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Building of the Day: 1310-1314 Dean Street
Brooklyn, one building at a time.
Name: Row houses
Address: 1310-1314 Dean Street
Cross Streets: New York and Brooklyn avenues
Neighborhood: Crown Heights North
Year Built: 1888
Architectural Style: Queen Anne
Architect: George P. Chappell
Other Work by Architect: Row and freestanding houses in Park Slope, Bedford Stuyvesant, Clinton Hill, and especially Crown Heights North. Also churches and storefront/flats buildings in Bed Stuy and Crown Heights.
Landmarked: Yes, part of Crown Heights North HD (2007)
The story: We haven’t had a Chappell group in a while, and it’s always a pleasure to show another example of the work of one of my favorite architects. If neighborhoods were named after the architects who designed so much of the streetscape, Crown Heights North would have been re-named Chappelltown. He contributed that much to the beauty of this neighborhood, which he also called home for much of his life and career.
Although I like certain parts of all of our different styles of row house architecture, one of the favorite things I like about the Queen Anne period is the permission to be creative. Let’s face it; you really can only do so much with three to five stories on a 20-foot lot. Chappell had three lots to work with here, designing these houses for developer D. H. Fowler. Instead of designing three houses that were more or less the same, or totally different, he chose to make the set a unified group that at a casual glance is one very large chateau of a building. (more…)
05/17/2013 3:00 PM
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Building of the Day: 20-26 Willow Street
Brooklyn, one building at a time.
Name: Row houses
Address: 20-26 Willow Street
Cross Streets: Cranberry and Middagh streets
Neighborhood: Brooklyn Heights
Year Built: 1846
Architectural Style: Greek Revival
Architect: Unknown
Landmarked: Yes, part of Brooklyn Heights HD (1965)
The story: The oldest parts of Brooklyn Heights, over near Middagh Street, are a fascinating patchwork of styles and history. Frame houses stand next to Greek Revival row houses, followed by later brownstone styles, late 19th century tenements, early 20th century apartment buildings, and finally, late 20th century apartment housing. I’ve always enjoyed walking around this part of the Heights, as you never know what you are going to come upon next.
This group of Greek Revival row houses was built in 1846, a time when Brooklyn Heights was feeling its oats as the a leafy suburb for the powerful merchants and financiers whose businesses lay below by the docks, or across the river in Manhattan. The houses are brick built on top of a brownstone basement story. Unlike later Italianate houses, the stoops on these houses rise only ten or so stairs from the street level, necessitating an excavated cellar level in order to get light and windows into the ground floor. (more…)
05/16/2013 3:30 PM
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Building of the Day: 348-352 Decatur Street
Brooklyn, one building at a time.
Name: Row houses
Address: 348-352 Decatur Street
Cross Streets: Stuyvesant Avenue and Malcolm X Boulevard
Neighborhood: Stuyvesant Heights
Year Built: 1885
Architectural Style: Neo-Grec, with elements of Queen Anne styling
Architect: John S. J. King
Other Work by Architect: None discovered as of yet
Landmarked: Yes, part of new Stuyvesant Heights Extension HD (2013)
The story: In any discipline there are rules that are expected to be followed in order for a work to meet the criteria of style, convention or even law. My musical education taught me that in Western music, for example, there have been times when certain chords and note progressions were forbidden. The tritone, a diminished fifth or augmented fourth interval, perhaps best illustrated as the first two notes in Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story song “Maria” – the “Ma-ri” notes, was called “Diabolis in Musica”, the devil in music. Why? It was an uneven and unfinished dissonance that wanted to be resolved. Medieval musicians up through the Baroque period avoided it like plague. It would not be until the Classical period that the interval was freely used, and even then, was most often used to introduce an element of evil or deviltry into a piece. Today, it’s an integral part of jazz, modern classical and popular music. Go figure.
What does that bit of trivia mean to architecture? It’s just an illustration to point out that sometimes, the rules need to be broken, and the result can be delightful. Sometimes the rules are broken by iconoclastic geniuses, but more often than not, they are broken by the small, unnoticed folk who either don’t know better, or don’t care, and don’t have anything to lose. The rules say that rooflines are flat and horizontal across the expanse of buildings. John King said, “Why?” (more…)
05/15/2013 3:30 PM
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Building of the Day: 135-139 Kent Street
Brooklyn, one building at a time.
