Architecture 101: Amity Street Delight

We were driving through Cobble Hill on Sunday morning when and had to pull over to take a moment to admire this beautiful limestone and brick ~~mansion~~ building at the corner of Amity and Henry that is now the home of the Lamm Institute, a child neurology clinic. Finding our own architectural vocabulary lacking, we looked to see what the AIA Guide to New York City Architecture had to say about the 1902 building designed by Charles Hough:

Richly adorned and in dark red brick, this latter-day miniature Henry IV "hotel particulier" recalls the architecture of the Place des Vosges and the Hopital St. Louis in Paris. It is a fitting neighbor to its adjoining bourgeois row houses.

Took the words right out of our mouth.
The Lamm Institute [We Heal New York] GMAP

Comments

this was once a residence? WOW

Posted by: Anonymous at March 27, 2006 11:21 AM

I don't think it was built as a residence, so Brownstoner's use of the term mansion may be misleading. It's scale and architectural vocabulary lead me to think that it was built as something institutional, a school or soemthing similar.

Posted by: Whitbo at March 27, 2006 11:51 AM

oh okay that makes sense.

Posted by: Anonymous at March 27, 2006 12:06 PM

Hotel particulier = residence. One would think that initially from reading the AIA verbiage above. However, from LICH's website:
1902 Dudley Memorial Building erected by Henry W. Maxwell in memory of Dr. William Dudley, who was instrumental in the founding of LICH. Intended as a nurses residence, it served as a private pavilion for patients for its first five years.

Guess that's why they had hotel particulier in quotes.

Posted by: babs at March 27, 2006 3:16 PM

Thanks for the discovery Babs. Yeah, you'd never see this type of buildng as a residence in this kind of location in a city.

Posted by: Whitbo at March 27, 2006 3:42 PM

Not NYC maybe (unfortunately).

Posted by: babs at March 27, 2006 4:13 PM

Well, if you really love it, the ground floor 2br condo at next door neighbor (across a driveway and yard) 122 Amity is FSBO for under 800k on the NYTimes website. The listing actually looks very nice, with a 200-ft private deck in the south-facing rear overlooking the garden and very low monthly costs.

Posted by: ari at March 27, 2006 6:30 PM

That is so funny! I live near there and noticed the building for the first time while jogging yesterday. I also wondered if it had been a residence. The building across the street I believe used to be a school so I just assumed that they were built together.

Posted by: Alex at March 27, 2006 9:36 PM

Brownstoner's awesome, a regular must-read. You guys, however, would be a lot cooler if you stopped DRIVING around Brooklyn so much. So many of your posts start that way, it's depressing. Neighborhoods aren't just pretty house after pretty house. Fetishizing discrete buildings is fine; spending afternoons barrelling through their streets hunting for objets d'art is antithetical to the life of the neighborhoods you're gazing at.

Posted by: Anonymous at March 27, 2006 10:14 PM

I agree with the above. I'm sure Brownstoner's response will be that he has two children and therefore must drive - he's said similar things before (you can't do without a car if you have children in Brooklyn etc.) As a non-driving parent of 2 children, I say get out and walk! And your kids can play on the cute playground accross the street from the Lamm Institute.

Posted by: Anonymous at March 28, 2006 12:14 AM

It's more that at this point we have so little time to get out and take pictures that we have no choice but to drive. Believe us, we wish we had time for leisurely two-hour strolls that included popping into stores, sitting on park benches, etc. This weekend, for example, we literally could only find half and hour to go exploring. That's why we hope readers will continue to send us more and more of their own material.

Posted by: Brownstoner at March 28, 2006 8:41 AM

p.s. It ain't "you guys" either--it just one guy with a very full plate!

Posted by: Brownstoner at March 28, 2006 8:47 AM

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March 27, 2006

Architecture 101: Amity Street Delight

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