Swastika Floor Tiles Adorn Brooklyn Apartment Complex
A swastika Image by Wikimedia Commons
Tiles with swastikas on them are found throughout a Greenwood Heights apartment complex, Brooklyn Paper reported Thursday.
Other tiles in the Brooklyn Garden Apartments are emblazoned with crowns, crosses and interlocking circles.
The complex was build in 1928, according to city records, and the architect’s name is illegible.
Vance Koehler, a tile historian, told Brooklyn Paper that the building’s tiles come from Mueller Mosaic Company, a former tile manufacturer based in Trenton, NJ. He said at the time the apartment was built, the swastika was nothing more than a common decorative symbol.
“You’re going to find that swastika symbol in many tile manufacturers of the early 20th century,” Koehler said. “The symbol is very old, and until the Nazis came along, it was a positive symbol.”
The building’s landlord, Isaac Kurtz, said he has no plans to get rid of the swastikas.
“It is just an emblem engraved on the floor,” he said.
Alyssa Fisher is a news writer at the Forward. Email her at [email protected], or follow her on Twitter at @alyssalfisher
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