Name: Flats buildings
Address: 135-137 Kent Street
Cross Streets: Franklin Street and Manhattan Avenue
Neighborhood: Greenpoint
Year Built: 1907
Architectural Style: Renaissance Revival/Neo-Classical
Architect: Philemon Tillion
Other Work by Architect: In Greenpoint – Industrial Home for the Blind, Greenpoint Masonic Lodge, additions to Eberhard Faber Factory buildings, apartment buildings and single family houses on Milton Street. Also row house group in Park Slope, and Trinity Baptist church, Crown Heights North.
Landmarked: Yes, part of the Greenpoint HD (1982)
The story: Kent Street, between Franklin Street and Manhattan Avenue is an architecturally varied and very pleasing block. It shows the development of Greenpoint between the 1850s and the early 1900s, and most of its building stock is pretty much intact, as the block was spared the severe “modernizing” ministrations of siding salesmen who had a field day elsewhere in the neighborhood. The earliest brick houses date from the late 1850s, and were built by some of Greenpoint’s earliest builders and developers, men who came to the area to build for the bourgeoning shipbuilding, ceramics and glass manufacturers and their workers, all who called Greenpoint home. (more…)
05/14/2013 3:30 PM
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Building of the Day: 5424 Fifth Avenue
Brooklyn, one building at a time.
Name: Residential building with ground floor retail
Address: 5424 Fifth Avenue
Cross Streets: Corner 55th Street
Neighborhood: Sunset Park
Year Built: 1897
Architectural Style: Queen Anne
Architect: J. H. Nadigan
Landmarked: No, but part of Sunset Park designation on National Register of Historic Places (1988)
The story: 5th Avenue, between Flatbush Avenue and its end in Dyker Heights, is one of the most densely developed commercial/residential streets in Brooklyn. It’s also an interesting time line of Brooklyn’s development, with the earliest buildings closer to Flatbush Avenue, and the later ones as you go towards Bay Ridge. Unlike other blocks in Brownstone Brooklyn that start out residential and then are transformed into shopping blocks, like parts of Park Slope’s 7th Avenue, 5th Ave was designed to be a mixed use avenue, with virtually all of its original building stock consisting of retail/commercial shop spaces on the ground floor of buildings that had two or more floors of apartments above.
Of course, blocks like this are also a great place to put civic and religious buildings, so 5th Avenue, along its length, also has a fair share of houses of worship, schools, police and fire stations, as well as larger commercial entities such as banks and theaters, too. The Sunset Park stretch of 5th Avenue is a perfect place to find all of these elements. (more…)
05/13/2013 3:30 PM
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Building of the Day: 337-347 Stuyvesant Avenue
Brooklyn, one building at a time
Name: Row houses
Address: 337-347 Stuyvesant Avenue
Cross Streets: MacDonough and Macon Streets
Neighborhood: Stuyvesant Heights
Year Built:1891
Architectural Style: Queen Anne
Architect:W.R. Bell & Co.
Other work by architect: houses around the corner, at 371-375 MacDonough St.
Landmarked: Yes, part of Stuyvesant Heights Extension HD (2013)
The story: For many people, Stuyvesant Avenue is the border of Bedford Stuyvesant, but in reality, it’s only the center of the Stuyvesant Heights neighborhood, which was developed quite independently of Bedford. Bedford Corners was a thriving crossroads town as far back as the end of the 17th century, but Stuyvesant Heights was largely a suburban community, with little development until the latter part of the 19th century. It wouldn’t be until the 1930s that the two communities were joined, called Bedford Stuyvesant by a Con Edison article in a newspaper.
Stuyvesant Heights extends many more blocks eastward from Stuyvesant Avenue,and is one of the main north/south streets. Most of it is residential, with only scattered commercial buildings here and there, primarily on some of the corners. Development here stretches from 1850s wood framed houses, to the early brownstone styles of the Italianate and Neo-Grec variety, to the late 19th century Romanesque Revival, Queen Anne and Renaissance Revival styles, on to the rich Beaux Arts houses near Fulton Park, with a few mansions and much later 20th century infill houses tossed in for good measure. (more…)
05/10/2013 3:00 PM
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Building of the Day: 37-53 Linden Street
Unfortunately, our columnist is having computer problems today, so we are republishing a BOTD about some of our favorite Brooklyn buildings.
