Save the Vitagraph Smokestack in Brooklyn!

[drmelf]

vitagraph-smokestack.jpg (11.8 KiB) Viewed 2919 times

The smokestack that stands on the former site of the Vitagraph Company silent film studios, established in 1907 in the Midwood section of Brooklyn, is the oldest still-standing monument to the American film industry on the east coast and, possibly, in the country.

Prodigious and proud, the smokestack stands beautifully emblazoned with inlaid brickwork spelling out Vitagraph (visible from the Q train as you approach the Avenue M subway station). Tragically, it is not currently protected with landmark status and is presently threatened with demolition.

We would like to make a plea for preserving it as a landmark for the the borough of Brooklyn and for cinema posterity.We pledge to rally our community and friends to assist with the preservation of this most important architectural monument to American movie past.

Please SIGN THE PETITION (but don't give $ to ipetitions - doesn't go to preserving the smokestack)
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/save ... smokestack" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank

"like" the page:
https://www.facebook.com/savethesmokestack" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank

[silentfilm]

http://www.brooklyneagle.com/articles/2 ... ilm-studio

Residents fear for Vitagraph smokestack, last remnant of silent film studio
The Vitagraph smokestack, at East 15th Street and Locust Avenue, is an artifact from the historic Vitagraph Studios.

The Vitagraph smokestack, at East 15th Street and Locust Avenue, is an artifact from the historic Vitagraph Studios.

Photos by Ellen Levitt
By Matthew Taub
Special to Brooklyn Daily Eagle for Brooklyn Brief

Midwood residents fear the last remnant of an historical film era may soon be demolished.

“The legendary Vitagraph smokestack is in danger of being torn down!” said Ellen Levitt, a lifelong Brooklynite and Midwood resident since 1971.

The smokestack, at East 15th Street and Locust Avenue, is an artifact from the historic Vitagraph Studios, a silent film company founded by Alfred E. Smith in 1897. It is now shrouded in scaffolding after permits were filed to erect a heavy duty sidewalk shed and pipe scaffold at the location.

“It is 110+ years old, and an important part of Brooklyn and film making history,” Levitt added. “I don’t think this is landmarked, which is a shame.”

An initial Change.org petition by Jennifer Redmond of Long Island to have the site landmarked gained 188 signatures, but was closed in 2012.

“I have been told by the Municipal Art Society that they are unable to help, and that the step I should be taking is to fill out a form with the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission,” Redmond wrote.

Her application was subsequently denied.

“As a fragment of the original Vitagraph Studios Complex, it has been determined that the proposed property is not an adequate representation of the Vitagraph Company,” read a letter from the Landmarks Preservation Commission.

Redmond said her friend Melissa Friedling is currently spearheading a new petition, and that “it seems that this administration is a bit more receptive to possible landmark status.”

A new petition is live on iPetitions.com, along with a Facebook page.

“We can only hope,” Redmond said.

Regardless of its official status, Levitt called the smokestack a “visual landmark” for everyone who rides by on the Q and B trains, as well as those who live near the area.

“Everyone has seen this monument for ages and eons,” Levitt said. “Murrow High School students can see it from certain classroom windows. It is important to our film making history, to our borough’s history, to NYC history in general.

“I welcome the supporters of the Vitagraph smokestack to meet with me so we can discuss the significance of this piece of Brooklyn’s history,” Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams said Monday.

Vitagraph Studios played an important role in the earliest era of the film industry. By 1907, it was the most prolific American film production company, producing many famous silent films, including the first adaptation of “Les Miserables” for the silver screen.

But after years of being squeezed out by distributors — and with contracts and production upended by the first World War — Smith sold the studio to Warner Brothers in 1925.

Yeshiva University purchased the property in 1967, and the location eventually became the Shulamith School for Girls, a modern Orthodox religious institution. But in July 2014, the School sold the property to 1277 Holdings LLC for $20 million, with more than $3.4 million of the proceeds diverted, by Court order, to satisfy outstanding obligations to the IRS, for payroll taxes and to various other creditors.

A security guard now posted at the location advised he heard the smokestack might be torn down soon.

Brooklyn Brief has reached out to The Shulamith School and 1277 Holdings LLC and can update this story if they respond.
October 6, 2014 - 3:52pm

[silentfilm]

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/bro ... -1.1990577

Brooklyn activists hustle to save movie making Midwood smokestack
Locals fear that the 107-year-old structure near Avenue M and 14th Street, which once was part of a silent movie studio, will be knocked down.
BY Jon Kalish
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Tuesday, October 28, 2014, 6:21 PM

Some in the Midwood community would like to preserve this Vitagraph smokestack as a landmark. Todd Maisel/New York Daily News Some in the Midwood community would like to preserve this Vitagraph smokestack as a landmark.

A group of neighborhood activists is scrambling to preserve a century-old smokestack in Midwood that was once part of a pioneering silent movie studio but now, they fear, is in danger of being demolished.

Scaffolding recently erected around the landmark may signal the beginning of the end for the 107-year-old structure, which harkens back to Brooklyn’s bygone film industry.

“What Brooklyn gave to American film history is still here,” said Vince Giordano, a jazz musician who lives a block from the long dormant smokestack. “This is an important part of history and it shouldn’t be torn down.”

The Vitagraph Company of America building opened in 1907 near Avenue M and 14th St. The white brick smokestack, rising more than four stories, served a small power plant and an incinerator on the site. Before the Vitagraph Studio was bought by Warner Brothers in the mid-1920s, hundreds of silent films — sometimes as many as eight a week — were made there .

