Bedford Stuyvesant

Brooklyn, one building at a time.

Name: Row houses
Address: 348-352 Decatur Street
Cross Streets: Stuyvesant Avenue and Malcolm X Boulevard
Neighborhood: Stuyvesant Heights
Year Built: 1885
Architectural Style: Neo-Grec, with elements of Queen Anne styling
Architect: John S. J. King
Other Work by Architect: None discovered as of yet
Landmarked: Yes, part of new Stuyvesant Heights Extension HD (2013)

The story: In any discipline there are rules that are expected to be followed in order for a work to meet the criteria of style, convention or even law. My musical education taught me that in Western music, for example, there have been times when certain chords and note progressions were forbidden. The tritone, a diminished fifth or augmented fourth interval, perhaps best illustrated as the first two notes in Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story song “Maria” – the “Ma-ri” notes, was called “Diabolis in Musica”, the devil in music. Why? It was an uneven and unfinished dissonance that wanted to be resolved. Medieval musicians up through the Baroque period avoided it like plague. It would not be until the Classical period that the interval was freely used, and even then, was most often used to introduce an element of evil or deviltry into a piece. Today, it’s an integral part of jazz, modern classical and popular music. Go figure.

What does that bit of trivia mean to architecture? It’s just an illustration to point out that sometimes, the rules need to be broken, and the result can be delightful. Sometimes the rules are broken by iconoclastic geniuses, but more often than not, they are broken by the small, unnoticed folk who either don’t know better, or don’t care, and don’t have anything to lose. The rules say that rooflines are flat and horizontal across the expanse of buildings. John King said, “Why?” (more…)

Brooklyn, one building at a time

Name: Row houses
Address: 337-347 Stuyvesant Avenue
Cross Streets: MacDonough and Macon Streets
Neighborhood: Stuyvesant Heights
Year Built:1891
Architectural Style: Queen Anne
Architect:W.R. Bell & Co.
Other work by architect: houses around the corner, at 371-375 MacDonough St.
Landmarked: Yes, part of Stuyvesant Heights Extension HD (2013)

The story: For many people, Stuyvesant Avenue is the border of Bedford Stuyvesant, but in reality, it’s only the center of the Stuyvesant Heights neighborhood, which was developed quite independently of Bedford. Bedford Corners was a thriving crossroads town as far back as the end of the 17th century, but Stuyvesant Heights was largely a suburban community, with little development until the latter part of the 19th century. It wouldn’t be until the 1930s that the two communities were joined, called Bedford Stuyvesant by a Con Edison article in a newspaper.

Stuyvesant Heights extends many more blocks eastward from Stuyvesant Avenue,and is one of the main north/south streets. Most of it is residential, with only scattered commercial buildings here and there, primarily on some of the corners. Development here stretches from 1850s wood framed houses, to the early brownstone styles of the Italianate and Neo-Grec variety, to the late 19th century Romanesque Revival, Queen Anne and Renaissance Revival styles, on to the rich Beaux Arts houses near Fulton Park, with a few mansions and much later 20th century infill houses tossed in for good measure. (more…)