Brooklyn, one building at a time.
Name: Row Houses
Address: 37-53 Linden Street, between Broadway and Bushwick Avenues
Neighborhood: Bushwick
Year Built: 1888
Architectural Style: Queen Anne
Architect: Frank Keith Irving (aka F.K.Irving, F. Keith Irving)
Other buildings by architect: 1332 Bergen St, CHN, 130-132 Prospect Pl, Prospect Hts
Landmarked: No, but should be, as soon as possible.
The story: These are exceptional houses. Everything about them says excellent residential architecture for an urban setting. The scale is small and low, matching the other houses on the block, also built around the same time, and contextual with the neighborhood. The side streets of Bushwick are of much smaller scale than Bushwick Avenue itself, which is a combination of large mansions and taller row houses and tenements. The brick is warm and evokes a sense of comfort and home. The houses are wide enough for comfort, with generously spaced windows. The dog leg stairway adds mass to the façade, and allows for the use of some great artistic and whimsical ironwork, which is remarkably intact throughout the group. And then we have the rest of the ornament.
The American Victorian aesthetic was greatly influenced by the English Arts and Crafts Movement, begun in the 1860′s by William Morris and his friends and associates. Central to their philosophy are a love of beauty and pattern, and an appreciation of craftsmanship and artistic talent, a philosophy that would be come to be called the Aesthetic Movement, where beauty for beauty’s sake was treasured. This movement would cross the ocean and be manifested in many, many ways, and in architecture, that love of surface ornament and craftsmanship would be realized in the many kinds of ornament used in Romanesque Revival and Queen Anne architectural styles. Here we have a wealth of terra-cotta, fine ironwork, stained glass, and pressed metal cornices, all of great beauty, and unusual in their wealth of application in middle class homes.
(more…)
05/08/2013 3:30 PM
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Building of the Day: 99-109 Berkeley Place
Brooklyn, one building at a time.
Name: Flats buildings
Address: 99-109 Berkeley Place
Cross Streets: Sixth and Seventh Avenues
Neighborhood: Park Slope
Year Built: 1888-89
Architectural Style: Romanesque Revival
Architect: C.P.H. Gilbert
Other Work by Architect: In Brooklyn, most of Montgomery Place, as well as houses on Carroll between 8th and Prospect Park West, Adams house on Carroll and 8th, and others in Park Slope.
Landmarked: Yes, part of Park Slope HD (1973)
The story: According to the Brooklyn Eagle in 1889, “it was freely predicted that flats would soon forfeit popular favor, but the continual additions to their number seem to contradict the theory.” In 1888, architect C.P.H. Gilbert was hired to design six adjoining flats buildings in Park Slope for developer S. F. Hill. Gilbert was only twenty-seven at the time, but was already in demand. The same year he designed this building, he wowed the gentry with his design of the Adams House, on Carroll and Eighth Avenue. His career would take off in Brooklyn, with his commissions for the fine houses on Montgomery Place, Carroll Street and elsewhere to soon follow. It’s a good thing he got these flats buildings out of the way first, because they are gems, as well, and should be as appreciated as his fine houses.
One look at these flats buildings, and you know someone very good, who knew the style backwards and forwards, was responsible for these buildings. Brooklyn was graced with some amazing Romanesque Revival architects, and Gilbert was certainly one of the best. He began by pairing up the six buildings, creating large arched entryways that spanned two buildings. The six buildings now look like three very large and expensive manors. (more…)
05/07/2013 3:30 PM
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Building of the Day: 81 and 85 Rugby Road
Brooklyn, one building at a time.
Name: Private Houses
Address: 81 and 85 Rugby Road
Cross Streets: Church Avenue and Albemarle Road
Neighborhood: Prospect Park South
Year Built: 1936
Architectural Style: Neo-Tudor
Architect: Robert T. Schaefer
Other Work by Architect: 799 18th St. and other houses in Fiske Terrace, Midwood and Ditmas Park. Other buildings in Flatbush and Long Island.
