Talk:Offerman Building/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: Dylnuge (talk · contribs) 02:09, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

Hey, I am picking this up as part of Vati's peer pressure campaign on Discord the GAN backlog drive. I'll leave comments as I review (including an initial assessment shortly) and ping when I'm finished; feel free to respond as I leave comments or wait until the end, whatever works best for you. Let me know if you have any questions or concerns and please don't hesitate to call out any mistakes I make. Thanks! Dylnuge (Talk • Edits) 02:09, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

Initial comments: Article is stable. References exist, meet style guidelines, and statements are all clearly cited. Earwig detects no copyvio. Images exist, are properly licensed, and are appropriately captioned (I believe there is no need to caption the one in the infobox). No cleanup tags or issues that would merit them. From my initial read, prose appears to be well-written, coverage appears to be both comprehensive and focused, and there are no apparent neutrality issues. Everything looks really good! Dylnuge (Talk • Edits) 02:48, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

Comments
 * I making small edits directly as I go, feel free to double-check these if you want.
 * as well as the opening of the New York City Subway system in the early 20th century, attracted further commercial development in the area — Since the Fulton Street Elevated line is explicitly mentioned it might make sense to mention which line this refers to if it's a specific one, though if it's intended to be general, no expansion needed.
 * Yeah, it was intended to be a general comment about the subway system. Epicgenius (talk) 13:53, 31 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I think the Brooklyn Times-Union was technically still the Brooklyn Daily Times in both 1891 and 1924, though I'm not sure if there's any style rule on using the contemporaneous name, and I see the newspapers.com sources say "Times-Union". No opinion on this, just thought I'd note it in case you think it matters.
 * I've corrected it, since the Times Union wasn't named as such until 1932. Epicgenius (talk) 13:53, 31 August 2023 (UTC)
 * The word "contain" or "contains" is repeated quite a bit in the "Duffield Street wing" section, the "Original use" section, and the "Current use" section. The article could contain less of these.
 * I have fixed this. Epicgenius (talk) 13:53, 31 August 2023 (UTC)
 * When using a specific address for the building (instead of describing the range), the article uses 503 Fulton in the infobox and 505 Fulton in the "Site" and "New Stores" sections. These are clearly both valid addresses for the building, just wondering if one should be used for consistency.
 * I've changed it to use either the range or the address 505 Fulton. Epicgenius (talk) 13:53, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

This was a really excellent article! This stuff above is all I'm seeing and none of it is a problem for GA, so I'm marking prose, broadness/focus, and neutrality as passes. Feel free to reply to these comments if you want; I should be back around to do the source verification in a few hours. Dylnuge (Talk • Edits) 22:48, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

Source checking


 * ✅ Reliability looks good. The majority of sources are newspapers or similar that are contemporaneous to the claims they're supporting. Other sources include a report commissioned by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, a handful of guide books including the AIA Guide and an architecture book written by Morris Lapidus, the architect who worked on the 1940s renovations of the building, published by E.A Seemann, which is a German publishing house focused on non-fiction books about art. Nothing self-published, all publishers have editorial standards, and plenty of these seem to be from experts like the American Institute of Architects. No concerns here.
 * Source 2 goes to "101 Willoughby Street" (per both title and URL) when I think it should be linking to 503 Fulton Street . This source does correctly show the square footage as 46,046 sq ft when pointed at the right spot on the map; I think just the cite needs to be fixed to point to the right place.
 * Oops. I have fixed this. Epicgenius (talk) 13:53, 31 August 2023 (UTC)
 * ✅ The Offerman Building's site was part of the 19th-century Duffield estate. — Cited to two sources. From the Landmarks Preservation Committee report, Brooklyn was granted its city charter in 1834 and during the years that followed a residential neighborhood formed in the area close to the proposed site of the city hall that was once part of the Duffield estate. Book source includes additional paragraphs about the estate.
 * ✅ The store was so popular that, by 1892, the owners had decided to acquire several additional lots on Duffield Street, measuring a total of 87 feet (27 m) wide and 100 ft (30 m) deep. — From The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, several properties the brothers leased are listed, and one sentence says ...[they] were rewarded by an immense increase in trade. To such an extent was this the case that they found it necessary to acquire still further space to accommodate their constantly growing business. From the Landmarks Preservation Committee report: the 87-by-100-foot annex was completed during Fall 1893.
 * ✅ In July 1922, Martin's Department Store bought the Offerman Building from the Offerman estate, along with an adjacent three-story building at 237 Duffield Street, for nearly $1 million. — The Brooklyn Daily Eagle describes the purchase as being for a figure close to $1,000,000 and mentions the acquisition of the adjacent 3-story building at 237 Duffield.
 * ✅ Shortly before the H&M store opened, Nordstrom Rack announced in 2013 that it would operate a 41,000-square-foot (3,800 m2) store on the second floor of 497 and 505 Fulton Street, making it the Nordstrom chain's first Brooklyn store. — The Crain's article says The new store will mark Nordstrom's first foray into Brooklyn and confirms the square footage and second floor. The Brownstoner article  is I think just to confirm the announcement proceeded the H&M one, as it doesn't really say much, though it also says our guess is that the retailer is headed for 505 Fulton Street, so I'm not even sure it says that much. Personally I'd drop it as a source and just say "Around the same time the H&M store opened", but this is also fine as-is.
 * I've dropped the Brownstoner source. Epicgenius (talk) 13:53, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

Status

Everything looks really good! Sourcing is generally solid; see the one cross above (and also the last note). I don't have much else, this article contains very good information. Everything is well presented, sourcing is excellent, organization is excellent, nothing is missing. Honestly I don't think any of my comments are holding this back from GA but I'll put this on hold to give you a chance to review and incorporate them if you want, otherwise let me know and I am happy to list it! Dylnuge (Talk • Edits) 04:29, 29 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the review @Dylnuge. I should be able to address these by Thursday. – Epicgenius (talk) 23:29, 29 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks again for the review @Dylnuge. I've now addressed all of the issues you mentioned above. Epicgenius (talk) 13:53, 31 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks ! Dylnuge  (Talk • Edits) 15:03, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

— All GA criteria are met and all issues found have been fixed. Listing.