Look to your left and you will spot the massive red brick facade of the Eagle Warehouse, defined by its towering flat rectangular shape, a grand arched entranceway at the bottom, and a large clock embedded at the very top. This architectural masterpiece was designed by Frank Freeman and completed in 1894 for three hundred thousand dollars, roughly ten million bucks today. The name comes from the Brooklyn Eagle, a famous local newspaper that stood on this exact spot. The legendary poet Walt Whitman was actually the editor there in the 1840s. When Freeman built this warehouse, he constructed it right around the old newspaper pressroom.
He designed the place to look like a medieval fortress. Check your screen to see an early illustration showing off its imposing original design. Notice the top of the building features a crenellated parapet, which is just an architectural term for a roofline with tooth-like gaps, exactly like a classic castle wall. Down at street level, that giant arch entrance leads into a magnificent barrel vault, basically a long, continuous curved ceiling like a tunnel. Back then, wealthy Brooklynites used this fireproof fortress to store their fancy furniture, keeping their silverware locked in massive basement vaults.
But the wildest thing stored here was not silver. In 1905, newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst lost the mayoral election to George McClellan Jr. Hearst furiously cried fraud. The contested ballot boxes were locked up inside this very warehouse pending a recount. Hearst even posted his own private guards outside to protect the boxes while the legal battle dragged on for years. Eventually, the courts ruled, and Hearst still lost the election.
By 1980, the warehouse was converted into luxury condominiums. They demolished the center of the building to create an atrium to let sunlight reach the inner apartments. That entire renovation cost three million dollars. To put that real estate shift into perspective, just one single apartment here sold for two and a half million dollars in 2021. Whoever lives in the penthouse gets to use that giant clock face on the roof as their window. Now that is a truly timeless Brooklyn view, and the perfect note to conclude our journey.
