Arch Diary
February 9, 2010
Walkabout: Pressed Metal Ornament
Ornamental pressed metal with Byzantine Leaf motifs. Stuyvesant Ave at MacDougal Street. Stuyvesant Heights.
As I’ve started to really notice all of the elements that go into the buildings that make up Brooklyn, I’ve developed a large dose of respect for the designers and builders who made it all happen. A hundred or so years ago, a building was not just four walls (or less), a roof, and the other necessary elements of function. A building was an opportunity, a canvas for the artistic talents of so many different industries, crafts and craftspeople. We’ve looked at some of those elements: stonework, carved wood, wrought iron, stained glass, and brick, as well as the different parts of buildings, from the doors to the cornices, every surface, depending on the period and style of the building, gave the architects and their crews and suppliers, a blank canvas for ornament. As technology and manufacturing advances allowed new and different materials to be utilized, the lines between materials often becomes blurred, as metal imitates wood or stone, and is used in ways that a blacksmith would never have imagined.
February 4, 2010
Walkabout: Brooklyn’s First Multi-Venue Complex
The Clermont Avenue Rink. Clermont near Willoughby. Fort Greene. Late 19th Century. (Brooklyn Public Library)
In 2010, we all have an opinion of the proposed Atlantic Yards Barclay’s Center, but how many people are aware that Brooklyn already had its own multi-venue sports and social center over a hundred years ago? Fort Greene was home to the Clermont Avenue Rink, one of the most important events places in late 19th century Brooklyn. The Rink was built in 1865 on a huge 26,000 square footprint with frontage on both Clermont and Vanderbilt. It was so well known that the exact address was never published in any of the literature I found for all of the years of its existence, everyone just knew where it was. From the few photos I have, it appears to be on the corner of Willoughby Ave, next door to the Clermont Armory, between Willoughby and Myrtle. The Rink apparently started out as a skating rink, the roller skate had been invented, and ice skating was also a popular recreational sport in NY, there are many images of people skating in Central Park in the 1870’s. The rink would have manufactured its ice the old fashioned way, with water and cold weather, and had a wooden floor for its other uses during the rest of the year. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported in October 1878 that ice skating events, accompanied by the Conterno’s Band, were again, a part of the Rink’s activities.
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February 2, 2010
Walkabout: The Crescent Athletic Club
Crescent Athletic Club Boat House, Near Shore Road and 83rd St. Bay Ridge, Color Postcard from 1908. No longer in existence.
Manly displays of athletic prowess have always been popular in most societies throughout time. Our highly civilized urban environment of Brooklyn was no different at the end of the 19th century. In 1884, a group of socially prominent young men gathered to form a football club, so they could play games in Prospect Park. They were known as the Crescent Football Club, and they were inspired by a famous Yale-Princeton game, Yale being the alma mater of most of the players. This organization became the Crescent Athletic Club in 1886, soon to be the wealthiest and most important social and athletic club in Brooklyn. Their first president was Walter Camp, the “Father of Football”, the man who invented the quarterback, the forward pass, and codified the rules of football used to this day. He was also the famous and influential director of football at Yale, where he is still a minor deity. By 1894, when Brooklyn was still an independent city, the Crescents had a clubhouse at 25 Pierrepont St, in the Heights, and a sprawling complex in Bay Ridge, with fields, a boathouse and a country club. In 1902, they built a new clubhouse on Pierrepont, across from the Brooklyn Historical Society. That building was designed by Frank Freeman, and remains a fine example of the popular Neo-Classical style of architecture. The building had 12 levels, and included a swimming pool, rifle range and bowling alleys in the basement, as well as a grand hall on the second floor, a double height oak paneled dining room on the third floor, a gym on the top floor, and sleeping rooms, squash and handball courts, a library, billiards and other rooms in the building.
January 28, 2010
Walkabout: Amzi and Henry Hill – Architects
In 1890, the office for the architectural firm of Amzi Hill and Son was located at 1161 Fulton Street, near Franklin Avenue. Their phone number was 298 Bedford. If one were to call upon them, Amzi Hill and his son Henry were prepared to build you a very nice house. Father and son had talent, and between the two of them, they designed a large swath of homes in Bedford Stuyvesant, Crown Heights North, Clinton Hill and Park Slope during the second half of the 19th century.
