Building of the Day: 55 Seventh Avenue

Brooklyn, one building at a time.

Name: Originally residential, then commercial/residential building
Address: 55 Seventh Avenue
Cross Streets: St. Johns and Lincoln Places
Neighborhood: Park Slope
Year Built: probably 1870’s
Architectural Style: Second Empire
Architect: Unknown
Landmarked: Yes, part of Park Slope HD (1973)

The story: One of the lesser told stories in Brooklyn’s development over the last 200 years, is a chronicling of adaptive reuse. The eminent New York City architectural historian, Andrew Dolkart, recently wrote a book called The Rowhouse Reborn, where he shows how rowhouse owners in the years just before World War I, transformed parts of neighborhoods like Greenwich Village and Gramercy Park into artistic renditions of European neighborhoods. They removed stoops, details, and historic architectural detail, substituting those elements with Mediterranean tile, stucco, shutters and Spanish balconies and railings. The result was, in this case, a renaissance for the neighborhoods concerned.

Of course, neither Professor Dolkart, nor I, for that matter, thinks this is always a good thing. We all know what botched and inappropriate alterations can do for a building, and the block it lies on. I find rows of brownstones with no stoops and stripped facades terribly sad, like seeing a dowager without her furs. Yet, for good reasons, or not so good reasons, buildings get altered all the time. Especially buildings on mixed commercial/residential streets like Seventh Avenue in Park Slope.

This group of houses was built to house well-to-do merchants, some of whom had shops nearby. They are a handsome group of five story Second Empire homes, basically classic Italianates with an extra story “hat”. Some of them have well-preserved pedimented entryways, with brownstone columns, as well as sturdy stoops and substantial window ledges and hoods. Census records show one of these houses was owned by a wealthy diamond merchant. As Seventh Avenue grew more commercial, some of these houses began to lose their details, and the two closest to Lincoln Place had front additions added to incorporate shops and businesses.

This house gained a two story addition which housed a neo-Gothic style funeral establishment. The addition is very well done, with Gothic details in the shapes of the windows, the limestone ornamental details and the beautiful second story stained glass window. I was not able to date this addition, so if anyone knows when it was done, please educate me.

The addition itself is really well done, but is a jarring contrast to the rest of the row, and even to the top part of the building. This now co-op building is an anomaly, an architectural amalgam of styles that makes you go “what the…” when you come upon it, and as such, I like it for stirring the imagination as to its former use. Like the Mediterranean festooned brownstones of the West Village, it represents adaptive reuse – a noble pursuit for our historic buildings, at the same time, a blow to my generally purist heart. GMAP