Walkabout: About Whom Little is Known…

(Photo: Bridgeandtunnelclub.com. St. Elias Greek Rite Catholic Church)

The Landmarks Preservation Commission has issued hundreds of reports, over the last 45 years. The first report, designating the entire neighborhood of Brooklyn Heights, written in 1965, is only a couple of pages long. There are no specifics in it at all. Over the years, the reports have grown more and more informative, lengthy, and detailed. Today, in 2011, the reports are complete with maps, historical essays, and architectural descriptions, building histories, architects’ biographies and photographs. Today, we are so overly documented that it seems hard to believe that sometimes you just can’t find information about people or places. Many of the architects who did some of the best work in Brooklyn left behind few details about their personal or professional lives. For most of them, we have no photographs, few personal records or details, and almost no professional records. Wouldn’t it be great to find a box full of blueprints, or a filing cabinet full of purchase orders, or a notebook of ideas? All too often, an architect is described in an LPC report with the phrase, Architect XXX, about who little is known, was responsible for building this structure. As a researcher, I’m thrilled to find out more information about some of these architects than the LPC was able to find. Sometimes you have to dig, but sometimes, it’s all just waiting for someone to piece together. And sometimes, it can be quite tragic. Such is the story of William B. Ditmars.

William B. Ditmars was the architect of Williamsburg’s Sparrow Shoe Factory Warehouse, featured on Tuesday. This building is widely acknowledged as one of the finest cast iron buildings in Brooklyn, obviously the design of a talented architect. What else did this gifted man design, and who was he? We know he was born here in America, according to the Brooklyn Eagle, and grew up in Brooklyn, in the Eastern District, which includes Williamsburg, Bushwick and Greenpoint. His father was Garrett Ditmars, either an architect himself, or a builder. Young William grew up in the world of construction, and was partners with his father on at least one documented job, rebuilding the North 2nd St. Armory, in 1869. William drew up the plans for the rebuilding. He soon had an office on Broadway, in the Eastern District, and most of his work and commissions were there. His parents lived at 230 Quincy Street, near Bedford Avenue, his brother Samuel, and his wife, lived at 226, and William lived with six children a few doors down, at 224 Quincy. His wife had died in 1870 or ’71.

Along with the Sparrow Factory, his best known design was his Reformed Dutch Church of Greenpoint, more recently called the St. Elias Greek Rite Catholic Church, which is now being marketed as a condo conversion. It’s a beautiful Early High Victorian Gothic church, memorable for its use of polychrome, red and grey stone surfaces in the voussoirs, the bands of stone above the archways in the windows and doors. It is on Kent Avenue, between Manhattan and Franklin, within the Greenpoint Historic District. In 1876, Ditmars was one of the three finalists chosen in a contest to design a new Municipal Building for the city of Brooklyn. He would go on to work on the building. Other buildings in his portfolio included the Lee Avenue Academy of Music, the Deutsche Sparbank on Broadway, the Turn Halle, and some brownstone rowhouses, all in Williamsburg, all before 1883. Earlier, in 1878, William Ditmars volunteered to design and supervise the building of a new Eastern District Hospital, as a gift to the district, without compensation.

William Ditmar’s career seemed to be going well, and he was well respected in the Eastern District. It must have come as a great surprise to all concerned when he landed in civil court in April of 1883, bringing suit against his brother Samuel and his wife. The testimony is very confusing, and both sides told vastly different stories, but it boils down to a nasty public dispute over the three houses that his father, Garrett Ditmar had built on Quincy St. Apparently they had been deeded to his wife, William and Samuel’s mother, who in turn, signed them over to William to save them, due to her husband’s financial problems. After the father’s death, the rest of the family swore that William’s ownership was only supposed to be temporary, and Samuel sued William to get his house back. To make matters worse, the widow Ditmars took the stand, testifying that her son William had committed perjury, and worse, had her thrown out of her house, which she said William rented out from under her. The judge ruled in William’s favor, but the damage was done. The Brooklyn Eagle had published much of the trial, the family was totally estranged, and William’s reputation suffered.

Things did not go well for him after that. Like many people, then and now, William Ditmars had other business interests on the side. He was partners in a knitted goods factory, which was losing money. The year after the trial, one of his six sons, cashed a check for $300, upon which he had forged his father’s signature. His brother and mother hated him. He began to be uncaring about business or home, and despondent. He often spoke about killing himself. One of his sons prevented him from cutting his own throat at dinner one evening, after William grabbed a knife and said that he could no longer bear living. On October 30th, he told his housekeeper, Mrs. McGuire, and one of his sons that he wanted to die, and was going to go to the basement to hang himself. They were able to calm him down, and put him to bed, and were quite worried about him. They could hear him pacing above in his bedroom, but when they checked on him, he was asleep. Another child reported waking up at 4am and peeking into his room, where they also found him asleep, or so they thought.

The next morning, Mrs. McGuire was up at six to make breakfast, and found the bathroom door open. Inside William Ditmars had attempted suicide. He had hung himself by attaching a rope to a hook on the wall. He was still alive when they cut him down, but by the time the doctor arrived, he was dead. William Ditmars was only 45 years old. The family drama must have continued after the sale of the estate, which had to pay the debts of the failing factory business, as well as his other debts, because it took two additional years for a restraining order to be lifted that allowed William’s children to bury him in Cypress Hills Cemetery. What a sad end to a talented, and seemingly full, and generously led life….about which, in the long run really, so little was known.

(Photo: Bridgeandtunnelclub.com)