Landmarked: Yes, part of Prospect Park South HD (1979)
The story: By 1905 Dean Alvord, the developer responsible for Prospect Park South, had grown bored with his very successful project, and was looking towards the next housing development on his list of successful transformations of former farmland into gracious upscale and exclusive neighborhoods. He sold his remaining lots, and moved on. Over the next twenty years, the remaining lots of PPS were built up. In the beginning of this second period of growth, some of the houses were quite large, but as time went by, they got smaller and more efficient. The days of huge mansions with a staff of servants to keep them running was ending, and people began to want houses that were much less high maintenance. The economy was changing as well, and by the 1930s, the Great Depression had taken most of the steam out of the building market.
If you look at the real estate ads in the Brooklyn Eagle and other local papers during the 1930s, you can see that the downturn in the economy had also reached the leafy confines of this exclusive and wealthy enclave. Some of the largest houses began to take in boarders, or rent out their upper floors as apartments. Even today, some are still permanently divided, large enough to provide adequate space for more than one family, even by today’s roomy standards. A few people couldn’t hold on at all, and sold their large homes and moved on. This was the case here. 81 and 85 Rugby Road was once home to one large single family house. The Brooklyn Eagle documents several ads searching for boarders, and then renters, then a buyer. (more…)
05/06/2013 3:30 PM
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Building of the Day: 489 Washington Avenue
Brooklyn, one building at a time.
Name: Lascelles E. Maxwell House, then U.S. Grant Hall, then Weber Hall, now Evergreen Church of God in Christ
Address: 489 Washington Avenue
Cross Streets: Fulton Street and Gates Avenue
Neighborhood: Clinton Hill
Year Built: Maybe early 1870s
Architectural Style: Italianate/Second Empire
Architect: Unknown
Landmarked: No, just outside the Clinton Hill HD
The story: This building is a survivor with a storied past. Looking at its history, it’s amazing how many feet have crossed its floor boards over the years, perhaps more in this building than almost any other private home in Clinton Hill. The old saying, “if walls could talk” certainly applies to 489 Washington Avenue. The house was built at a time when Clinton Hill was still a suburban enclave, consisting mostly of fine villas on large lots on Clinton and Washington avenues. There are very few houses from this period left, as most were razed either for newer mansions in the 1880s, brownstone row house development, or later, for apartment buildings. Here’s the story.
From all accounts, the house was built for Lascelles E. Maxwell and his family. Mr. Maxwell was president of Maxwell & Company, a stock brokerage, and was born in Belfast in 1817. He came to New York in 1825, and became a citizen in 1846. His wife was Grace Georgiana Tone Maxwell, a woman with quite a family tree of her own. Born in Washington, D.C., in 1827, she was the only daughter of Theobald Wolfe Tone, aka “Wolfe Tone,” an Irish revolutionary considered the father of Irish Republicanism. Wolfe Tone was one of the leaders of the United Irishmen, leading the fight to free Ireland from British rule in the late 1700s. He was captured during the Rebellion of 1798, and sentenced to hang. He chose to deny the British the pleasure, and cut his own throat with a pocket knife while in prison. Unfortunately, it took him five agonizing days to die of infection, but he is considered one of the great martyrs in the centuries-old cause of Irish independence. (more…)
05/03/2013 3:00 PM
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Building of the Day: 925 Prospect Place
Brooklyn, one building at a time.
Name: The Pierre Apartments
Address: 925 Prospect Place
Cross Streets: New York and Brooklyn Avenues
Neighborhood: Crown Heights North
Year Built: 1933-1936
Architectural Style: Art Deco
Architect: Matthew W. Del Gaudio
Other Work by Architect: 840-850 St. Marks Ave, part of team on the Williamsburg Houses, theaters in Sunset Park and Bay Ridge. Also Our Lady of Pompeii in Greenwich Village, as well as Civil Courthouse on Centre St, Manhattan.
Landmarked: Yes, part of Crown Heights North HD (2007)
The story: The St. Marks District was once Crown Heights’ Gold Coast, with large mansions filling the wide streets. But in 1920, the IRT subway line was completed, bringing thousands of eager new people to this part of Brooklyn and along Eastern Parkway. Apartment buildings soon began to replace the mansions, as developers scrambled to build to house this new middle class population, while the rich took off for the new suburbs of Long Island, Westchester, and the luxurious new apartments of Park Avenue.
