The William Ulmer Brewery is a brewery complex in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn in New York City. It consists of four buildings—an office, a brew house, an engine–machine house, and a stable–storage house—all constructed between 1872 and 1890 in the German round-arch style. The site is bounded by Belvidere Street to the southeast, Beaver Street to the northeast, and Locust Street to the northwest, with the address 31 Belvidere Street. The main brew house, the engine–machine house, and the office building were designed by Brooklyn architect Theobald Engelhardt, while the stable–storage house was designed by Frederick Wunder.
The Ulmer Brewery was one of over a dozen German-operated breweries that were built in Bushwick during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Following the construction of the original building in 1872, additional structures were completed in 1880, 1885, and 1890. It ceased to be an active brewery in 1920 due to Prohibition in the United States, which outlawed alcoholic beverage production. The Ulmer family continued to own the office building until 1952; the other buildings were sold and used for light manufacturing, and the office building became a private residence. The brewery was named a New York City designated landmark in 2010, becoming the first brewery in the city to receive this status. The buildings were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2024.
History
Context Brewing was a major industry in New York City going back to the 18th century. though early development of breweries in Brooklyn was quite slow, with relatively few commercial brewers. When freshwater was discovered under northern Brooklyn during the late 19th century, including under Williamsburg and Bushwick, resulted in the development of breweries, where many German immigrants worked at the time. By the 1870s and 1880s, there were more than 30 breweries in Brooklyn. Some of these were located within a 14-block "brewer's row" within Bushwick that contained at least 11 breweries. This coincided with a large increase in Germans settling Bushwick.
William Ulmer (1833–1907), an immigrant from the German territory of Württemberg, was one of the early settlers in the Bushwick brewery district. He was the nephew of both John F. Betz and Henry Clausen Sr., who in turn were brewers and apprentices of D.G. Yuengling Sr. In 1871, Ulmer and a Bavarian immigrant named Anton Vigelius founded the Vigelius & Ulmer Continental Lagerbier Brewery, at the intersection of Belvidere (formerly Ann) and Beaver streets. Two years prior, Vigelius had bought the land from the Debevoises, and just before the brewery was constructed, had sold off his half-stake in the land to Ulmer.
Operations Construction was already underway by 1871, when an accident at the site killed one construction worker and injured two more. The first buildings on the site, the brewery and a nearby residence, are thought to have been completed by either 1871 or 1872. The brewery was fairly successful, and in 1875 the Brooklyn Daily Eagle described the Vigelius & Ulmer brewery as one of the larger breweries in the Williamsburg area, out of 30 or 40 breweries operating in the neighborhood. Vigelius then relinquished his ownership stake in the brewery. Ulmer became its sole proprietor and subsequently reorganized it into the William Ulmer Brewery. In 1881, some workers went on strike to protest low wages.
Over the years, several improvements were made to the brewery to accommodate additional brewing capacity and to utilize advances in that industry. Ulmer obtained land at Locust and Beaver streets from the family of Elizabeth Debevoise in 1880, and he built the new storage house there soon afterward. In 1885, Theobald Engelhardt designed an expansion, which included an office building; machine and boiler structures; and a washroom and keg-filling room in the back of the main brewery building. According to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, the 1885 expansion cost $15,000. The Eagle stated in 1886 that the counting-houses at Ulmer Brewery and several others in the area were "not surpassed by anything of the kind on Broadway or Wall Street". Frederick Wunder designed a three-story brick stable and storage house in 1890, which replaced the wooden stable building already on the site. In 1897, Wunder submitted plans to replace the storage house's wood frame with cast iron columns.
By 1896, Ulmer was described as a millionaire, and he lived at a large estate on Bushwick Avenue. With income from the brewery, Ulmer was able to acquire several pieces of real estate, although there is no documentation to support that Ulmer operated any beer gardens to sell his beer. Ulmer operated several facilities including Ulmer Park in Gravesend; Dexter Park in Woodhaven, Queens; and a beer pavilion in Forest Park, Queens. In 1898, he built an ice-manufacturing plant in the town of Greenport, New York. According to a 1909 magazine article, the Greenport plant was capable of producing of artificial ice each day throughout the year.
When Ulmer retired in 1900, the company was reincorporated with his son-in-law John W. Weber (1858–1933) as its president. Weber, as well as Ulmer's wife Catherine and his other son-in-law John F. Becker, served as directors of the newly reincorporated company. The firm was listed as having $550,000 in capital stock. Additions continued through the 1900s, including a 236-barrel container for cooking the brew, installed in 1906. The container, designed by Frank Stanley, was so large that part of the floor had to be cut out to accommodate it. When Ulmer died in 1907, the brewery had become one of Brooklyn's largest. The brewery had produced of beer a year at its peak. By the early 20th century, though, other breweries with larger and more complex machinery had been developed.
