Building of the Day: 236 Carroll Street

Brooklyn, one building at a time.

Name: Row house
Address: 236 Carroll Street
Cross Streets: Corner Court Street
Neighborhood: Carroll Gardens
Year Built: Before 1871
Architectural Style: Italianate
Architect: Unknown
Landmarked: No

The story: The name Carroll Gardens is not an old one. It was adapted in the 1960s to give the neighborhood a separate identity from its two large surrounding industrial areas, Red Hook and Gowanus. Up until that time, and for some old-timers still, it was called South Brooklyn or Red Hook. Developers began building houses here after the street grid was laid down in 1835, so this is one of Brooklyn’s oldest developed neighborhoods.

The expansion of the Red Hook docks and the businesses that accompanied that helped spur interest in the neighborhood as a residential area. As the 19th century progressed, the growth of the Gowanus area also made this central residential neighborhood attractive to the owners of the nearby businesses. In the 1840s, Carroll Park was purchased as a private garden for the wealthy homeowners surrounding it.

The park didn’t get real development in that department until the 1870s, when many of the houses around it were built. However, knowing that the park would one day be there encouraged developers to build large townhouses on wide lots around the park, similar to those in Brooklyn Heights. This house was built at that time, sometime in the late 1860s, and finished before 1871, when an ad for its sale appears in the Brooklyn Daily Union.

The ad was for an auction for the property. The neighborhood was called Carroll Park, and the house was described as being in “perfect order and contains all modern improvements. Built in the best manner and finished in superior style. Handsome saloon parlor, superb marble mantels, library, conservatory, billiard room, etc.” They further state that the large house would make an excellent club house, or could be turned into a paying business property.

It’s easy to see this as a fine urban clubhouse, or a gracious home. It’s a very comfortable 28 feet wide. The house has a prime spot on the corner of Carroll and Court Streets, with the entrance on residential Carroll Street. There are plenty of windows, and a separate delivery entrance on Court. The lot originally extended behind the house to include what is now 371 Court Street, an early 20th century building. That can be seen in an 1898-99 map of the area.

This house is not part of the group of houses next door on Carroll; it may have been built to order, or on spec as a single unit. The façade is quite impressive, an unusual take on the late Italianate style, with an impressive front entrance with a heavily carved door hood and brackets. The windows are also heavily hooded with simplified versions of the doorway, all capped off by a very elaborate and ornate cornice with spindle and lattice ornamentation beneath the rows of brackets. Many of the larger elements have been covered with tin, probably to protect them from water, but it certainly appears to be mostly wood.

The house had a lot of owners and/or tenants of wealth over the years. There were several medical doctors as well as merchants, insurance, financial, and other businessmen. One of them was Seba M. Bogart, a stock broker who owned his own firm, Seba M. Bogart & Co. at 7 Broadway in Manhattan. He bought the house in 1887. On May 10th, 1896, he ran up to a policeman near his office and exclaimed that his son, John W. Bogart, had threatened to kill him with a gun. John, who was 50 years old, was being held by employees, and was arrested and his handgun, a newly purchased pistol, was confiscated.

Everyone went down to the police station, and John was taken to the Tombs. An old familiar story emerged. The elderly Bogart had words with his son in the morning, at the office, where he also worked. Mr. Bogart had gone to a lunch appointment and came back to find his son still quite agitated. John had inherited $10,000 from his grandfather’s estate when he was 21 (not a small sum in those days) and had blown through it. He needed money now to support his wife and four children. His family lived in New Jersey.

Papa Bogart told the police that John was afraid his father was going to leave most of his money to his sister, and he wanted his share now and an assurance that when Dad died, he was prominently in the will. The father, who was highly disappointed in his wastrel son, assured him that he was in the will, but that still did not give him the answers he wanted. So he burst into his father’s office pointing the gun at the old man, and threatened to “blow his brains out.”

A quick acting junior clerk knocked the gun out of John’s hands and subdued him while the father went for the police. Seba Bogart was 75 years old and considering what he had been through, was in fine shape. He also told police that his son had previously come at him with a hatchet, a few months before, and this time, he wanted him incarcerated, as he feared for his life. He told police that he had offered to fund any good business opportunity the son wanted to engage in, but John had insisted on staying at his father’s firm.

This incident made several of the daily papers, which is how I know all of this, and the Bogart family must have been highly embarrassed. The next day, the papers reported that Seba Bogart had decided to drop the charges. His wife, daughter, and son-in-law had implored him to do so, and the entire family was in court when John was brought before the judge. The reporter said John was “fat, fifty and jolly in regular life,” but was scared now, his eyes darting everywhere in fear.

The father was stern and resolute, but told the judge that he was bowing to the will of the family, but he still thought his son was trying to kill him. The judge, who was not happy either, as he thought the son should have been charged, had no choice but to release a visibly relieved John Bogart. The reporter went on to say that when they all left the courthouse, there was icy silence, and father and son went separate ways without any reconciliation. I wonder what happened later.

The house seems to have been a one family, or perhaps two, until the at least right before World War I. After that, it seems to have been rented out as apartments in a growing Italian neighborhood. Another small building now fills in the rest of the lot facing Court Street. Today, the large house and attached property has five residential units and four commercial units, including a popular yoga studio. I would imagine most of the period detail and all of the marble mantels are long gone.If walls could talk!

(Photo: S.Spellen)

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