Building of the Day: 134 Pulaski Street

Brooklyn, one building at a time.

Name: Row house
Address: 134 Pulaski Street
Cross Streets: Marcy and Tompkins avenues
Neighborhood: Bedford Stuyvesant
Year Built: 2005
Architectural Style: Contemporary, based on Queen Anne style
Architect: Henry Radusky for Bricolage Designs
Other Buildings by Architect: Lots of contemporary apartment buildings and houses across Brooklyn
Landmarked: No

The story: I was looking for good examples of modern row house architecture, and I came on this house in one of the less gentrified blocks of Bedford Stuyvesant. I’ve been told I don’t like new architecture, and that really isn’t true. I don’t like cheap and lazy architecture, and I refuse to believe that all new construction has to be ugly. Other cities in industrialized and urban areas across the country manage to build really nice looking infill and modern housing. Why does it seem so hard for us?

I don’t know the story behind this lot, but I did find a photograph of the house that was built here along with the rest of the block in the 1870s and 1880s. It was wood framed on a stone ground floor, and was one of a group of three. At 28 feet, it was wider than the usual house, perhaps looks to have been an Italianate in style. The 1980s tax photo is not all that clear, but even as is, it looked like a great house.

All three houses are now gone. A multi-unit building has gone up in place of two of them, and the original house at this location lasted at least until the 1980s, as you can see. But by 2005, developers had either torn down the original house, or it was an empty lot. The house is classic infill housing, wedged in between two taller buildings.

The design by Bricolage isn’t bad. It’s a very simplified Queen Anne style with a three sided bay like many local period row houses. I think it would have been better with a flat roof, or a peaked roof with a window, or some ornament. I also would have taken the oriel (a bay that does not touch the ground) down and made it a real bay, or at least put a nice bracket underneath to support it.

Ornament is a bad word now, apparently, when it comes to middle income housing. Obviously, it costs a bit more to put in a bracket or a window, or a cornice, but one of the reasons we like our old housing stock is because even though that too was spec housing, they had the design vocabulary and the public aesthetic to add ornament and create beauty. They would never have left the cornice off because it cost extra. Besides which, cornices serve a practical function. I bet today’s homeowners would appreciate and pay for the things that complete a building and make it part of the overall streetscape.

The setback is the ruination of this house. If it were moved up to the line that the other buildings are toeing, it would make all the difference. That’s not the architect’s fault, it’s absurd building-code rules that pander to automobiles. And we won’t mention the Fedders. We really won’t.

It’s the little things that matter when we talk about the repopulation of decimated streets, or new construction in general. I don’t hate new buildings, as I said before; I hate indifferent design. This gets a C+ to a B. I will continue the search.

(Photo: Nicholas Strini for PropertyShark)

GMAP