4. The Coignet Stone Company Building is the City’s Oldest Remaining Concrete Building
Before the neighborhood’s Whole Foods was built, the Coignet Stone Company Building stood alone in its architectural splendor. The building is the city’s oldest remaining concrete building, constructed between 1872 and 1873. The building was constructed as part of a five-acre concrete factory complex along the Gowanus Canal, standing two stories tall with a cast-stone facade. The factory was the first in the U.S. to manufacture a type of concrete patented by Frenchman François Coignet. Coignet’s mix could be molded instead of shaped with chisels and cutting tools, and it could be colored with a cement wash to give it the appearance of granite, brownstone, or whatever material was desired. The company shut down in 1882, just a few years after the building was complete, and it was then taken over by the Brooklyn Improvement Company. Much of the building’s interior began to deteriorate.
The Brooklyn Improvement Company was founded by Edwin Clark Litchfield, the namesake of the Litchfield Villa in Prospect Park (which at one point, was believed to be connected to the Coignet Building via an underground tunnel). Two Ionic-columned porticos topped by a pediment face the street while staircases lead up to rounded doors. On the second floor, rounded and rectangular windows are framed by columns and Italianate window heads. The ornate building was restored after being purchased by Whole Foods in 2005.