Crescent Athletic Club House
| Crescent Athletic Club House | |
|---|---|
(c.1910)
|
|
| General information | |
| Architectural style | Classical revival |
| Town or city | Brooklyn, New York |
| Country | United States |
| Completed | 1906 |
| Client | Crescent Athletic Club |
| Design and construction | |
| Architect | Frank Freeman |
Coordinates: 40°41′42″N 73°59′32″W / 40.6951°N 73.99228°W
The Crescent Athletic Club House is a notable building at 129 Pierrepont Street at the corner of Clinton Street in the Brooklyn Heights neighborhood of 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.
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.
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.
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. The building is referred to by the school as the Bosworth Building, after the school's first headmaster.
Though sometimes disparaged in comparison with Freeman's earlier Richardsonian Romanesque works, this Classical Revival building rooted in north Italian 16th-century palazzo styles nevertheless incorporates some interesting design features. Chief among these is the fact that the building appears to be only four or five stories in height, when in fact it is twelve. The optical illusion is achieved primarily by the use of double-height windows which each span two floors.
...
Wikipedia