110 Livingston Street
Encyclopedia
110 Livingston Street is a Beaux Arts-style building located in Downtown Brooklyn
Downtown Brooklyn
Downtown Brooklyn is the third largest central business district in New York City , and is located in the northwestern section of the borough of Brooklyn...
, New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
.
The building was designed by the architectural firm McKim, Mead & White, and was built in 1926 to serve as the headquarters
Headquarters
Headquarters denotes the location where most, if not all, of the important functions of an organization are coordinated. In the United States, the corporate headquarters represents the entity at the center or the top of a corporation taking full responsibility managing all business activities...
for the Elks
Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks
The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks is an American fraternal order and social club founded in 1868...
organization, including amenities such as a pool, banquet hall, and bowling alleys. The building has a limestone and terra cotta facade, with Renaissance-revival style features including balustrades, egg-and-dart
Egg-and-dart
Egg-and-dart or Egg-and-tongue is an ornamental device often carved in wood, stone, or plaster quarter-round ovolo mouldings, consisting of an egg-shaped object alternating with an element shaped like an arrow, anchor or dart. Egg-and-dart enrichment of the ovolo molding of the Ionic capital is...
ornamentation, and Corinthian columns.
In 1940, the building was converted to serve as the New York City Board of Education
New York City Board of Education
The New York City Board of Education is the governing body of the New York City Department of Education. The members of the board are appointed by the mayor and by the five borough presidents.-Rise, fall and return of Mayoral Control:...
headquarters. Over decades of use by the Board of Education, the building became known for the entrenched bureaucracy and dysfunction of its occupants, and Michael Cooper of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
stated that the building's name eventually came to symbolize the failings of the New York City school system, as "more than a location or a shorthand name for the institution it housed, the city's Board of Education. It symbolized a state of mind, a failed system that was at once imperious and impervious."
In 2003, the City of New York sold the building to Two Trees Management, a primary developer of the DUMBO
DUMBO, Brooklyn
Dumbo, an acronym for Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass, is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. It encompasses two sections: one located between the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges, which connect Brooklyn to Manhattan across the East River, and another that continues...
neighborhood, for development as luxury residential apartments, as part of development efforts taking place throughout Downtown Brooklyn
Downtown Brooklyn
Downtown Brooklyn is the third largest central business district in New York City , and is located in the northwestern section of the borough of Brooklyn...
. Several floors were added to the structure, and the courtyard was decorated with a trompe-l'œil mural of architectural features by muralist Richard Haas
Richard Haas
Richard John Haas is an American muralist who is best known for architectural murals and his use of the Trompe l'oeil style.-Works:...
. The interior lobby space, including a coffer
Coffer
A coffer in architecture, is a sunken panel in the shape of a square, rectangle, or octagon in a ceiling, soffit or vault...
ed ceiling, has been restored by the architecture firm Beyer Blinder Belle
Beyer Blinder Belle
Beyer Blinder Belle Architects & Planners LLP is an international architecture firm. It is based in New York City and has an additional office in Washington, DC. The firm's name is derived from the three founding partners: John H. Beyer, Richard Blinder, and John Belle. The three architects met...
, and a historic theater space on the ground floor is intended to be used by ISSUE Project Room
ISSUE Project Room
The ISSUE Project Room is a music venue in Brooklyn, New York founded in 2003 by Suzanne Fiol. Located in The Old American Can Factory in the Gowanus section of Brooklyn, the venue supports a wide variety of contemporary performance, specializing in presenting experimental and avant-garde music...
, a local arts organization.
Further reading
- 110 Livingston Gets Respect (New York Sun)
- 110 Livingston Street: Politics and Bureaucracy in the New York City School System, by David Rogers