Building of the Day: 446-510 Willoughby Avenue

Brooklyn, one building at a time.

Name: Row houses
Address: 446-510, and 445-507 Willoughby Avenue
Cross Streets: Nostrand and Marcy Avenues
Neighborhood: Bedford Stuyvesant
Year Built: Between 1879 and 1886
Architectural Style: Neo-Grec
Architect: Unknown
Landmarked: No, but should be

The story: Between around 1875 and 1885, developers descended on the once quiet village of Bedford, and began a building frenzy of amazing proportions. They built thousands of speculative brownstone row houses on most of the residential blocks between Herkimer Street and Park Avenue, roughly between Bedford and Throop Avenues. Almost all of the houses they built during that ten year time period were in the many variations on the Neo-Grec style of architecture.

Of course, there were thousands of houses built before and after that, in many other different styles, but if you take a walk around Bedford, it’s easy to see how the Neo-Grec houses dominate the greater landscape. Bedford Stuyvesant has the largest collection of these Neo-Grec houses in the entire city. They were the ideal speculative house style. They could be easily adapted into the purchased lots, and made wider or narrower, taller or shorter as needed, without sacrificing the desired pleasing aesthetics of the house.

Those aesthetic features included the signature incised brownstone detailing, with geometric and floral patterns mirroring the Eastlake style of interior decoration which was extremely popular during this period. This ornamentation was easy to achieve with the invention of the pneumatic drill, which allowed less skilled, and therefore cheaper stone carvers to mass produce the elements with only a drill and a stencil. The interior features, while highly prized today, were all easily available from the catalogs of the various manufacturers.

This block of Willoughby, between Nostrand and Marcy, is a fine example of the styles and the speculative nature of the building. Both sides of the block were probably developed by the same developer, perhaps even using the same architect. I searched high and low for some names, but came up with nothing. The maps and the newspapers give some small clues as to when and how. The map of this street from 1880 shows only two groups of houses, facing each other on opposite sides of the street. The rest of the block is empty.

The newspapers bear this out, with various ads or stories that only reflect those house numbers. As the 1880s progress, more houses were built in groups of six and eight, and by the time a new insurance atlas comes out in 1886, the entire block is solidly built up, from one end to the other. Some houses are three stories, others four. They are not all identical, but all are similar. We start getting more ads for people looking for servants, and more stories pertaining to the rest of the block.

On January 4th, 1881, at 502 Willoughby, in one of the first-built group of houses, a 19 year old man named James Walsh lurked outside of the house until evening. Inside was the family of Thomas Carlisle, the co-owner of a Manhattan based printing company. Mr. Carlisle, his wife, two teenaged sons and a teen aged daughter, had lived there a couple of years, and were the first owners of the house. They were aided by a maid, named Barbara Groenthal, age 16, who had been hired only two weeks before.

James Walsh was infatuated with Barbara, and had come by earlier to see her. She was not happy to see him, and after having words with him outside, had gone back to her duties. Unknown to everyone, James stayed in the neighborhood and waited until evening. Another servant had accepted a delivery at the entrance under the stairs, and had forgotten to lock the gate. James waited until Barbara was serving dinner to the family and came near the door. He grabbed her when no one was looking, and stabbed her in the chest. She fell into the house, and soon died in Thomas Carlisle’s arms.

Barbara lived long enough to tell Carlisle who had stabbed her, and the police went looking for him. Walsh was from a family that had problems with the law, and had an older brother named “Butch” who was also quite notorious. James got as far as the Gowanus Canal, and jumped in and tried to drown himself. Some passersby heard him flailing in the water and rescued him just in time for the police to catch up with him, and arrest him for murder.

The case became one of the more sensational murder cases of the day, and will be a topic of a later Walkabout. His defense lawyers could probably have used the help of one of the Carlisle neighbors, although she didn’t live there until twenty years later. Number 494 Willoughby Avenue was home from at least 1911 to 1916 to Dr. Anna E. King. She was a celebrated medical doctor, one of the few female doctors practicing in Brooklyn at the time. Dr. King was also active in the cause of women’s suffrage.

She was best known in the city as one of the best alienists in New York. She testified in courts throughout the city as an expert on the minds of criminals and the reasons why they did the things they did. Today, she would be known as a psychiatrist or psychologist. The field of mental health was just still gaining ground in the early 20th century. Alienists were not always accepted as “real” doctors, and their explanations as to the motivation of suspects were not always taken into consideration in verdicts or sentencing. That Dr. King was considered one of the best is something. I think I shall have to come back to write more about her, as well.

(Photo:Nicholas Strini for Property Shark)

GMAP