Untapped Mailbag: What’s Going on with the Abandoned Buildings in Brooklyn Bridge Park – Empire Stores and St. Ann’s Warehouse?

An Untapped Cities reader submitted this photo of this building in Dumbo, Brooklyn asking what it was. It’s a historic tobacco warehouse at 38 Water Street right under Brooklyn Bridge. It was used by the St. Ann’s Warehouse theater organization until 2012, when they moved to 29 Jay Street.

Earlier this year, the Landmarks Preservation Committee approved a plan to turn the building into a more permanent theater for St. Ann’s, but the community may continue to fight for its preservation as a ruin, according to Curbed NY. St. Ann’s itself has been around for 33 years commissioning and producing innovative theater and concert presentations.

We previously covered a fight night inside the warehouse between the NYPD Boxing team and Gleason’s Gym, a historic boxing gym which trained Mike Tyson, Muhammad Ali and other stars.

Just next door is the Empire Stores coffee warehouses which date back to 1869. The city chose a finalist among the 10 proposals released in June. Here are renderings of the plan, as reported by Daily News and CurbedNY:

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