page_title: Eberhard Faber Pencil Factory
section_title: Kent Street buildings
hierarchical_section_title: Eberhard Faber Pencil Factory / Design / Kent Street buildings
caption_attribution_description: English: Looking east across Kent Street at former Eberhard Faber factory building on a sunny midday.
context_page_description: The Eberhard Faber Pencil Factory is a former pencil factory complex in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, New York City. Designated as a historic district by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in 2007, it is composed of nine buildings spread across two blocks.
  The factory was founded by John Eberhard Faber, the great-grandson of 18th-century pencil entrepreneur Kaspar Faber. The younger Faber established the United States' first pencil factory in Midtown Manhattan in 1866. Following a fire six years later, Faber moved to a larger location in Greenpoint, which expanded through the late 19th and early 20th centuries with the acquisition or addition of several buildings. Faber's children split the company from its German parent in 1898, and it remained in Greenpoint until 1956, when it moved to Pennsylvania. Today part of the complex is in use as the Kickstarter headquarters, while other portions of the complex have been converted to residential, commercial or industrial uses.
context_section_description: There are four buildings on both sides of Kent Street: three along 58–76 Kent Street on the south side, and a building at 59–63 Kent Street on the north side.
  58–70 Kent Street, located on the south side of Kent Street east of the intersection with West Street, incorporates the facades of three former factory buildings on the site. The westernmost of these (on the right when facing the entrance) is 58 Kent Street, an Italianate building designed by Philemon Tillion in 1860 and erected by Francis Gove. In the center is 60–64 Kent Street, a Renaissance Revival building designed by Theobald Engelhardt and built in 1895 by Faber; this facade contains brick dentil courses and corbels, cast iron lintels, radiating brick arches, and bluestone water tables. The easternmost is 66–70 Kent Street, erected in the Romanesque Revival style, with jutting brick header arches above the windows, cast iron lintels above the doors, and iron shutter hinges. The pediments above the latter two sections show the company motif. In the 2010s, the building was renovated into the Kickstarter headquarters, but the architecture remained mostly intact.
  72–74 Kent Street, a three-story brick factory in the Renaissance Revival style, was erected around 1904–1908. Measuring nine bays wide, it contains a central pediment upon which the company's motif was placed. It contains projecting greystone window sills, lintels above the windows, and a brick corbel. Two fire escapes are located on the building's facade, one shared with its eastern neighbor, 76 Kent Street. As of 2018 this space is partially occupied by the New York University School of Medicine as a physical therapy and imaging center.
  76 Kent Street, a three-story Renaissance Revival building, was built at an unknown date between 1886 and 1904. It contains brick lintels, cornice and parapet, as well a first-floor steel lintel. Sometime in the 1980s it was partially made into a residential building.
  59–63 Kent Street, a five-story building built around 1910–1911, is located on the north side of Kent Street. It was built to a design by F. Nelson, an obscure architect whose listed address was the same as Faber's mailing address. 59–63 Kent is nine bays wide and contains Renaissance Revival ornamentation, including brick corbels, a central pediment, and the company's motif at the top. There is one fire escape on the facade. It was formerly connected to a building across Kent Street, which is now occupied by 58–70 Kent.
caption: 72–74 Kent St (right) and 76 Kent (left)
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