Amzi Hill was born in 1833, in Putnam County, and by 1849 was registered as an architect in Manhattan. In 1860, he moved to Brooklyn, and practiced through 1892. Son Henry was born in Brooklyn and studied and apprenticed under his father. A business directory from the 1890’s calls Henry “one of the ablest and most proficient members of his professions in this city,” he went into partnership with his father in 1889, and practiced through at least 1902. Besides that, little is known about either one of them. We know Henry lived in Stuyvesant Heights, at 202 MacDonough Avenue, in a very modest apartment in a building of his design. The family home, where Amzi lived with his family, and died, in 1893, was a small three story house at 460 MacDonough St. Amzi appears in local 9th Ward politics in the Brooklyn Eagle supporting a candidate for local office, but that is it. Where their names show up over and over is in the records for the large number of row houses and apartment buildings they designed.
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January 26, 2010
Walkabout: Architecture - The Neo-Grec Style
Brooklyn was growing by leaps and bounds in the 1870’s. Most of our brownstone neighborhoods were well established by this time, and demand for homes was high. The Italianate style was still the popular architectural style of the day for rowhouses and mansions alike. Elaborate and florid carved acanthus leaf ornament flanked the lintels and windows of these homes, often accompanied by heavy window and door frames, ledges, and cornices. Inside the homes, the décor was equally florid and ornamental, with heavily carved and upholstered furniture, lots of rugs, doodads, draperies, paintings, sculpture and stuff. Numerous innovations and inventions in mass production enabled factories to churn out relatively inexpensive items for the home, and much like recent periods in our own time, more was definitely more. Around this time in England, architect, and social critic, Charles Eastlake, had published his revolutionary book, Hints on Household Tastes in Furniture, Upholstery and Other Details. The book was a huge success in England, and was published in the US in 1872. In it, Eastlake embraced the Arts and Crafts ideal of having furniture and décor made simply, and by hand. This was in direct opposition to the overblown excesses of the period, on both continents, and many of his ideas and designs for simpler furniture and furnishings resonated with the public. In America, his designs utilizing simpler shapes with incised carved ornament were picked up by manufacturers and Eastlake furniture, and the Eastlake style became an American phenomenon. We see Charles Eastlake’s unintentional influence in the rowhouse building style known as Neo-Grec.
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January 21, 2010
Walkabout: Coming Together in Brooklyn
Sue Rock Originals Studio. 1069 Bergen St, between Nostrand and Rogers, Crown Heights North. A non-profit now making clothes for the Haitian relief effort. (suerockoriginals blogspot)
Disasters large and small, natural or man made, have a way of bringing out the best as well as the worst of humanity. We saw it on 9/11, when first responders rushed into buildings on the verge of collapse, and when people of good will came from all over the world to help in the recovery. We saw it after Hurricane Katrina, for the tsunami victims of Indonesia, and now, the world’s care in the wake of the earthquake in Haiti. We have a very large Haitian community here in Brooklyn, so the pain felt at seeing one’s country collapse into rubble is felt deeply and personally from Crown Heights into Flatbush and beyond. There are many worthy local organizations collecting money, clothing, food and other goods to send to Haiti. I’d like to take a minute to introduce you to one of them, because this Brooklyn organization's mission has always been to help those in need.
If you wander into a small shop called Sue Rock Originals, at 1069 Bergen St, between Nostrand and Rogers, in Crown Heights North, you will probably be met by that force of nature herself, Sue Rock. She and her husband, Jerome, started their business as a non-profit 501(c)(3) charity to aid women escaping domestic violence. Sue, who used to be a legal secretary, lost a good friend to domestic violence several years ago, and it changed her. Sue wanted to have a business that could provide women starting new lives with clothing items, accessories, and home furnishing items that could brighten their new surroundings, as they often escaped with only the clothes on their backs.
January 19, 2010
Walkabout: Brooklyn’s Architects-Frank Freeman
Herman Behr Mansion, close-up of terra-cotta dragon detail. Frank Freeman, architect. Pierrepont and Henry, Brooklyn Heights. 1889.
Part of the fun in researching the architects and building styles of Brownstone Brooklyn is in piecing together an architect’s style by looking at the buildings he has designed. Many architects often found what they did well, and kept doing it, until that style fell out of favor, or they stopped designing. The best of them often kept with a specific style, but exercised great variety within that style, and then moved on as the markets changed. Unfortunately, some of the best of Brooklyn’s architects left behind great works, and next to no information about themselves. Frank Freeman, who the AIA Guide’s Norval White called “Brooklyn’s finest architect”, is one of those men.
