep the local citizenry in good health by killing off the neighborhood's integrity? The first two of the projects mentioned above have come down in size since first proposed, but you can bet that wouldn't have happened if developers hadn't seen that local residents weren't about to lie down about the plans.

How many more Brooklyn lots LICH owns I don't know; they're a secretive bunch over there. But if I were an unscrupulous developer looking to build me some new luxury condos, I'd hightail it off to LICH with a sack of money, plop it on the president's desk and say, "Whaddaya got?"