Building of the Day: 109 Kent Street

(Photo: Christopher Bride for Property Shark, 2012)

Brooklyn, one building at a time.

Name: Row house
Address: 109 Kent Street
Cross Streets: Franklin St. and Manhattan Avenue
Neighborhood: Greenpoint
Year Built: 1863
Architectural Style: Italianate
Architect: (Builder) Jeremiah Foulks
Landmarked: Yes, part of Greenpoint HD (1982)

The story: The story of Greenpoint is the story of manufacturing. The neighborhood was home to important industries which are now long gone: shipbuilding, glassmaking, oil, china and porcelain. Both the factory owners and their skilled workforce lived here, and most of the neighborhood that comprises the Greenpoint Historic District still has a very distinct 19th century feeling to it. You can still almost hear the hammers and saws that built the ships, the shouts of dockworkers, and the heavy tread of tired people coming home after a long day’s work. One of those people came home to this cozy little cottage surrounded by much taller homes.

The two story brick house was built by Jeremiah Foulks, in 1863. Foulks was not in the business of house building; his real talent lay in ships. He and partner Herbert Lawrence were Lawrence & Foulks, prominent shipbuilders, based in Williamsburg and Greenpoint. (Most of the newspaper and contemporary accounts of Mr. Foulks have him named “William”, while the LPC calls him Jeremiah, so I’m not sure if this was the same man using a middle name, somewhere. Most of the details add up to it being him, however, and the timeline fits, as well.) Theirs was one of four or five very successful shipbuilding companies on the Greenpoint/Williamsburg docks, and their specialty was in building high speed wooden steamboats and steamships. They built over 144 ships in their sixty-some year existence.

Mr. Foulks was born in England, and came over here in 1850, and with another partner, immediately started building steamships. He partnered with Herbert Lawrence, a man almost twenty years his junior, the son of another very successful shipbuilder. Together they built ships for the Union Navy during the Civil War, and were one of the few companies to keep going after the war was over. They prospered by making steamships for the newly opened trade to China, and extremely fast steamships that made the Albany-New York run in an unheard of six and a half hours. Foulks suffered a fatal accident, in August of 1886, falling from a scaffold, and he died days later. The company would prosper until the dawn of the 20th century, unwilling to trade wood for steel and iron. They went out of business in 1901, and Herbert Lawrence died a year later.

But back to this house. The house was home to another famous son of Greenpoint: James R. Sparrow, Jr. The Sparrows were prolific developers in Greenpoint, responsible for the building of many speculative houses in the neighborhood, including the two houses to the left of this one, as well as several across the street. James Sparrow and son were also prominent manufacturers, with factories here and in Williamsburg, including a large shoe factory warehouse at 195 Broadway.

The building had a wide and large addition put on the back and side, probably when Sparrow Junior owned it, increasing its size to 2,850 square feet. You can see from the Property Shark map below, that it is now a large house, perhaps with more than one addition, sitting on an unusually large lot. The house was painted white, back in the 1980s, as per the tax photo, so it’s good to see it back in its original red brick. Amazingly, the house also still has its original cast iron fencing, as well. Like its builder’s steamships, which raced up the Hudson faster than most thought would be possible, this diminutive seeming house has a lot going on behind its façade. GMAP