Wallabout Industrial Historic District

Wallabout Industrial Historic District is a group of factories, warehouses and related buildings on parts of five blocks in north-central Brooklyn, between Flushing and Park Avenues. Most were built between 1890 and the early 1940s. The earliest are brick buildings with slow-burning wood framing and cast-iron storefront pilasters, such as the Van Glahn Brothers grocery warehouse on Park Avenue, designed by J. G. Glover. Later buildings use reinforced concrete, including the large Mergenthaler Linotype Company structures and additions to the Rockwood chocolate complex. The area industrialized because of the nearby Wallabout Market, which drew food-related businesses, and because of access to the waterfront, bridges, rail connections and an elevated line that carried workers. Several buildings were already listed as part of the Rockwood Chocolate Factory Historic District. The district is significant as a record of industrial architecture and of how a Brooklyn manufacturing neighborhood developed. Many buildings are still in industrial use, while others have become residences or storage space.