Park Slope Brooklyn -- 119 8th Avenue History

The BOTD is a no-frills look at interesting structures of all types and from all neighborhoods. There will be old, new, important, forgotten, public, private, good and bad. Whatever strikes our fancy. We hope you enjoy.

Address: 119 Eighth Avenue, corner of Carroll Street
Name: Thomas Adams, Jr. House
Neighborhood: Park Slope (Park Slope Historic DIstrict)
Year Built: 1888
Architectural Style: Romanesque Revival
Architects: C.P.H. Gilbert
Landmarked: Yes

This double house is regarded by most architectural commentators to be the finest Romanesque Revival private home in the city. It certainly is one of my favorites.

Thomas Adams made his fortune, and that of many dentists to come, with his manufacture of Chiclets gum, and the vending machine that dispensed it. The building was built as a double house, one facing 8th Ave, the other facing Carroll St, both for Adams family members.

There is, of course, the tale of the house being haunted by the spirits of servants who died, trapped in an elevator when the rest of the family was away.

CPH Gilbert, who also designed much of Montgomery Place and Carroll Street, adjacent to this house, was a master of the Romanesque Revival and Queen Anne Style, and his houses are among the Slope’s best and most expensive homes.

He would go on to Manhattan, to design some of the Upper East Side’s most ostentatious chateaus, all quite different from his warm Brooklyn buildings. He is not Cass Gilbert, architect of the Woolworth Building, btw.

The Adams house is a wealth of individual details that make it so good: the magnificent stained glass, the Byzantine leaf ornament and the carved dragons, as well as the ornate wrought iron fencing, and those amazing doors with the fanciful hardware.

I love it all! An important house like this needs to be better taken care of, however, and I hope it doesn’t deteriorate more, quite a surprise for the Slope.

Maybe it’s the unhappy spirits of those unfortunate servants. Property Shark lists 10 apartments in the building, and it seems to have been owned by the same person for a very long time.

Park Slope Brooklyn -- 119 8th Avenue History Park Slope Brooklyn -- 119 8th Avenue History Park Slope Brooklyn -- 119 8th Avenue History Park Slope Brooklyn -- 119 8th Avenue History

[Photos by Suzanne Spellen]


What's Your Take? Leave a Comment

  1. I live in the wonderful 115 8th Avenue, which is the half of the building that faces 8th. Our part is a co-op, and the other side, which faces Carroll, is the rental part with the mysterious absentee owner. We love our building and try to take care of it, and have been sad to see the garden of old hydrangeas at 117 razed to make room for a field of woodchips and weeds. I think that’s the haunted half, as I haven’t experienced any ectoplasmic activity in our place.