Building of the Day: 711 Nostrand Avenue

Brooklyn, one building at a time.

Name: Commercial building with flats above
Address: 711 Nostrand Avenue
Cross Streets: Between Park and Sterling Places
Neighborhood: Crown Heights North
Year Built: 1899
Architectural Style: Colonial Revival
Architect: George P. Chappell
Other Work by Architect: Over 50 buildings in Crown Hts North alone, including many on Dean St. Pacific Street, including St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church, New York Avenue, Bergen Street and Park and Prospect Places. Also buildings in Stuyvesant Heights, Bedford Stuyvesant and Park Slope
Landmarked: Yes, part of Phase II of Crown Heights North HD (2011)

The story: One of the reasons Brooklyn’s historic districts are so great, architecturally speaking, is because of the continuity between the residential and commercial streets. Many of the same architects who designed the fine homes on the residential side streets also designed the buildings on the busy commercial streets. These buildings were no less detailed, no less well-though out, and in fact, may have even been more so, due to the fact that people would be able to see them in their daily travels, as well as patronize the businesses that were on the first floors of these buildings.

Nostrand Avenue is one of the great commercial thoroughfares of our borough, and at the dawn of the 20th century, was still being developed. It wouldn’t be really finished, at least not in the Crown Heights section, until the 1930s. The storefront buildings, apartment buildings and commercial buildings, including the banks that line the street between Atlantic Avenue and Eastern Parkway are a delightful mixture of architectural styles and flavors. Although almost all of the storefronts have been altered, some beyond recognition, the street retains a great deal of its original architecture.

One of Crown Heights’ most prolific architects, one featured in this column quite often, is George Poole Chappell. A search in the Brownstoner archives will turn up many of his buildings in Crown Heights and other neighborhoods, all of them quite imaginative and good. Chappell was able to adapt, as architectural styles changed over the course of his long career, and design in whatever style was being requested by his clients. Other architects, even some of the good ones, were outstanding in one style, but just didn’t have it in others. Chappell was different, taking it all in stride, and excelling in everything from Romanesque Revival to Queen Anne, Renaissance Revival to Colonial Revival, with a few totally eclectic turns in between.

By the dawn of the new century, the architectural fashion of the day was the Colonial Revival, a revisiting of the Georgian and Federal styles brought over from England, well steeped in the Greco-Roman classical tradition. Row houses and attached structures were often adapted to this style by combining red brick with limestone or concrete trimmings and classical detailing, and that is what Chappell did on this very handsome storefront and flats building.

Because of the hustle and bustle of getting to work, or shopping, we often do not notice what kind of buildings the stores and businesses we pass are actually housed in. This building is worth a look from across the street. Chappell designed an elegant red brick and limestone building, most notably with tall, two story classical pilasters flanking the sides. These not only ornament the building, they draw the eye upward, leading to the top floor, neatly faced with four windows spread evenly across the façade, capped with a simple limestone band, and then a large overhanging pressed metal cornice. The windows on the second and third floor are crowned with splayed lintels, with prominent capstones in the center. The ground floor must have been equally elegant, although 100 years of storefront alterations have changed its features many times.

In 1913, the ground floor shop was the Wapner & Germaise Company, which made awnings, did upholstery and slipcovers, as well as interior design consultations. In 1930, the store was a dress shop owned by a man named Julius Grabenstein. That year, the shop was totally destroyed by a fire that also injured one of the firemen working to put it out. These are the only two businesses that made the papers, but a physical search of city records would turn up many, many more.

Upstairs, there were three floors of apartments, each floor-throughs of six rooms. An ad in the Brooklyn Eagle from 1905 advertises apartments in this building for only $25 per month. The apartments had hot water, steam heat, and open plumbing, all important amenities. These flats were certainly large enough for families, and over the years, some of them made the news as well, unfortunately, usually when they died.

In 1910, three year old Arthur Kaustrom was in the street in front of the building when he ran out onto Nostrand Avenue and was run over by the Nostrand Avenue trolley. His legs were crushed by the wheels, and the poor child died an hour later in nearby Swedish Hospital. The driver of the trolley, John Flood, was arrested on a tentative charge of homicide, but he was later released, as the tragedy was an accident.

Perhaps the most famous person to live at 711 Nostrand was Richard Roche, who died in 1917. He lived here with his wife and two children. Roche was widely known in certain circles about town as “Dick Roche, the turfman, bookmaker, and backer of famous pugilists,” as his obituary in the Eagle read. Roche, who hailed from England, had come to the United States as a young man, eventually living in Utica, Detroit and St. Louis, where he gained a reputation as a successful “turfman”, someone who followed, and capitalized on horseracing. By the time he reached New York City, he was said to be worth $900,000. He began financing boxers, billiards players, and horsemen, and was the financial backer of championship boxer Jack Dempsey, among others.

He retired from the sporting field in 1910, living quietly here in a flat above a store on Nostrand Avenue. However, his man about town, free-wheeling player past may have killed him in the end. Dick Roche died of locomotor ataxia, a degenerative disease where one cannot control one’s motor or bodily functions. It was extremely painful, and was caused by excessive sexual activity, as well as excessive narcotic and alcohol use. The treatments used back then included tinctures of mercury and arsenic, and did as much to kill the patient as the disease. Roche was 67 years old, and his funeral was at nearby St. Gregory the Great Catholic Church. GMAP

(Photo: Christopher D. Brazee for Landmarks Preservation Commission, 2011)