33-35 Grand Street, ca. 1978.

Built in 1889 by Theobald Engelhardt, a Brooklyn architect who mostly worked in Williamsburg and Bushwick, this Romanesque Revival style building was the first location for the newly chartered North Side Savings Bank. Smaller in size than many of Brooklyn's other banks from this time period, the bank fit in with the industrial and commercial feel of the neighborhood.

The bank was particularly successful, garnering clients not only from the local industries but also using their location right near the ferry terminal to attract commuters. The bank became a part of the Manufacturer’s Trust Bank in 1922. Manufacturer's Trust, through various mergers and renaming, is today J.P. Morgan Chase. The little building became a new branch of the larger bank in 1992 but closed sometime in the mid century. The building has been a clothing store, a hip barber shop, and an event space in recent years. There is a large, renovated apartment on the second floor.

Despite the drastic changes that Williamsburg has seen in the last two decades, this building, with its darkened rough cut stone facade and pressed metal pediment, has remained largely the same as when this photograph was taken, and likely for much of its history.