Building of the Day: 201-249 Lexington Avenue

1880 map. New York Public Library

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Brooklyn, one building at a time.

Name: Row Houses
Address: 201-249 Lexington Avenue
Cross Streets: Bedford and Nostrand Avenues
Neighborhood: Bedford Stuyvesant
Year Built: sometime between 1880 and 1886
Architectural Style: Neo-Grec with Queen Anne details
Architect: Unknown
Landmarked: No

The story: We have a mystery here. The 1880 Bromley Atlas for the City of Brooklyn clearly shows elevated tracks along Lexington Avenue in Bedford. Yet a history of that elevated line states that the trains didn’t start running until 1885. Perhaps they were building them, or were going to start to build them back in 1880, so they put them on the map. Who knows? What is more interesting is the development on Lexington Avenue itself.

We know today that a street with trains rumbling by overhead is not seen as prime real estate, or having optimal living conditions, with noise, lack of sunlight and soot. But back then; this was new technology and new opportunities for public transportation. In 1880, the Bromley Atlas shows there was no development on the north side of the block of Lexington between Nostrand and Bedford. Not a single building. The south side had only one group of row houses, in the middle of the block. What a difference six years makes!

The Robinson Atlas of Brooklyn, published in 1886, shows an entirely different picture. The north side of Lexington was built up with a group of 30 houses; all built by the same developer, in the same style – a late Neo-Grec style, with Queen Anne detailing. They were the only houses on that side of the block, but they took up more than half of the block. Across the street, the entire block had been developed with row houses.

Over the years, the uniformity of the row has been interrupted. First a group of five houses in the middle had two sided bays added to them, which appear in an 1888 atlas. Then, in 2007, 209 Lex was replaced by a Fedders building. But the rest of the row has remained relatively intact, with the main loss being replacement doors, stair rails and fences. They all sit back from the street, affording each house with a nice sized front yard.

The buildings are two and a half story brick houses, with brownstone lintels and trim. All of the lintels above the windows and doors are incised with patterns, in the manner of the Neo-Grec style. But these are much later than the usual Neo-Grecs, which first appeared in the late 1870s, and have evolved from simple geometric lines and simplified floral shapes into Queen Anne-influenced stars and floral patterns. The wooden cornices have evolved in the same way, from simple corbels to more elaborate patterns.

The block was marketed to middle class homeowners, people not rich, but wealthy enough to afford one servant. There are many ads in the Brooklyn Eagle for people looking for an all-around home helper. Some houses soon offered a room for rent. Not much went on here, and don’t forget, the el rumbled above them, a convenience for getting to work and around, but probably not the most quiet place to live. The train now took people from Fulton Ferry all the way across to East New York.

But one can get used to anything, even trains, and these were nice houses, otherwise. In 1900, a bicycle patrolman named Henshaw caught two young men running from a grocery store on Bedford Avenue. They had shoplifted two boxes of oatmeal, a box of crispy rice cereal and a package of coffee. One of the boys was William Bindrian, of 219 Lexington Avenue. He was 21 years old. His companion was 17. The boys were taken to the Gates Avenue courthouse, where young Bindrian admitted to stealing the items and forcing his friend to help carry them. He was held over for the Court of Special Sessions.

Two years later, his mother was featured in an article about beautifying Lexington Avenue. Many of the homeowners in this group of houses had allowed ivy to grow up on the front of the buildings, totally obscuring all of the building’s details. They were also landscaping their yards with flowers and shrubs. Mrs. Bindrian, whose name was spelled Bin Drim in the photograph, but not in the article, had started it all, cultivating her “garden patch” as she called it, and it had caught on with the neighbors.

She said that before they started gardening in their spacious front yards, the boys on the block had played ball in the dirt yards. She said that seven years before, she had returned from the country, and wanted to have flowers and plants in her yard to remind her of the country. She said the back yard wasn’t big enough, so she started gardening in the front. Her neighbors got jealous, and they started gardening too, and then everyone was planting ivy, which began to grow up the sides of the house. Seven years later, the entire block on the north side was a sea of plants, flowers and vines.

Mrs. Bindrian said that all of the work was done by the ladies on the block, aided by mothers and daughters. They had a friendly rivalry as to who had the best yard, and all of the ladies had their favorite plants and species of flowers. As the trains rumbled overhead, people could look down and see the garden spot of Lexington Avenue.

The train rumbled overhead until 1950, when the elevated line was demolished. Today, some people still garden in the large space; but sadly, many have turned their gardens into driveways.Traces of vines still cling to the cornices of some buildings.

(Photograph:S.Spellen)

GMAP

1880 map. New York Public Library

1880 map. New York Public Library

1886 map. New York Public Library

1886 map. New York Public Library

1902 Brooklyn Eagle article

1902 Brooklyn Eagle article

Photo: S.Spellen

Photo: S.Spellen

Photo: S.Spellen

Photo: S.Spellen

Photo: S.Spellen

Photo: S.Spellen

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