NYPD 13th Precinct Station House & Recruit Processing Center (former Training Academy) (New York City, New York)

 police station, career academy

9-story mid-century-modern police station completed in 1964. Designed by Kelly & Gruzen, it was designed for both the 13th Police Precinct (facing 21st Street) and Police Academy (facing 20th Street). Within 25 years, however, the academy facility was regarded as antiquated and obsolete, and no longer had capacity for larger classes of police trainees. Proposals for a new academy were publicized as early as 1985. A new police training center was finally opened in College Point, Queens, in 2015. There was consideration to turning to older academy building into a public school, but it ultimately was used as a new Candidate Assessment Center, and serves as a processing center for police recruits, while the police station continues to operate in the north section of the building.

The facades are clad in beige brick with black granite piers, and on the north facade, a grey granite ground floor. The north facade is organized into six bays, each with a band of six windows in aluminum framing. The eastern two bays have garage doors at the ground floor, and the main entrance to the police station is in the 3rd bay from the west, with four steel-framed glass doors below a steel canopy. A flagpole is mounted above the canopy. There are setbacks above the 6th & 7th floors. On the west half of the roof, a penthouse level connects to the south building housing the processing center.

The south facade on 20th Street is organized into 12 bays on the upper floors, each with a band of four windows. The black granite piers extend down through the ground floor where the bays are recessed between the piers and have plate-glass windows (now covered by navy-blue canvas tarps). The eastern four bays are reorganized into two larger bays at the ground floor, with deeply recessed entrances, and a vehicle ramp in the end bay. These two bays are covered by a steel canopy with three flagpoles projecting out above it.

At the west end is a tall 2-story wing extending farther down 20th Street. It is also clad in beige brick, but without the granite piers (there are narrow vertical grooves in the brick instead). It has no openings on the lower level, but the 2nd floor has a continuous band of windows in metal framing, in grids of 4-over-3 in each bay.