We know he born in 1861, in Ontario, Canada, and shows up in the Brooklyn directories as an architect at the age of 24, in 1885. His education and apprenticeship remains a mystery, but two years later, he begins a string of successful large projects that would do any architect proud today. He kept an office in both Manhattan and Brooklyn, but he lived in Brooklyn Heights, and was a parishioner of Trinity Episcopal Church. Most of his best known projects were in the Heights/Downtown/Fulton Landing area, although he designed buildings in Bushwick, Park Slope, and Riverside Drive, in Manhattan. In 1888, he designed one of Brooklyn’s largest and most beloved apartment hotels, the Hotel Margaret, on Columbia Heights and Orange St. Photographs show a towering large hotel with Romanesque Revival details, terra-cotta and pressed tin ornament and what looks like a ballroom or public rooms on the top floor, with what must have been stunning river views. Sadly, it burned down in an immense fire in 1980, and was replaced by a modern apartment building for the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
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January 14, 2010
Walkabout: Terra-Cotta Revisited, part 2
Brooklyn Masonic Temple. Lafayette Ave, at Clermont. Fort Greene. Lord and Hewlett, Pell and Corbett, architects. 1906
Tuesday’s look at terra-cotta ornament dealt with natural, brick colored terra-cotta. That’s what most of us think of when we hear the term. But in addition to that more familiar medium, terra-cotta also can also be glazed in any color imaginable, as well as white. We may not realize it, but we see other kinds of terra-cotta every day.
By 1900, New York City was beginning to become the skyscraper filled towering city we know today. That iconic look would have been impossible without terra-cotta. Some of the early 20th century icons of Manhattan architecture; the Woolworth Building, the Flatiron Building, the Bayard Building, and many others, especially in lower Manhattan, were built with terra-cotta sheathing and ornament. The process from an architect’s design through the model making process, through figuring out the composition of the clay from an engineering prospective, through production, and finally shipping, is fascinating, and involved many skilled and unskilled workers, all working to provide tons of finished product. The Queens-based Atlantic Terra-Cotta Company and the Perth Amboy Terra-Cotta Company, in New Jersey, as well as the other New Jersey companies, were busy day and night, with materials coming in and shipments going out by barge continuously.
After seeing what was possible in natural, and white glazed terra-cotta, it was natural to wonder about color. After all, pottery was fired in all kinds of glazes, why not ornamental architectural terra-cotta? By the late 1890’s the Perth Amboy T-C Co. had several colors of glaze, and polychrome terra-cotta began to be experimented with by architects, often with great degrees of success. In Brooklyn, two of the most spectacular of these early efforts are the Brooklyn Academy of Music, built by Herts and Tallent in 1908, and the Brooklyn Masonic Temple in Fort Greene, built in 1908-9, by Lord and Hewlett, and Pell and Corbett.
January 12, 2010
Walkabout: Terra-Cotta Revisited
Clock face and ornament. Brooklyn Historical Society, formerly Long Is. HS, George Post, architect. 1878-81. Terra-cotta designed by Truman Hiram Bartlett. Pierrepont St. Brooklyn Heights.
My first post for Walkabout with Montrose, (anniversary coming up in March!) was a piece on terra-cotta and carved stone trim. Since that time, my camera and I have been wandering around, and I thought this would be a good time to go into more detail about this most ancient of building materials.
As most people know, terra-cotta is simply translated “burnt earth”, a term the Romans used to describe glazed or unglazed fired clay used primarily as architectural elements, statuary and urns. Susan Tunik, in her seminal book, Terra-Cotta Skyline, which is the bible of New York City’s terra-cotta heritage, and the source of much of my information, calls our city “the clay jungle”, as opposed to the usual “concrete jungle”, because there is such a richness of terra-cotta ornament here. Terra-cotta started to show up on Manhattan facades in the late 1840’s, and was widely used for ornament starting in the 1880s, and was an important part of ornament during the Art Deco period of the 1920’s and 30’s. Brooklyn is home to examples that are monumental and important in the use of this versatile material, and full of smaller, yet wonderful, everyday examples that enhance and beautify the residential and commercial buildings we pass every day.