Post-closure After the enactment of Prohibition, production of alcoholic beverages became illegal, so the brewery closed in 1920. After closure, the brewery's buildings were sold and used for light manufacturing. The stable–storage building was sold in 1921 and was acquired by the Artcraft Metal Stamping Company, a lighting company that used the structure as a manufacturing facility until 1940. The main brew house was sold in 1922 and was acquired in 1923 by Marcus Leavitt, who renovated it and replaced the courtyard behind the building with a parking garage. The brew house was then sold in 1924 to another firm, and both the main brew house and the stable–storage building were resold multiple times in the 20th century, being used by various manufacturing firms. The Ulmer family continued to own the office building before selling it in 1952. The main brew house received a new sprinkler system, fire escapes, and exit doors in the 1950s. The Twenty Starr Street Corporation bought the office structure in 1962.
In 1985, Jay Swift, a stone sculptor and marble worker, purchased the office building and renovated it. Swift recalled that "the first time I rode my bike down that street and saw that building, I almost fell over", but that the structure was also beset with leaks, broken glass, and dilapidated interiors. At the time, the main brew house was used as a storage facility for a nearby lamp company. Swift moved out in the late 1990s, and the office building remained unoccupied for several years, as Swift had declined potential tenants who wanted to make extensive changes to the exterior. The stable–storage building was converted to an apartment building in 2002. By 2008, The New York Times mentioned that a furniture designer lived on the first floor of the office building. On May 11, 2010, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the brewery an official city landmark, making it the first brewery to receive this status. At the time of the landmark decision, the office building was still being used as a home.
Travis Stabler of the Rivington Company acquired the three buildings next to Swift's house in 2018 for $14 million. Stabler had planned to redesign the structure, adding a penthouse above one of the buildings. These plans were truncated due to a lack of demand caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. By 2020, the residence was on sale for $4 million. At the time, the structure had been separated into two ownership units, each covering one story. The same year, G4 Capital Partners lent $10 million to the Rivington Company for the renovation of the office structures. The Rivington Company then applied to the city's Board of Standards and Appeals to allow the office structures to be used as residences. As part of the plan, the basement and first floor of 31 Belvidere Street would remain in commercial use, but the second through fourth floors would become apartments; the board granted the request with minor modifications. In December 2023, the complex was nominated for listing on the New York State Register of Historic Places and National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). The buildings were added to the NRHP on February 20, 2024.
Architecture The William Ulmer Brewery is on Beaver Street, between Locust and Belvidere streets, in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn in New York City. The brewery's constituent structures include the main brew house and its annex; the engine–machine house; the office; and the stable–storage house. All of these buildings are between two and four stories high. There was also a courtyard that connected all of these buildings, which had a frame shed and a wash house–racking room measuring one to two stories high; the courthouse was replaced with a parking garage in 1924. The surrounding blocks contain residential rowhouses and apartment buildings, as well as other industrial structures.
According to the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC), the main brew house from 1872 and the annex from 1881 were designed by the Brooklyn architect Theobald Engelhardt. The National Park Service (NPS) did not identify an architect for either building. Engelhardt was definitely responsible for the office building, which was completed in 1885. The stable–storage house was designed by Frederick Wunder in 1890. Similar to other German breweries, the Ulmer Brewery buildings were largely designed in the American round-arch style, inspired by the German Renaissance Revival style or Rundbogenstil. As with other factory structures built in that era, regularly spaced window openings let in natural light but also allowed an "organization" and "dignity", while decorative brick facades allowed for both a fire-resistant material and a "relatively economical means of relieving plain brickwork".
Main brew house
The main brew house, built in 1872 and expanded in 1881, is located at the western corner of Beaver and Belvidere streets. It was originally stories high and contained a mansard roof. Later expansions brought the building's height to four stories, with a flat roof. The LPC cites the main brewing house as measuring along its northeastern elevation, on Beaver Street, and along its southeastern elevation, on Belvidere Street. The original structure comprises the eastern two-thirds closer to the intersection of Beaver and Belvidere streets, with measurements of on Beaver Street and on Belvidere Street. The addition at 71–73 Beaver Street, also known as the cold storage house, measures , with its shorter dimension on Beaver Street.
Facade