I find this particular period of time, those years between the end of World War One and the Great Depression, fascinating from the perspective of housing. It really was the end of the Age of Opulence, and the beginning of rise of the American middle class, with Crown Heights, Flatbush, and other neighborhoods filling up with the children and grandchildren of the white ethnic immigrants who had only a couple of generations ago filled the tenements of the Lower East side and Williamsburg.
These people wanted class and respect, and what is classier than a new apartment in a new and modern Art Deco apartment building with a swanky name like “The Pierre?” (more…)
05/02/2013 3:30 PM
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Building of the Day: 372 Fulton Street
Brooklyn, one building at a time.
Name: Former Gage & Tollner Restaurant
Address: 372 Fulton Street
Cross Streets: Smith Street and Red Hook Lane
Neighborhood: Downtown Brooklyn
Year Built: 1875
Architectural Style: Italianate, storefront is Neo-Grec
Architect: Unknown
Landmarked: Yes, doubly. Building individual landmark (1974), dining room landmarked (1975)
The story: As Brooklyn spread out away from the Heights and the harbors, the area we now call Downtown Brooklyn began to be developed. At first, it was residential, with the oldest houses surrounding the old Duffield farm, now centered at Duffield Street. Many homes and churches were established in the area taken up now by MetroTech. By the 1870s, brownstone houses began to be built on Fulton Street, taking advantage of the proximity to City Hall, as well as the business life on Court and Montague Street.
At the same time, the Brooklyn Bridge was in the planning stages, so that by the time 372 Fulton Street was built, as a private home, businesses and homes were already being displaced by the access roads and workspace for the bridge. These businesses began relocating on Fulton St. In the space of only a few years, this house found itself surrounded by theaters, stores, and other retail businesses. Soon, entire blocks were taken up by huge department stores, the elevated train connecting the bridge to the rest of Brooklyn ran down the middle of the street, and this area’s days as a residential neighborhood were over. (more…)
05/01/2013 3:30 PM
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Building of the Day: 4917 4th Avenue
Brooklyn, one building at a time.
Name: St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church
Address: 4917 4th Avenue
Cross Streets: 49th and 50th Streets
Neighborhood: Sunset Park
Year Built: 1893
Architectural Style: Romanesque Revival
Architect: L.B. Valk & Son
Other Work by Architect: Several churches in Brooklyn, plus the Lillian Ward house and adjoining row in Park Slope
Landmarked: No. Listed with Sunset Park neighborhood on the National Register of Historic Places (1988)
The story: This is the oldest church in Sunset Park, built when the neighborhood was just beginning to undergo a transformation from randomly scattered wood framed houses to masonry rows of brownstones and limestones. It’s an interesting church building, designed by one of the most prolific and important church architects in the country at the time, Lawrence B. Valk.
Lawrence B. Valk, who designed under the firm name of L.B. Valk and Son, knew his way around churches. His designs for ecclesiastical buildings can be found from the New York/Long Island area through Michigan, New Orleans, and on to California, where he and his son eventually located. He specialized in Protestant Churches, and literally wrote the book on them, in 1873, titled “Church Architecture,” in which he stated, ““Churches are for the salvation of souls, not the architectural display at the sacrifice of comfort.” (more…)
04/30/2013 3:30 PM
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Building of the Day: 326-328 Decatur Street
Brooklyn, one building at a time.
Name: Row houses
Address: 326-328 Decatur Street
Cross Streets: Stuyvesant Avenue and Malcolm X Boulevard
Neighborhood: Stuyvesant Heights
Year Built: 1886
Architectural Style: Renaissance Revival
Architect: John C. Bushfield
Other Work by Architect: Three other groups of houses on Decatur Street
Landmarked: Yes, part of the new Bedford Stuyvesant/Expanded Stuyvesant Heights HD (2013)
The story: Brooklyn’s row house facades are generally made up of only four different building materials: wood, brownstone, limestone or brick. Within those four materials comes a wealth of combinations, colors, surfaces and quality. Except for some of the wood framed houses, row houses, no matter what’s on top, are solidly brick underneath. If you think about it, it’s really rather amazing to see the variety of housing styles, colors, and shapes that can made from just these elements, in many cases augmented by terra cotta, pressed metal and wooden ornament and trim. Of course, there are always exceptions.
