New York and Long Island Coignet Stone Company Building
The Coignet Stone Company Building (also the Pippen Building) is a historical structure in the Gowanus neighborhood of Brooklyn in New York City, at the intersection of Third Street and Third Avenue. Designed by architects William Field and Son and constructed between 1872 and 1873, it is the city's oldest remaining concrete building. The Coignet Building is the last remaining structure of a five-acre concrete factory complex built for the Coignet Agglomerate Company along the Gowanus Canal. The building has a two-story cast-stone facade above a raised basement. The Coignet Building was created using a type of concrete patented by Frenchman François Coignet in the 1850s and manufactured at the Gowanus factory. The Coignet Agglomerate Company, for which the building was erected, was the first United States firm to manufacture Coignet stone. Despite the popularity of Coignet stone at the time of the building's construction, the Coignet Agglomerate Company completely shuttered in 1882. The building was subsequently used by the Brooklyn Improvement Company for seventy-five years until that company, too, closed in 1957. The facade was renovated in the 1960s, but the rest of the building was left to deteriorate for the rest of the 20th century. After Whole Foods Market bought the surrounding factory complex in 2005, the Coignet Building became a New York City designated landmark on June 27, 2006. In conjunction with the construction of the adjacent Whole Foods store, the building was restored between 2014 and 2016. Design The Coignet Stone Company Building is at 360–370 Third Avenue and 230 Third Street, at the southwestern corner of the two streets, in the Gowanus neighborhood of Brooklyn in New York City. The building's land lot has an area of about and dimensions of approximately . The site is on the eastern bank of the Gowanus Canal and was leased from the Brooklyn Improvement Company, which developed sites along the canal in the mid-19th century. The company's founder, Edwin Clark Litchfield, was rumored to have built a tunnel from the Coignet Building to his Litchfield Villa in what is now Prospect Park, about from the Coignet Building. However, a search in 2014 failed to uncover evidence of any such tunnel. The building itself was constructed from 1872 to 1873 and designed by William Field and Son for the New York and Long Island Coignet Stone Company. Contractors involved in the construction process included masons D. B. & A. Rutan; stone setter Riley Cocroft; and carpenter Henry Case. The Coignet Building measures with the longer frontage on Third Street. The building was designed not only as a company office but also as a showroom for the company's artificial stone products. It was constructed of Beton Coignet concrete, a precast stone material developed in the 1850s by Frenchman François Coignet. This material was manufactured by its original occupant, the Coignet Agglomerate Company, at its adjacent factory. Many of the building's innovations were introduced by Coignet Agglomerate Company vice president John C. Goodridge Jr., and the materials were sourced directly from