January 7, 2010
Walkabout: A Fortune in Lace, Part 2
Frederick Loeser's. Fulton St at Bond. Daily Eagle Postcard. Probably 1887-8. (brooklyn_geneology_info.com)
Fortunes can be made from many things, and many of Brooklyn’s wealthiest men became wealthy from the selling of goods and commodities. John Gibb was one of them. In the last post, we were introduced to Mr. Gibb, a Scotsman, who came to New York in 1850, and fifteen years later was a millionaire as a partner in the largest lace, yard goods and upholstery business in New York, called Mills and Gibb. He built a fine large house on Gates Avenue, between Franklin and Classon, and entered Brooklyn high society. He had a very large family, thirteen children in all, seven sons and six daughters. In 1887, he and two of his eldest sons, Howard and Arthur, went into partnership with Frederick Loeser. Mr. Loeser had been business partners with Louis and Herman Leibmann in the establishment of a very successful dry goods store called Frederick Loeser and Co, located in downtown Brooklyn at 277 Fulton St. (Loeser is pronounced “Low-zhur”) By 1860, they were firmly established as one of Brooklyn’s pre-eminent merchants, with numerous ads in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, selling ladies’ gloves, hats, clothing, fabrics and other dry goods.
Twenty-seven years later, Frederick Loeser dissolved his partnership with the Leibmann’s, (yes, there was a law suit) and went into partnership with the Gibb’s. What resulted from this union of successful merchant, and successful wholesaler was a brand new, state of the art, upscale shopping emporium that took Brooklyn by storm.
January 5, 2010
Walkabout: A Fortune in Lace, Part 1
The John Gibb Mansion, 218 Gates Ave, Bedford Stuyvesant. Built in 1850's - early 1860's. Architect unknown.
John Gibb was born in Forfarshire, Scotland in 1829. As a youth, he apprenticed to a dry goods merchant, and at the age of 18, went to London to work for JR Jaffrey and Company, a dry goods import-export house. He came to the US in 1850, to run a Jaffrey department here, and fifteen years later, started his own company with a co-worker. That company, Mills and Gibb, soon became one of the largest importing companies of lace, white goods and upholstery in the city of New York. Gibb became a very wealthy man. By 1887, his office and warehouse at 462 Broadway was an enormous half block long and wide, cast iron front building on the corner of Broadway and Grand, built in the French Renaissance style in 1880, by John Correja. Now a part of the Soho Cast Iron Historic District, this building is now better known as Daffy’s and the French Culinary Institute and restaurant.
In the late 1850’s or early ‘60’s, John Gibb bought up a lot of land around Gates and Classon, (spelled Clason, in those days) and built a house. This area, on what is now the Bedford Stuyvesant/Clinton Hill border, was just starting to be developed, and the Brooklyn Eagle has numerous announcements of street paving in the area. Houses here at this time were mostly clapboard, and the large robber baron mansions of Clinton Hill had not yet been built. Gibb built a large, 4 story, with a giant back extension, Second Empire, mansard roofed red brick house on a large lot near the center of the block, at 218 Gates. At that time,there were no buildings between his house and Classon Ave. The house had fourteen rooms, with two bathrooms, and an enormous dining room in the back extension. He needed all of this room because he and his first wife, Harriet, had eleven children.
December 31, 2009
Walkabout: The Brooklyn Wall of Remembrance
On the eve of a New Year, we are reminded that not only buildings make up neighborhoods, people do. Here is a story about someone who makes a difference in Brooklyn.
Life-long Brooklynite, and perpetual Brooklyn Dodgers fan, Sol Moglen, wanted to dedicate a wall of Keyspan Park, the Brooklyn Cyclones baseball team home, to his heroes, the 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers. Everything was set up for the tribute, and then 9/11 happened. Sol was touched to learn that over a third of the first responders who died that day lived in, were born in, or worked in Brooklyn. He wanted to have a tribute to those brave firefighters, police officers and EMT’s who gave their lives for the city - and he had this wall..... Long story short, he gathered a diverse group of friends, business people, politicians, celebrities, first responders, and artists, who all donated their time, money, and talents towards building the Brooklyn Wall of Remembrance on an exterior wall of the Keyspan ball park in Coney Island.
