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