Empire Stores

For over 150 years, seven beautiful historic brick structures lay between the iconic Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges, named after their use as coffee “stores” or storage warehouses. Radical designs inject new life into the structures, mixing creative contemporary architecture with exacting historic rehabilitation, and combining overlapping uses with public spaces that reveal the inhabitants and historic structures. On top of the building’s extensive green roofs sit two-story glass and steel additions with gardens and terraces framing stunning views of the surrounding bridges. A glass and steel courtyard and passage slices through the historic structures, reconnecting the community cut off from its waterfront. The public passage reveals original sparkling schist walls, around which a spiraling steel and concrete staircase culminates in a public rooftop park revealing the Manhattan Skyline. Tech offices, public spaces and cultural and hospitality amenities create a unique interface between work and play, open spaces and private commerce, that perfectly expresses the ethos of creative contemporary Brooklyn. The design synthesizes old and new, honors the industrial structure while reinventing it and preserving history while creating meaningful new forms designed to be representative of our time and culture. Photography credits: K. Taro Hashimura, Patrick Donahue, Max Touhey, and David Rahr