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December 29, 2009
Walkabout: Restoring a House in the City
Excerpted from RESTORING A HOUSE IN THE CITY by Ingrid Ambramovitch (Artisan Books). Copyright 2009. Brian Park photographer.
I was fortunate enough to catch up with author Ingrid Abramovitch. Her new book, Restoring a House in the City is flying off the shelves in local bookstores for good reason. Anyone who is undertaking a brownstone renovation, is thinking about it, or just enjoys looking at all kinds of row house styles and decor, will enjoy this book. Here's what she has to say about old houses, craftsmanship, and living in Brooklyn.
Ingrid, your book, Restoring a House in the City, introduces the reader to town and row houses located across the country, and even one in Montreal. With so many apartment and condo choices available in all of the cities featured, why do you think row house living has such a passionate appeal for so many people?
Living in an antique town house is a conscious lifestyle choice--as much a statement of identity for a certain type of city dweller as buying a Richard Meier condo would be for a very different set of urban folk. In the case of row houses, there is the powerful allure of living in a house that has been crafted by hand, from materials that few of us could afford to buy new today, complete with architectural grace notes like ornamental plaster details and fretwork and marble mantels. They are practically stage sets in this era of sheet-rock and cheap construction, romantic anachronisms that help to ground us from high-speed lives filled with high-tech gadgets and devices. There is a solidity to an old house that is as comforting as it is charming.
December 24, 2009
Walkabout: Have an Historic Brooklyn Christmas!
For Christmas, I present the words of one of Brooklyn's most famous sons, and some historic images of Brooklyn winters and Christmases past. Merry Christmas, everyone!
Crossing Brooklyn Ferry (excerpt) by Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
Others will enter the gates of the ferry, and cross from shore to shore;
Others will watch the run of the flood-tide;
Others will see the shipping of Manhattan north and west, and the heights
of Brooklyn to the south and east;
Others will see the islands large and small;
Fifty years hence, others will see them as they cross, the sun half an
hour high;
A hundred years hence, or ever so many hundred years hence, others will
see them,
Will enjoy the sunset, the pouring in of the flood-tide, the falling back
to the sea of the ebb-tide.
Continue reading "Walkabout: Have an Historic Brooklyn Christmas!"
December 22, 2009
Walkabout: Favorite Sacred Spaces
Union United Methodist Church. JC Cady and Co, architects. 1892. New York Ave. Crown Heights North. Former 1st Church of Christ, Scientist at right.
Throughout history, in all cultures, buildings and spaces dedicated to honor and worship a Higher Power or Powers, have been the laboratories for innovation in architecture. Everything we know as familiar in Western architecture, has been borrowed from the temples of the Greeks and Romans, the mosques of ancient Islam, and the domes of Constantinople. During the Middle Ages, at a time when most people could not read or write, and majority lived in primitive huts and shelters, the great cathedrals rose, and somehow these people figured out flying buttresses, soaring spaces, elaborate tracery windows, and magnificent stained glass, creating an architectural style that is still copied today. The Renaissance built upon those innovations, and added the magnificence of the Greco-Roman and Eastern dome, again inventing and perfecting architectural and engineering feats of great ingenuity and beauty. By the time we reach 19th and 20th century Brooklyn, everything is in place for the great churches and temples that grace our streets today.
I haven’t seen, and I certainly haven’t photographed, all of the wonderful houses of worship that exist in Brownstone Brooklyn, not to mention outside of the Brownstone belt. So my list of favorites is from the parts of Brooklyn that I know well. I used to be a professional choral singer, mostly in Episcopal churches, and have been lucky enough to see the interiors of many beautiful churches all over Brooklyn. Several are featured here. My neighborhood of Crown Heights North has some of the most beautiful churches and temples in all of Brooklyn, and my entire list of favorites could easily be filled from here.
December 17, 2009
Walkabout: Readers’ Favorites
Originally the Methodist Episcopal Home for the Aged. Mercein Thomas, architect of main building. 1889. Crown Heights North
Today’s favorite buildings are suggestions from readers, and all are among my favorite Brooklyn buildings, as well. They represent some of the most unusual and inventive architecture in Brooklyn, and are all worthy of separate, more informative posts at a later date. These are buildings built either for the civic good or as a gathering place for the important men of the day.
