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Circa 1904. "The Circle -- Brooklyn, N.Y." Plaza Street West at Berkeley Place, with Grand Army Plaza at right. 8x10 inch glass transparency. View full size.
Yes, the stately Montauk Club still stands. My sister worked there briefly in the '80s and I spent many hours wandering its halls after hours. The Club shut down about 20 years ago and was, naturally, turned into apartments.
Alas, the other gorgeous buildings on Plaza Street were long ago razed and replaced with large apartment buildings. The rowhouses next the Montauk Club still stand, though -- most surprising of all, the space between the two is as empty today as it was then. I always figured there had once been a building there as the far side of MC is just bare brick, but it looks like it has always been just an empty lot!
That some buildings still stand 100+ years later is nothing compared to perennially unused land in one of the most expensive real estate areas in the country!
As the other poster speculated, yes, some of the religious institutions still stand. The fat steeple on the left is St. Augustine's on 6th Avenue, the ones directly to the right of it are Memorial Presbyterian and Grace United Methodist, catercorner from each other on 7th, though Grace lost its steeple in the interim.
Also surviving from this image: the twin towers of the Brooklyn Bridge (left), and the twin towers of the Williamsburg Bridge (right). Not visible: the yet-to-be-built twin towers of the Manhattan Bridge.
The building at 8th and Berkeley (left side of photo with mansard roof) - it even has some of the iron cresting left, and has seen an addition of more mansard with a pair of dormers to its north. And as usual, I bet that at least one of those religious institutions remains as well. Fabulous photo.
[The big house (?) in the middle of the photo is another survivor. - Dave]
Just about the only building in this view that survives today is the 4-story Montauk Club, smack dab in the middle of this photograph with a massive hip roof and 3 prominently visible chimneys. This Venetian Gothic extravaganza was designed by Francis H. Kimball, the architect of several downtown Manhattan skyscrapers, and built in 1889-1891. It appears to me (from examining Bing Maps) that the four little rowhouses immediately to the right of the Montauk Club are also still standing ... but not much else.
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