Crescent Athletic Club House
Crescent Athletic Club House | |
---|---|
Classical revival | |
Address | 129 Pierrepont Street |
Town or city | Brooklyn, New York |
Country | United States |
Coordinates | 40°41′42″N 73°59′32″W / 40.6951°N 73.99228°W |
Completed | 1906 |
Client | Crescent Athletic Club |
Design and construction | |
Architect(s) | Frank Freeman |
The Crescent Athletic Club House is a building at 129 Pierrepont Street at the corner of Clinton Street in Brooklyn Heights, Brooklyn, New York City. Designed by prominent Brooklyn-based architect Frank Freeman and completed in 1906, the building is known today as the Bosworth Building of Saint Ann's School.
History
The Crescent Athletic Club was one of the most successful New York sporting clubs of the late 19th/early 20th centuries. Organized in 1884, the club rapidly grew to 1,500 members by 1902, at which time it was decided to build a new clubhouse. Brooklyn architect Frank Freeman was commissioned to design the building, which was completed in 1906.[2]
By the 1920s, membership of such clubs was in decline, and in 1939 the Crescent Athletic Club filed for bankruptcy, vacating its Brooklyn clubhouse the following year. Through the 1940s and 1950s the building was used for office space and stores, while a bowling alley operated out of the basement.[2]
In 1966 the building was purchased for use as a school by the nearby St. Ann's Episcopal Church for the sum of $365,000. By 1982, the school had become a separate entity from the Church. In 2000, the School paid $1 million to have the building's facade renovated.[2] The building is referred to by the school as the Bosworth Building, after the school's first headmaster.
Description
Though sometimes disparaged in comparison with Freeman's earlier
The base of the building is constructed of
The interior of the clubhouse originally featured "a fantastic variety of spaces", including a swimming pool, rifle range and bowling alley in the basement, squash and handball courts, a gymnasium on the top floor, a billiard room, a double-height, oak-panelled dining room on the third floor, a grand hall, sleeping quarters and a library.[2][3] Much of the original interior has since been altered, but the building retains some of its original rooms. The decorated marble floor in the main hall is now covered with linoleum, while the classical-style murals in the hall and library have also survived, albeit in indifferent condition.[2]
References
Notes
- ^ Irving I. Underhill (1872-1960), photographer.
- ^ a b c d e "129 Pierrepont Street in Brooklyn Heights; 1906 Building, Once an Athletic Club, Now a School", The New York Times, August 13, 2000.
- ^ a b c d Morrone and Iska, p. 81.
- mezzaninewindows, the richly sculptural frieze, pierced with windows, and the emphatic uppermost cornice.
Bibliography
- Morrone, Francis; Iska, James (2001): An Architectural Guidebook to Brooklyn, Gibbs Smith, ISBN 978-1-58685-047-0.
External links
- Media related to Crescent Athletic Club House at Wikimedia Commons