To walk down New York Avenue, in Crown Heights North, and to suddenly come upon the old Methodist Home, is still a surprise and a delight - discovering a Dickensian institution transported into the middle of the city. Crown Heights North used to have several institutions designed to aid the poor, the orphaned and the elderly. This is one of the few remaining, and is also the largest. This vast complex is a series of annexes, both old and newer, with the center building with the tower as its original building. It was designed by Mercein Thomas, a successful Brooklyn architect who was very active in building in Clinton Hill. Thomas donated his architectural services, and the building was completed in 1889. At the time it was known as the Methodist Episcopal Home for the Aged. It housed over 60 men, who were required to be over 65 years of age, and Methodists in good standing for at least ten years. The chapel was added in 1912, and is the jewel in the complex, with beautiful stained and painted glass windows. The buildings were abandoned in the 1970’s, and stood empty for years before being re-opened as the Hebron Seventh Day Adventist Elementary School. A grant was recently obtained to redo the roof and do basic maintenance, and fortunately, this complex will soon be landmarked and protected in Phase II of Crown Heights North’s Historic District. This unique remnant of Victorian social reform is a favorite of Brenda from Flatbush and Bxgrl.
December 15, 2009
Walkabout: Apartment Building Favorites
Leverich Towers in foreground. Starrett and Van Vleck, architects, 1928. One of the towers of the St. George Hotel is in the background. Clark St at Willow, Brooklyn Heights.
There are literally thousands of original apartment buildings in Brooklyn. From eight unit flats buildings, to tenement buildings, to large pre-war apartment buildings, there are apartment buildings everywhere, and some of them, architecturally, are quite wonderful. There are so many great buildings that I could take pictures for weeks, and still not cover every neighborhood, or capture every great building. My choices for my favorite apartment buildings are dictated by my ability to get around, and whether or not I had a photograph. I know there are tons of great apartment buildings in Park Slope and other neighborhoods. Some of them are quite impressive, some historic, and some by major architects. But I don’t have photos, so they didn’t make the list this time. Many of my choices are from Crown Heights North, partly because I live here, and see them every day, and partially because we have a lot of apartment buildings, and most of them are excellently designed buildings by important architects who were building to entice the upper middle, and upper classes, or building flats buildings for the expanding middle class. For more information on this subject, please check out my posts earlier this year on multiple unit housing: tenements, flats, and luxury apts. I’ve got favorites in other neighborhoods, too. This list only scratched the surface. I’ve only included buildings that were built as apartment buildings or hotels, not conversions such as former hospitals, schools, factories, etc.
December 10, 2009
Walkabout: Favorite Brooklyn Buildings - Reader's Choices
Boys High School. Marcy Ave, at Putnam, Bedford Stuyvesant. James Naughton, architect. 1891-92. View from Madison St.
Every Tuesday and Thursday, Montrose Morris writes a guest post about Brooklyn architectural history...Continuing December’s topic of Favorite Brooklyn buildings, today’s choices have been supplied by the Brownstoner readership. Our reader’s favorites this week are all counted among the best buildings of any kind in Brooklyn. They all date from a time when Brooklyn was coming into its own as a great city in its own right, and show the world that the architects who chose Brooklyn as their base were as talented and innovative as any in Manhattan, or the rest of America. Reader Roby F’s favorite is the Boys High School, and from Minard Lefever, his namesake’s Packer Collegiate and the Fire Headquarters Building of Frank Freeman.
Public education for students above elementary school was a new concept for Brooklynites in the late 1800’s. When the Bklyn Board of Education established a high school system in 1878, new schools needed to be built. The Superintendent of Buildings at that time was the highly talented Irish born architect, James Naughton, who designed both the Girls High School at Nostrand and Macon in 1886-6, and his masterpiece, Boys High School, several blocks away, at Marcy Avenue and Putnam Street. Boys High opened in 1892, and is one of the most highly regarded examples of Romanesque Revival architecture in the city, characterized by round arched openings, contrasting smooth and rough surfaced stone work, and most of all, powerful massing, often swelled with rounded bays, dormers, and towers. As impressive as it is, the details still delight, especially the sculptured heads of schoolboys on the Marcy Ave. façade. The school counts as alumni such greats as Norman Mailer, Isaac Asimov, William J. Levitt of Levittown, and iconic Miami Beach architect, Morris Lapidus. The school was landmarked in 1975, and was restored in the 1990’s, and just had some more major work done this year. It now houses two charter schools. For more on James Naughton and his schools, read my Walkabout post from September.