I’m sure that when our Brooklyn neighborhoods were being developed, more than one architect or developer thought of cladding row houses in marble. After all, marble is a time honored building material, and is quite durable, and easily cut into slabs or panels, even more so after the late 1870s, when the pneumatic drill was invented. There were marble quarries available to New York builders, so why don’t we see more marble clad row houses? (more…)
04/29/2013 3:30 PM
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Building of the Day: 107 Pine Street
Brooklyn, one building at a time.
Name: Private house
Address: 107 Pine Street
Cross Streets: Fulton Avenue and Ridgewood Street
Neighborhood: Cypress Hills
Year Built: Unknown, likely between 1886 and 1893
Architectural Style: Now it’s a Colonial Revival
Architect: Unknown
Landmarked: No
The story: Look at this place! A Colonial Revival temple in the heart of East New York. What an unusual house, in an unusual place. You’ve got to wonder – was this house built with the oversized columns, or were they added later? Who lived here, and what were they thinking? You know there is a story behind these doors, and many questions still remain, but I was able to find out some interesting answers.
From looking at maps, it appears that 107 Pine Street was built somewhere between 1886 and 1893, those being the dates the maps we have were printed. That coincides with the development of Cypress Hills/East New York, a neighborhood that came into its own when the 26th Ward, once the Flatbush town of New Lots, was annexed into the city of Brooklyn in 1886. Several developers, including Edward Linton, who was the topic of this month’s Walkabouts, built blocks of homes for the people who were flocking out here from more crowded parts of the city. But this house was a one of a kind, a small cottage on a large lot. More than likely, the columns were not there. Stylistically, they definitely wouldn’t have been there at that period of time. (more…)
04/26/2013 3:10 PM
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Building of the Day: 495-503 4th Street
Brooklyn, one building at a time.
Name: Row houses
Address: 495-503 4th Street
Cross Streets: 7th and 8th avenues
Neighborhood: Park Slope
Year Built: 1891
Architectural Style: Romanesque Revival
Architect: John T. Allan
Other Work by Architect: Two other groups of houses on this block, as well as others in vicinity, and in other parts of Brooklyn
Landmarked: Yes, part of Park Slope HD (1973)
The story: Architect and developer John T. Allan was in partnership with his brother, James G. Allan, and their partner, Nathaniel Proskey. Their speculative real estate development firm was named Allan Brothers & Co. and they developed property in Park Slope, as well as in Williamsburg, Eastern Bedford, Clinton Hill, Crown Heights North, and East New York. For a while, business was booming, as all of Brooklyn developed rapidly during the last decades of the 19th century.
The Allan brothers were from Brantford, Ontario, where John Allan learned carpentry and architecture, both in school, and from his father, a builder. After getting established as an architect and builder in Brantford, he left Canada, moved to Boston, then Manhattan, and finally, in 1884, to Brooklyn. Here, he took a position as manager of the International Tile and Trimmings Company, a job he held for three years. By 1888, he had started building speculative houses of his own design and over the next ten or so years, racked up a respectable amount of housing, with a great many of them in Park Slope. He built flats on 5th Street, fifteen houses here on 4th Street, three on 3rd, and four on Carroll, between 8th and Prospect Park West, and nineteen houses on 7th Street, near 8th Avenue. (more…)
04/25/2013 3:30 PM
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Building of the Day: 709 Bushwick Avenue
Brooklyn, one building at a time.
Name: Private house, now office/facility and apartments
Address: 709 Bushwick Avenue
Cross Streets: Corner Suydam Street
Neighborhood: Bushwick
Year Built: 1878
Architectural Style: Victorian Gothic
Architect: John Platte
Other Work by Architect: Ice House on Dean, CHN; other houses, stables and buildings in Bushwick and Williamsburg
Landmarked: No
The story: Now this is a great building, with an interesting past, and what seems to be a promising future. The house was built for a furniture manufacturer named Martin Worm, a rather unfortunate name, especially for a man who worked with wood, but perhaps if it was pronounced in the original German manner, “Vorm,” it’s not so bad. Mr. Worm had a large factory called Martin Worm & Sons, located on the corner of Humboldt and Siegel Street, in Williamsburg. He also had some bad luck along with his successes. In 1884, his factory was struck by lightning, and sustained heavy damages in the fire that followed. It was almost a total loss, as can be imagined in a building with wood and solvents. But he rebuilt.
