448-450 48th St. SP, NS, PS 1

Brooklyn, one building at a time.

Name: Wood-framed row houses
Address: 448-450 48th Street
Cross Streets: 4th and 5th avenues
Neighborhood: Sunset Park
Year Built: 1890
Architectural Style: Originally Queen Anne
Architect: George Walkinshaw
Landmarked: No, but Sunset Park is on the National Register of Historic Places (1988). Landmarking is needed

The story: The earliest houses still standing in Sunset Park are no older than the early 1880s. This neighborhood was one of the last of Brooklyn’s brownstone neighborhoods to be developed. There’s only one or two of them left, tucked in the brownstone and limestone rows. In the 1890s, builders began putting up the first of the row house groups, and along with those brownstones were also built some rows of attached wood-framed houses. Today, we tend to associate wood-framed houses with earlier times, but many of them were built at the same time as the masonry homes. Wood was just another choice for building materials.

This pair of wooden houses was built in 1890, right at the beginning of serious development here, and represented another choice for buyers, and an opportunity for some interesting design. Unfortunately, that design is now gone. It wasn’t destroyed in the 1950s, or 1970s, but only a couple of years ago, twenty years after the bulk of the neighborhood had been placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.

The houses were designed in the Queen Anne style by an architect named George Walkinshaw. From what little I could find out about him, he was a Scottish architect originally from Edinburgh. He settled in Pennsylvania, and his name is associated with some projects in the Hazelton area. Thomas Bennett, one of Sunset Park’s most prolific architects, had an office in Philadelphia, so perhaps the two men knew each other, and perhaps Bennnet gave him this Sunset Park connection.

Walkinshaw designed two attractive Queen Anne houses in wood. We see so many in stone and brick in other neighborhoods, but Brooklyn has very few classic Queen Anne row houses in wood. These were great. They were built on a brick ground floor base, and had twin central towers, steep mansard roofs. They also had nice porched-in entryways with turned wood trim in a decorative sunburst pattern over the doorway. They were attractive wooden houses that probably had clapboard siding, or maybe even shingles. The parlor floor was high atop a very tall stoop, allowing for high windows on the ground floor. They may have been built, like most of Sunset Park’s houses, for two families.

The occupants of both houses were salt of the earth, hard-working folk. Mirroring the socio-economic background of the general neighborhood, the families were Scandinavians, Italians, Irish, Scots and English. Their occupations, as listed in the papers when they married, died, or were victims of an accident or crime, were nursing, pattern-making, police, dock workers, factory workers and cab drivers, among others.

Both houses kept their general original appearances until sometime 2007 and 2010, as evidenced by the first and second Property Shark photographs. Both homes seem to have undergone major surgery at the same time. When the wreckers were done, these two bland, non-descript homes were left in their wake. Being on the National Register did not protect them. Ironically, with the amount of work needed to make their houses what they are today, the fact that they are on the NR could have worked to the homeowner’s advantage. Substantial tax credits are available for improvements to buildings listed on the register. They could have possibly been restored with the same amount of money used to strip the details and enclose in vinyl siding.

Landmarking would have protected the original appearances of these houses. There are serious efforts afoot to landmark parts of Sunset Park. The efforts are led by a group of people who include oldtimers as well as newcomers. Landmarking would insure that no house in the Historic District would be allowed to be encased in vinyl siding, its details and beauty lost.

(Photo: Nicholas Strini for PropertyShark)

GMAP

Photo: Nicholas Strini for Property Shark
Photo: Nicholas Strini for PropertyShark
Houses in 2007. Photo: Kate Leonova for Property Shark
Houses in 2007. Photo: Kate Leonova for PropertyShark
Houses in 2007. Photo: Kate Leonova for Property Shark
Houses in 2007. Photo: Kate Leonova for PropertyShark
Photo: Google Maps
Photo: Google Maps

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