Building of the Day: 28 Stuyvesant Avenue

There are hundreds of interesting buildings in Brooklyn for which little information is available, so I’ve held off writing about them. This year, I’m going to feature some of those structures, and tell you what I can – because they too, are worthy of being a BOTD. Any information on them from you is always welcome.

Brooklyn, one building at a time.

Name: Free-standing private home
Address: 28 Stuyvesant Avenue
Cross Streets: Corner Willoughby Avenue
Neighborhood: Bedford Stuyvesant
Year Built: 1903-04
Architectural Style: Renaissance Revival-Colonial Revival
Architect: Unknown
Landmarked: No

The story: This house was built at the beginning of the 20th century, while this part of the Eastern District, and Willoughby Avenue were still highly fashionable places to live. I wasn’t able to find any definitive information out about this house, except that it does not appear in one atlas from 1904, but does appear in another from the same year. I deduce the building date as occurring sometime between 1903 and 1904. It took time to put those atlases together, certainly time for a building to start construction.

I don’t know who designed this building, but it’s an interesting combination of Renaissance Revival styling with more Colonial Revival dormers tacked on to the roof. It’s got late 1890s style light grey bricks, classical detailing in the lintels, the bay and the porch, and probably in the cornice, which is now either covered up or gone. Then you have that 20th century Colonial dormer with the classic eaves return, and then the quoins. It also has a garage, another sign that this house was built for someone with money. In 1904, only wealthy people could afford automobiles.

The building was home to Dr. Edward A. Flemming in 1923. He was an OB-GYN and a member of the American College of Surgery. He didn’t live here very long, a few years later, he moved to Richmond Hill, Queens, and later, to Forest Hills. He became one of that community’s stellar citizens, and lived there for the rest of his long life. He and his wife appear in the papers for their community, club and charity work until his death in 1967 at the age of 83. He was the long-time president of the Queens County Medical Society.

After Dr. Flemming, the trail is cold. This neighborhood, on the edge of Bushwick, saw a lot of changes, most of them happening after 1955, when St. John’s College, which was on the opposite end of this block, like Dr. Flemming, moved to Queens, and became St. John’s University. St. John the Baptist Church, the huge cathedral, also just on the opposite end of this block, also lost much of its congregation. Dr. Flemming would have been quite familiar with the church, as he was Catholic.

Today, the house is a four family. It sold last year for $1.4 million, a testament to this neighborhood’s new popularity. The listing said that it still had some period detail inside, although there were no photographs. Hopefully, someday I’ll be able to fill in the blanks on this interesting property.

(Photo: Christopher Bride for PropertyShark)

GMAP