By Jared Ebersole in Video 08 Nov 2026

Brooklyn’s Tooth Tower and the Dentists Who Fought to Stay

The Williamsburgh Savings Bank Tower gave Brooklyn a skyline icon and generations of dental appointments. Its conversion into luxury condos put those two identities on a collision course.

For decades, one of Brooklyn’s most imposing buildings offered a surprisingly ordinary reason to go upstairs: a dental appointment. Beneath the gilded dome of the Williamsburgh Savings Bank Tower, patients came for fillings, braces, and root canals. The skyline belonged to a bank; much of the working building belonged to dentistry.

That arrangement gave the tower its affectionate nickname, the Tooth Tower. It also set up a struggle over what a landmark should contain when its real estate becomes more valuable than its existing use. When developers prepared to replace offices with luxury apartments, the dentists organized to stay. Their fight reached beyond nostalgia. They had practices, specialized equipment, and patients attached to the address.

Where it is

Williamsburgh Savings Bank Tower 1 Hanson Place, at Ashland Place Fort Greene, Brooklyn

Completed in 1929, the 512-foot tower remained Brooklyn’s tallest building until the Brooklyner surpassed it in 2009. The Center for Brooklyn History’s archival guide records that long reign, along with the building’s evolution from bank and offices into condominiums. For roughly eight decades, this was the height against which Brooklyn measured itself. Center for Brooklyn History

The architects, Halsey, McCormack & Helmer, gave that height a distinctive shape. Setbacks draw the eye toward the four-faced clock and dome, while the lower stories carry rich ornamental carving. From a distance, the tower works as a recognizable silhouette. Up close, it rewards a slower look.

Its most extravagant architectural gesture, however, sits near the sidewalk. The former banking room follows a churchlike arrangement of nave and aisles, with golden mosaic vaults, patterned floors, and sumptuous marble. Sculpture by René P. Chambellan and mosaics by Angelo Magnanti helped turn a financial institution into a civic spectacle. The Historic Districts Council describes an interior that makes banking feel almost religious. Historic Districts Council

The message was easy to read even without understanding the decorative program: money deposited here was meant to feel secure. Heavy materials and monumental space made permanence visible. A customer entering to conduct an everyday transaction encountered architecture scaled for something much grander.

The hall’s ceiling rises 63 feet, and its floors and walls incorporate 22 varieties of marble, according to the venue’s own account. That visual abundance has carried into another career on screen. The venue lists John Wick 3 among productions filmed there. Its vaulted volume and elaborate surfaces give filmmakers a ready-made atmosphere that would be difficult to reproduce on a blank stage. One Hanson Place

Upstairs, the building’s appeal was more practical. The dental community turned an architectural monument into a place of repeat visits and familiar routines. A patient might recognize the clock tower from streets away, then know the building through a waiting room and an examination chair.

Contemporary reporting preserved by researcher Barry Popik describes a dental population that once exceeded 100 specialists. By May 2005, dentist Ian Lerner put the remaining community at about 40 dentists in roughly 24 offices. Lerner led a coalition concerned about losing its foothold after the building’s sale to investors whose partners included Magic Johnson. Contemporary reporting collected by Barry Popik

The tenants’ concerns were concrete. In a June 2004 Daily News report reproduced in that collection, dentist Korngut said his 500-square-foot office cost $2,500 a month, compared with $493 in 1978. He also explained why relocation was especially burdensome: a dental practice required considerably more preparation than moving a desk and connecting a telephone. The expense was tied to the work itself.

A modest office could represent years of investment. Leaving meant finding another suitable space and equipping it, while preserving the relationships that made a practice viable. The tower’s changing economics threatened that accumulated value, even as the building’s architecture became an asset for a different market.

The dentists’ resistance eventually produced an unusually direct proposal: buy their place in the building’s future.

In October 2007, The Brooklyn Paper reported that 10 remaining dentists and physicians had offered the Dermot Company $10 million for a commercial condominium encompassing 15 medical suites. The approximately 32,000-square-foot property was being marketed for $15.4 million. Pooling their resources would have moved the practitioners from the uncertainty of tenancy toward ownership.

Dermot’s spokeswoman rejected the offer as substantially below market. The same report described expiring leases and rents that one doctor characterized as exorbitant. Endodontist Mark Coffiner, who had practiced in the building for 35 years, said he and others were willing to endure construction disruption if they could remain. The Brooklyn Paper, October 6, 2007, page 19

The disagreement exposed two measures of the same space. To the practitioners, it held established livelihoods and a network of patients. To the developer, it was a property with a market price and obligations to investors. The doctors could organize, negotiate, and offer millions of dollars, yet those efforts did not make the two valuations meet.

The hall below faced its own search for a durable purpose. The Center for Brooklyn History records that Brooklyn Flea began using the ornate former banking room in 2010. A space designed for deposits could accommodate browsing and buying, allowing another kind of everyday activity beneath its monumental ceiling.

A further transformation is now planned. In May 2026, The Architect’s Newspaper reported an agreement between Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment and hospitality brand Casa Tua to create a food and beverage destination in the former banking hall. The announced scheme includes a central bar and lounge, with private dining and event space below. Opening was projected for 2027. The Architect’s Newspaper

That proposal would bring another audience through the building’s doors. It also extends the question raised by the dentists: which activities can afford to occupy a beloved landmark? The clock and golden crown make the tower recognizable. The dental offices made it familiar. Brooklyn’s Tooth Tower shows how much a building can change while continuing to look like itself.