Vitagraph adapted Shakespeare for the silver screen, made war movies and churned out dozens of silent comedies. It produced one of the first movie stars of the silent film era: Florence Turner, who was known as the Vitagraph Girl.

The building is now leased by the Shulamith School For Girls, an Orthodox Jewish day school. An administrative assistant at the school said it is looking for a new home.

“For us it is very basic. The building has been sold and their plan is not to keep it as is,” said Beth Kaplan, an executive assistant at the Shulamith School.

Melissa Friedling, who teaches at the New School and is making a film about the former Vitagraph site, said, “The smokestack is in serious disrepair after standing for 107 years and would need some TLC to shore it up safely."
Exported.; Molinari, Ed The stack was once part of a silent movie film studio on the strip.

But Avi Peison, a lawyer for the real estate firm Hampshire Properties, which owns the building and the smokestack, said “There are no plans to do anything with the smokestack. Could that change? Of course.”

Peison said scaffolding was erected around the smokestack in September “so no one gets hurt.”

Advocates calling for the preservation of the smokestack plan to re-apply to have it landmarked, despite a 2012 ruling by the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission that the smokestack “lacked architectural merit.”

“It’s been an uphill struggle but I think we have a reasonable chance to win landmark status,” said Ron Hutchinson, an amateur film historian involved in the effort to save the smokestack. “We don’t want to wake up one morning and find we have a pile of rubble where the movie history used to be.”

The Midwood Merchants Association supports preservation of the smokestack, and Linda Goodman, executive director of the Midwood Development Corp., said her group was mulling whether to support making it a landmark.

“You can’t just say ‘I want to preserve this,’ without the money to do it. You have to be realistic,” said Goodman. “I would hope the owners see the value in preserving it because it adds value to the rest of their property.”

[silentfilm]

http://www.brooklyneagle.com/articles/2 ... loper-says

The Vitagraph Smokestack stands tall in Midwood. Eagle photos by Lore Croghan

Eye on Real Estate: This Midwood icon stands on the site of a century-old film studio
By Lore Croghan
Brooklyn Daily Eagle

The Vitagraph Smokestack will live on.

Here's another look at the smokestack, which is an iconic remnant of bygone Vitagraph Studios.Here's another look at the smokestack, which is an iconic remnant of bygone Vitagraph Studios.

This iconic remnant of a bygone Brooklyn film studio will not be torn down by Hampshire Properties, which owns the site on which it stands.

The development firm is building an eight-story, 302-unit residential building on the property at 1277 East 14th St., city Buildings Department records indicate.

The smokestack was part of Vitagraph Studios, which made silent films in Midwood more than a century ago.

Actress Norma Talmadge got her start in the movies at Vitagraph's Midwood facilities. America's first film versions of William Shakespeare's plays were shot there.

“We've gone to great lengths to keep the smokestack intact as we realize its historical significance both to the site and the neighborhood,” Hampshire Properties' Robert Rosenthal recently told the Brooklyn Eagle via email.

The smokestack is more than four stories tall. The letters of the word “Vitagraph” are arranged vertically on it.

It stands near the Q subway line's elevated tracks. You can get an eyeful of it from the Avenue M station's Manhattan-bound train platform. Down on street level, a good spot from which to see the smokestack is the corner of Locust Avenue and East 15th Street.

In 2014, an LLC whose president is Tomas Rosenthal bought the Vitagraph site for $20 million from Shulamith School for Girls Inc., city Finance Department records indicate. He's Hampshire Properties' president and chief executive officer.

That year, neighborhood activists called for the preservation of the distinctive brick smokestack. The city Landmarks Preservation Commission had said the iconic smokestack “lacked architectural merit,” the Daily News reported at that time.

You can see the Vitagraph Smokestack from Midwood's Avenue M train station.You can see the Vitagraph Smokestack from Midwood's Avenue M train station.

[moviepas]

I read the Brooklyn Eagle article, thanks. I am was interested to see the train station(part) and it looks like it is far from original, meaning modern. My point is that it is so like modern or replacement stations in my city of Melbourne/Australia. Newer stations being built putting trains up high and removing rail gates/boom barriers are hideous and too bulky. Although that Brooklyn elevated seems to open to the elements for a New York winter, a problem we don't have as we have no snow or sleet problems in the city.

We had a much higher smokestack in the inner Melbourne suburb of Burnley(part of Richmond) and it was to be saved but it was demolished in recent times. The old buildings going to high rise apartments was once the home of Wertheim Sewing Machines, pianos and pianola rolls manufacture(old metal plates for the rolls had been in a tunnel which connected to the factory of Vickers Ruwolt(connected to the Vickers airplane) and the boys there used to use them for kicking around). Later HJ Heinz manufactured in the buildings hence the smokestack. Then a major TV station, GTV9, moved in during 1956 when TV started in Melbourne & Sydney in time for the Olympic Games in November that year. GTV9 was painted down the stack like Vitagraph in Brooklyn. Some of the TV buildings will remain and have apartments added. I went to shows there a few times and was on an early kids' evening show in the late 1950s. It was just before our Father's Day and I was selected to sit with the compere who actually lived near my home and was given an axe for Dad as a prize. We had to take the tram back to the train station at Richmond to go home about 12 miles down the track. Imagine taking an axe on a mode of transport or walking down the street today, even as a kid. It would be classed as a weapon like guns and knives and I would be arrested!!!!! Our laws ban carrying any such items, in bags or pockets.

[s.w.a.c.]

Here it is on Google Maps.