Building of the Day: 578-584 Washington Avenue

Brooklyn, one building at a time.

Name: Row houses
Address: 578-584 Washington Avenue
Cross Streets: Fulton Street and Atlantic Avenue
Neighborhood: Clinton Hill
Year Built: 1868
Architectural Style: Italianate
Architect: William Rushmore (builder)
Landmarked: No, but in Clinton Hill South historic district on the National Register

The story: These four lovely houses are unique in Brooklyn. They are the only known, or remaining elliptical arched window and doorway Italianate row houses in the borough. The only other elliptical grouping like this in the entire city is at 208-216 East 78th Street in Manhattan. Those houses are brick, not brownstone.

The houses were built in 1868, during the post-Civil War building boom that grew the neighborhoods of Fort Greene and Clinton Hill. Their rapid growth was part of the expansion of the city outwards, as public transportation improved, allowing more people to live farther from downtown and the Manhattan ferries. The builder was a man named William Rushmore.

Arched and hooded doorways can be found in Italianate houses on occasion, but doorways and elliptical windows are not common at all, and looking at these houses, it’s impossible not to notice how beautiful they really are. The stone window hoods frame the elliptical windows well, and the keystone in each one gives the façade more three-dimensional punch. This is best seen in the houses that still have some original window frames, such as in 582, which still has the original windows on the parlor floor and perhaps up above, as well.

The cornices emphasize the ellipses, with arches running along the entire row. These are all made of wood, and have also held up remarkably. The entire group is very sedate, sophisticated and elegant. The people who lived in them, especially in the early years were by and large also pillars of respectable society, and included businessmen, city officials and other upscale types.

Number 578 was the long-time home of Webster R. Walkeley, who was a city Alderman in the 1890s. He and his family lived here between 1890 and 1910. In 1890, number 580 got a new extension added. In 1873, 584 was home to Mrs. Elisha Sawtell, who was one of many volunteer managers of the Brooklyn Nursery, a charity that sought to protect infants and children up to two years old left destitute or orphaned. It was located at 160 Flatbush Avenue.

Mrs. Sawtell would have been horrified to know that thirty years later, her house would be home to a midwife named Mildred Miller, who was arrested in 1902 for performing an abortion at the house. The papers said she “performed a criminal operation” on a girl named Emma Abbey of Manhattan. Mrs. Miller was held on $1000 bail, a princely sum in those days, guaranteeing she stayed in jail.

(Photograph:Christopher Bride for Property Shark)

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