Building of the Day: 1238-1254 Lincoln Place
Brooklyn, one building at a time.
Name: Semi-detached row houses
Address: 1238-1254 Lincoln Place
Cross Streets: Troy and Schenectady Avenues
Neighborhood: Crown Heights North
Year Built: late teens, early 1920s
Architectural Style: Vaguely Mediterranean
Architect: Unknown
Landmarked: No
The story: By the first two decades of the 20th century, housing was at a crossroads in function and style. This was the end of the brownstone period, and also the end of the kind of basic row house design that had been popular for the last 80 years. From the first brick Greek Revival houses of the 1830s and 40s up to the Colonial Revival row houses of the early 20th century, single family housing had come full circle: from brick through brownstone, brick, a mixture of the two and more, limestone, and then back to brick. The shapes had stayed pretty similar as well, with variations on flat, bowed, bayed or eclectic going back and forth over the years.
Since Crown Heights was one of the later neighborhoods to be developed, the housing styles of the late 19th and early 20th century are especially varied here. Developers in the far eastern part of the neighborhood were building for a different buyer at a different time than the builders and buyers of western Crown Heights. The people here were not the upper crust of the St. Marks District, they were the middle class, mostly immigrant population that was settling in Brooklyn in large numbers at this time.
These people were not looking for single family manses, for the most part, they couldn’t afford them even if they wanted them. So developers began filling the blocks between the avenues named after upstate NY cities with a combination of six and eight family walk up flats buildings, larger 6 story apartments buildings and two family houses.
The first two family houses were limestones, resembling the one family houses built to the west. These two family limestones were going up everywhere at this time, from Crown Heights North and South, to Sunset Park, to Windsor Terrace, Bay Ridge and parts of Flatbush. They were attractive, and sold well.
But then styles changed, and a new sort of 2 family began popping up in the borough. These were “modern” and vaguely Mediterranean in design, not the old brownstone styles, had separate entrances, porches, were usually semi-detached, and had that amenity of amenities, the family garage, and usually one two-car garage for each house. The houses went up on blocks that had the older limestone two-families, as well as flats and apartment buildings. The mixture is a history lesson on Brooklyn residential multi-family housing.
The developer of this row of six houses also built four more directly across the street. They are all identical.
Over the years, all of the front porches on the lower levels have been filled in to make another room. The only variety in the group is in how those porch rooms were configured with windows and/or bays. Inside, the house layout reflected the new modern lifestyle, no formal parlors, but a small living room, a formal dining room, small kitchen, two bedrooms and a bathroom. There was no room for fireplaces and fancy woodwork.
By the 1920s and until at least World War II, this neighborhood was mostly Jewish, with origins in Eastern Europe. Not much happened to make the news, but occasionally there was something. In 1926, a man named Arthur Jacobowitz was in his garage at 1238 Lincoln Place, making repairs on his car. He succumbed to carbon monoxide poisoning, and was found dead in the garage.
In 1949, 1244 was home to Rabbi Israel Twersky of Congregation Karan Israel. He was quoted in the Eagle as one of many Crown Heights, Bedford Stuyvesant and Lefferts Gardens residents who were not being served by the Sanitation Dept. Other neighborhoods in the city at that time were getting daily pickups. These neighborhoods were getting three per week. Garbage was piling up, and they were not happy, and complained to the city, and to the newspapers. Little did they know it would get worse before it got better.
Today, this part of Crown Heights is seeing new development. A developer who has been in the real estate news a lot recently, Boaz Gilad, bought the church on Eastern Parkway behind 1238 and 1242, and plans to build a four story, 10 unit building. They bought 1238, and will soon tear it down and extend their building back to Lincoln Place. This will adversely affect the row aesthetically and physically, cutting off light to the neighboring houses, as well as wreaking havoc with the streetscape.
In comments in an article on Brownstoner, I mentioned that I didn’t hate the design on Eastern Parkway. I do have problems with their back end here. These rows of middle class houses may be found all over parts of Brooklyn, and are not the most gorgeous designs in the world. But so what, they serve the needs of a populace that wanted, and still wants this kind of housing. The row deserves better. GMAP
(Photo: Nicholas Strini for Property Shark)