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December 8, 2009
Walkabout: My Favorites - Commercial and Civic Buildings
Our regular architecture columnist who on this site goes by the username Montrose Morris files another piece this morning...This month I’m highlighting some of my favorite Brooklyn buildings, as well as the favorites as indicated by reader responses. Mine are mostly in Brownstone Brooklyn because that’s what I know. Today’s faves are all commercial and civic buildings, although some have been repurposed for other uses, including residential. The original owners and their architects wanted buildings that were functional, but also added to the streetscape of a prosperous and growing city. If a building was impressive, and had their name or company emblazoned on it, that didn’t hurt, either. Many of these civic and commercial buildings were designed by the same architects who designed the homes and neighborhoods of these same movers and shakers of the 19th and early 20th century. Some of these buildings I pass quite frequently, some I see less often, but always enjoy. Perhaps you’ve never noticed some of them, and the photos will surprise you, and hopefully, some are your favorites, too. Some are considered Brooklyn’s best and most important buildings, some I just like. Thursday’s column will highlight more favorite commercial and civic buildings suggested by readers, including the Brooklyn Historic Society, Boy’s High School, Fire Headquarters and the Montauk Club, all of which are among my favorites, as well. Here, in no particular order, are twenty more. Some of these will be expanded upon in the future. If you would like to add your favorites, please comment below. All the buildings are featured on my Flickr page.
1. Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce Building, 75 Livingston St, corner of Court. AF Simberg, architect, 1927. Style: Early Art Deco.
2. Abraham and Straus secondary building, Livingston St. at Gallatin Place. Downtown Brooklyn. Architect, George L. Morse. 1885. Style: Romanesque Revival.
3. Temple Bar Building, 44 Court Street at Joralemon. George L. Morse, architect 1901. Style: Neo-Classic.
4. Eagle Warehouse and Storage Co, 28 Old Fulton St. DUMBO. Frank Freeman, architect, 1893. Style: Romanesque Revival.
5. Boat House, Prospect Park, Helmle and Huberty, architects, 1904. Style: Neo-Classic.
Continue reading "Walkabout: My Favorites - Commercial and Civic Buildings"
December 3, 2009
Walkabout: Reader's Favorites - The Dutch Masters
Hendrick I. Lott House. 1940 East 36th St. Marine Park. East wing 1720, main house, 1800. (Stu Joe on Flickr)
I received a few lists of favorite buildings from readers, and will be reporting on the ones that I can, this month. A couple requests are worthy of entire posts, so if I run out of space in December, they will most certainly appear in 2010. Today’s favorite houses are from Joe from Brooklyn and Lisa the City Planner. They are both important and rare remnants of Brooklyn’s Dutch past, and our borough’s agrarian history.
The Hendrick I. Lott House is in Marine Park, at 1940 E. 36th St. it is hailed as one of the finest examples of Dutch Colonial farmhouse architecture in New York City. Charles Ditmas, writing in his Historic Homesteads of Kings County at the turn of the 20th century, called the house “the finest house in all of Kings County.” The white clapboard house was built in 1800 by Hendrick I. Lott, incorporating part of his grandfather’s 1720 house as the kitchen wing. The Lott family immigrated to Brooklyn from Holland in 1652, and was a prosperous and successful farming family. The house was originally surrounded by landscaped grounds and gardens, and had barns, sheds and other outbuildings on the estate. Like most farmers in Brooklyn at this time, the Lott’s had slaves and indentured people working on the farm. In 1805, the Lott’s freed their twelve slaves, and hired them back as workers. Historians surmise the family must have been ardent Abolitionists, as evidence of a closet within a closet, large enough for two people, and other evidence of Underground Railroad activity were discovered. The hidden closet was a family secret passed down through the last Lott to live in the house.
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December 1, 2009
Walkabout: Some Favorite Things: Part I
When I first moved to NYC, I lived in the Bronx, near relatives. Before moving to Brooklyn, I used to visit my friend, a Pratt student, who over the course of four years lived all over Clinton Hill and Fort Greene. Wandering around the neighborhood convinced me that Brooklyn was the place to be for someone who loved architecture. After moving here, I started really noticing the small details, when I would go on long, wandering walks for exercise, got involved in the preservation of Crown Heights and Bed Stuy, and started taking lots of photographs, and lots of research. I’ve wandered around a good deal of Brownstone Brooklyn in the past year, now hyper aware of every bit of architectural detail, the composition of blocks, the progression of style and history, use and adaptive re-use, and sometimes, the passing of an architectural treasure. Some neighborhoods I know quite well, some not so well, and there are some I have barely explored. In the future, I hope to be able to add elements from neighborhoods like Windsor Terrace, Sunset Park, and Bushwick, for example, places I just haven't gotten to. My favorites will be sure to increase with continued exploration.
