Building of the Day: 861 Pacific Street

Brooklyn, one building at a time.

Name: Row house with storefront
Address: 861 Pacific Street
Cross Streets: Vanderbilt and Underhill avenues
Neighborhood: Prospect Heights
Year Built: Late 1850s, early 1860s
Architectural Style: Italianate
Architect: Unknown
Landmarked: No

The story: Most of Prospect Heights was farmland until after the Civil War, owned by the Bergen and other Dutch families who settled here, beginning in the mid-17th century. The establishment of the Flatbush toll road opened up the area to settlement, but by the 1840s, the two wards that made up the Prospect Heights area were the least populated wards in the new city of Brooklyn. It wasn’t until after the Civil War that building here began to begin in earnest.

Atlantic Avenue has always been a busy thoroughfare too, and the Long Island Railroad has been running along its length since 1836. Because of that proximity, development along Pacific Street would be amongst the earliest in the area. This part of town also got a boost from St. Joseph’s Church, the first version of which was constructed on the site of the present day church complex in 1851. It stands to reason that the buildings across the street would have soon followed; giving this stretch of Pacific a small town feel.

No. 861 and its next door neighbor, 863, are probably the oldest buildings on a block that has lost many of its original buildings over the years. Even these survivors have had massive alterations, and may explain why this block was not included in the landmark district established in 2009. This building was originally a storefront with apartments above. In the time honored tradition of a storekeeper living over his shop, perhaps with an apartment to spare, this building housed a number of small businesses over the century and a half of its existence.

Forgetting for a moment the bricked-in storefront, the building still has a lot of wonderful Italianate details. The clapboard siding, the intact wooden cornice over the store, and that great massive wooden cornice on the entire building are beautiful. All in amazing shape, considering its age. They literally don’t make wood like that anymore. The original storefront probably had a center entrance, with two flanking glass display windows. A side door would have led upstairs.

There were a number of businesses here over the years. The first on record seems to have been a liquor establishment; amazingly right across the street from a church, too. There were notices in the paper offering a liquor business for sale at this address in 1872. The business was owned by a man named Quailley. That same year, Thomas Quailley, the owner’s son, accidently shot and killed a man in the store. It appears that young Quailey was examining an old musket in the shop, with others present, and it went off. The ball went right into the eye of Henry J. Taggert, killing him instantly. The coroner ruled the death accidental.

The next business of note at this address was a funeral parlor. From at least 1899 until 1914, or longer, this was the location of Peter Farrell & Sons, Undertakers. From the notices in the papers, most of their clients were Irish, and probably went to church across the street. It was a very good location for an undertaking business, which is why they lasted as long as they did in an ever-changing Brooklyn landscape.

There were also tenants upstairs, whose activities included clubs and organizations that made the papers, as well as their death notices. It’s too bad we can’t see our names in print, because we’ve gone, but those names are an important trail in building investigations. I don’t know when the storefront windows were bricked in, but it was after the early 1980s tax photo was taken. A roll-down gate and storefront are visible in that photograph. But one can also see that the façade had been modernized, and the Victorian storefront was long gone. Today, the building still has one commercial and two residential tenants. GMAP