The house was built later, in 1878, designed by John Platte, a local architect who worked mostly in the Williamsburg/Bushwick area, designing all kinds of buildings, from private homes to stables, tenement buildings and ice houses for breweries. One of his last remaining ice houses is the Ice House on Dean Street, a former BOTD, and recipient of many “green” awards when it was renovated. This house is quite fine, with an interesting Victorian Gothic façade, highlighted by the arched window hoods, with their keystones incised with a Neo-Grec style floral design. The side and front of the house both have a generous two story bay, and the front door is welcoming, with a small columned porch. (more…)
04/24/2013 3:30 PM
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Building of the Day: 442-472 40th Street
Brooklyn, one building at a time.
Name: Tenement buildings
Address: 442-472 40th Street
Cross Streets: 4th and 5th avenues
Neighborhood: Sunset Park
Year Built: 1912-1913
Architectural Style: Renaissance Revival
Architect: Eisenla & Carlson
Other Work by Architect: Row houses, tenements and flats buildings in Park Slope, row house blocks such as the 600 block of 76th Street, also Senator Street in Bay Ridge.
Landmarked: No, but on National Register of Historic Places (1988)
The story: Sunset Park was one of the last of Brooklyn’s brownstone neighborhoods to develop, and most of this large neighborhood’s building stock dates to the beginning of the 20th century. Several factors contributed to the neighborhood’s rise, chief among them the building of the 4th Avenue subway line, and the jobs available at the huge Sunset Park industrial park of Bush Terminal, its adjacent industries and, later, the Brooklyn Army Terminal.
In 1906, a reporter for the Brooklyn Eagle noted that the Sunset Park area had gone from farm land to urban city in the space of only a few years. The 4th Avenue subway line was announced in 1905. It was designed to connect South Brooklyn with Downtown Brooklyn, and on to Manhattan, via the new Manhattan Bridge. By 1908, the blocks between the avenues in Sunset Park were a hive of building activity, with foundations being dug and buildings going up on every block. (more…)
04/23/2013 3:30 PM
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Building of the Day: 691 Willoughby Avenue
Brooklyn, one building at a time.
Name: Private house
Address: 691 Willoughby Avenue
Cross Streets: Throop Avenue and Marcus Garvey Blvd.
Neighborhood: Bedford Stuyvesant
Year Built: Unknown
Architectural Style: Italianate with later 20th century alterations
Architect: Unknown
Landmarked: No
The story: Sometimes a house calls out to you to find out its history, to discover the lives of the now-forgotten people who lived and died there, and bring their stories to light. Too often, especially in neighborhoods that are not what they once were, these houses have been altered to suit the needs of those who came when times were different from when the houses were built, but that’s not really what’s important in this story, even though that’s often what draws the eye. This grand mansion was the home of many people over the last one hundred and fifty years, but two families in particular made their mark not only on the house, but on Brooklyn, and it’s their stories that make this house shine. (more…)
04/22/2013 3:30 PM
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Building of the Day: 165 Remsen Street
Brooklyn, one building at a time.
Name: Office Building
Address: 165 Remsen Street
Cross Streets: Court and Clinton Streets
Neighborhood: Brooklyn Heights
Year Built: 1924-25
Architectural Style: Neo-classical
Architect: Unknown
Landmarked: Yes, part of Brooklyn Skyscraper HD (2012)
The story: On the face of it, this is a nice three story office building on a side street in the new Brooklyn Skyscraper Historic District. But this little building’s history is much more complicated than its surface appearance. Its fortunes are tied to its backyard neighbor, and while quite picturesque with its banks of upper story windows, the stories behind these doors have yet to be revealed.
Before this building and its neighbors were constructed in the early to mid-20th century, Remsen Street was completely residential, filled with four and five story brownstone row houses, equal to those up the street, further into the Heights. 165 Remsen was home for many years to Dr. Frederich W. Wunderlich, a prominent physician, and his family. (more…)
04/19/2013 3:00 PM
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mmm
May 16, 2013 | 09:04 AM