The Crescent Athletic Club House is a building at 129 Pierrepont Street at the corner of Clinton Street in

Brooklyn Heights Brooklyn Heights is a residential neighborhood within the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The neighborhood is bounded by Old Fulton Street near the Brooklyn Bridge on the north, Cadman Plaza West on the east, Atlantic Avenue on the south, an ...

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

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. Designed by prominent Brooklyn-based architect Frank Freeman and completed in 1906, the building is known today as the Bosworth Building of Saint Ann's School.

History

The Crescent Athletic Club was one of the most successful New York sporting clubs of the late 19th/early 20th centuries. Organized in 1884, the club rapidly grew to 1,500 members by 1902, at which time it was decided to build a new clubhouse. Brooklyn architect Frank Freeman was commissioned to design the building, which was completed in 1906."129 Pierrepont Street in Brooklyn Heights; 1906 Building, Once an Athletic Club, Now a School"
''

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'', August 13, 2000. By the 1920s, membership of such clubs was in decline, and in 1939 the Crescent Athletic Club filed for bankruptcy, vacating its Brooklyn clubhouse the following year. Through the 1940s and 1950s the building was used for office space and stores, while a

bowling alley A bowling alley (also known as a bowling center, bowling lounge, bowling arena, or historically bowling club) is a facility where the sport of bowling is played. It can be a dedicated facility or part of another, such as a Meetinghouse, clubhous ...

operated out of the basement. In 1966 the building was purchased for use as a school by the nearby St. Ann's Episcopal Church for the sum of $365,000. By 1982, the school had become a separate entity from the Church. In 2000, the School paid $1 million to have the building's facade renovated. The building is referred to by the school as the Bosworth Building, after the school's first headmaster.

Description

Though sometimes disparaged in comparison with Freeman's earlier

Richardsonian Romanesque Richardsonian Romanesque is a style of Romanesque Revival architecture named after the American architect Henry Hobson Richardson (1838–1886). The revival style incorporates 11th and 12th century southern French, Spanish, and Italian Romanesque ...

works, this

Classical Revival Neoclassical architecture is an architectural style produced by the Neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century in Italy and France. It became one of the most prominent architectural styles in the Western world. The prevailing style ...

building rooted in north Italian 16th-century

palazzo A palace is a grand residence, especially a royal residence, or the home of a head of state or some other high-ranking dignitary, such as a bishop or archbishop. The word is derived from the Latin name palātium, for Palatine Hill in Rome which ...

stylesNotably in the varied fenestration, the

mezzanine A mezzanine (; or in Italian language, Italian, a ''mezzanino'') is an intermediate floor in a building which is partly open to the double-height ceilinged floor below, or which does not extend over the whole floorspace of the building, a loft ...

windows, the richly sculptural frieze, pierced with windows, and the emphatic uppermost cornice. nevertheless incorporates some interesting design features. Chief among these is the fact that the building appears to be only four or five stories in height, when in fact it is twelve. The optical illusion is achieved primarily by the use of double-height windows which each span two floors. The base of the building is constructed of channelled, rusticated

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...

, while the stories above are of a light-colored brick, with

terra cotta Terracotta, terra cotta, or terra-cotta (; ; ), in its material sense as an earthenware substrate, is a clay-based unglazed or glazed ceramic where the fired body is porous. In applied art, craft, construction, and architecture, terracotta ...

ornaments. The rusticated ground floor is capped with a prominent

cornice In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, around the top edge of a ...

which forms a continuous line with a series of

balustrade A baluster is an upright support, often a vertical moulded shaft, square, or lathe-turned form found in stairways, parapets, and other architectural features. In furniture construction it is known as a spindle. Common materials used in its con ...

d balconies below the pedimented windows. Arising directly from the segmental arches of these window

pediment Pediments are gables, usually of a triangular shape. Pediments are placed above the horizontal structure of the lintel, or entablature, if supported by columns. Pediments can contain an overdoor and are usually topped by hood moulds. A pedimen ...

s is the third level of windows, an unusual arrangement which serves to enhance the overall illusion of decreased height. Above this level is a second cornice with more balustraded balconies, from which the final level of double-height windows arises. At the top of the building is a row of smaller attic windows, "set within a magnificent terra cotta

frieze In architecture, the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Paterae are also usually used to decorate friezes. Even when neither columns nor ...

", and a final, heavy cornice.Morrone and Iska, p. 81. The interior of the clubhouse originally featured "a fantastic variety of spaces", including a swimming pool, rifle range and

in the basement,

squash Squash may refer to: Sports * Squash (sport), the high-speed racquet sport also known as squash racquets * Squash (professional wrestling), an extremely one-sided match in professional wrestling * Squash tennis, a game similar to squash but pla ...

and

handball Handball (also known as team handball, European handball or Olympic handball) is a team sport in which two teams of seven players each (six outcourt players and a goalkeeper) pass a ball using their hands with the aim of throwing it into the g ...

courts, a

gym A gymnasium, also known as a gym, is an indoor location for athletics. The word is derived from the ancient Greek term " gymnasium". They are commonly found in athletic and fitness centres, and as activity and learning spaces in educational ins ...

nasium on the top floor, a billiard room, a double-height,

oak An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' (; Latin "oak tree") of the beech family, Fagaceae. There are approximately 500 extant species of oaks. The common name "oak" also appears in the names of species in related genera, notably ''L ...

-panelled dining room on the third floor, a grand hall, sleeping quarters and a library. Much of the original interior has since been altered, but the building retains some of its original rooms. The decorated

marble Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or Dolomite (mineral), dolomite. Marble is typically not Foliation (geology), foliated (layered), although there are exceptions. In geology, the ...

floor in the main hall is now covered with

linoleum Linoleum, sometimes shortened to lino, is a floor covering made from materials such as solidified linseed oil (linoxyn), Pine Resin, pine resin, ground Cork (material), cork dust, sawdust, and mineral fillers such as calcium carbonate, most com ...

, while the classical-style

mural A mural is any piece of graphic artwork that is painted or applied directly to a wall, ceiling or other permanent substrate. Mural techniques include fresco, mosaic, graffiti and marouflage. Word mural in art The word ''mural'' is a Spani ...

s in the hall and library have also survived, albeit in indifferent condition.

References

Notes Bibliography * Morrone, Francis; Iska, James (2001)
''An Architectural Guidebook to Brooklyn''
Gibbs Smith, .

External links

* {{commonscat-inline, Crescent Athletic Club House Basketball venues in New York City Swimming venues in New York City Buildings and structures in Brooklyn Frank Freeman buildings Buildings and structures completed in 1906 Brooklyn Heights 1906 establishments in New York City