In the meantime, here is the first in my “Favorites” series. These are just some of my favorite groups of houses. They were built to be viewed as a whole, as well as individual homes. Some, like the Montrose Morris houses, are framed under a common roof. Others blend seamlessly across the row, forming an aesthetically pleasing progression down the street. Others are joined by the commonality of building materials, or ornament: a shared cornice, pressed metal ornamental bands, or other decorative elements that join them together. More often than not, these houses were built in groups designed to fit into a set number of lots, often in the middle of other such groups. Most were not built specifically for a buyer, but were speculative housing, often for the upper middle classes.
November 25, 2009
Walkabout: Our Favorite Brooklyn Buildings
For December, I'd like to feature my favorite buildings, and yours. Each column will highlight favorite buildings in mostly Brownstone Brooklyn: row houses, apartment houses, free standing homes, churches, commercial buildings, schools and civic buildings, as well as favorite architectural features or ornament. My Tuesday column will feature some of my choices. I'd like to have people write and tell me your choices, so Thursday's column can show what the readers think are the most interesting buildings. I don't have a car, and can't get to a lot of far-flung locations, so if you have photographs to accompany them, that's even better. I'll feature them in the article, find out what I can about them, and put all of them in my Flickr pages, of course, crediting your screen name for photos and entries.
If not enough people reply, you'll just get my faves. So send in those entries. Leave building names (if any) and addresses, and suggestions in the comments below, as well as links to Flickr or other photo sharing sites. Photos can be sent to my email: montrosemorrisATyahooDOTcom. Buildings don't have to be old, important, or great, just enjoyed by you. I'm looking forward to your participation. Have a safe and Happy Thanksgiving.
November 24, 2009
Walkabout: Montrose Morris, From Hot to Forgot(ten)
This is the last in a series of five articles chronicling the life and works of 19th century Brooklyn architect Montrose W. Morris. The previous articles can be found here.
The twenty years between 1885 and 1905 must have been a non-stop whirl of work and social activities for Montrose Morris. His most important works were standing monuments to his talent, and stood in all of the best neighborhoods; from Brooklyn Heights to Fort Greene/Clinton Hill to St. Marks to Park Slope to Bedford, where he still lived in his first show house on Hancock St. However, in the new century, things were starting to slow down.
The last Morris building to be built in Park Slope is a large Beaux Arts apartment building at 143-53 Eighth Avenue, between Garfield and Montgomery, built in 1910-11. The limestone lower floors share some of the PPW house’s stonework, and have classic arched Parisian windows. The rest of the large red brick and limestone trimmed building has some nice window trim and detail, and is a fine apartment building, but would not be picked out as a Montrose Morris building unless you knew it to be so. He is credited for the Chatelaine Hotel, a large residential hotel found on the corner of Dean and Bedford, at the heart of Grant Square, across the street from his impressive Imperial Apartments. It was probably built around the same time, and rises majestically on that corner, complete with Classical detailing, white terra cotta trim, a massive cornice, and large green terra cotta signage that has lasted through the building’s transformation from a hotel to a hospital, now to residential units.
Continue reading "Walkabout: Montrose Morris, From Hot to Forgot(ten)"
November 19, 2009
Walkabout: Montrose Morris - Full Circle
Clarence W. Seamans Mansion. St. Marks Avenue, Crown Heights North. 1903. Stable can be seen at left rear. (Brooklyn Public Library, taken in 1905.)
This is the fourth in a series about Montrose Morris, one of Brooklyn finest architects working at the turn of the 20th century. Previous articles can be found here.
Like most architects of the day, Montrose Morris embraced the new Classicism, as popularized by the Chicago Exposition of 1893. Gone were the dark brownstone and brick, and the free wheeling exuberance of the Romanesque Revival and Queen Anne styles. The light colored building materials, serious sturdiness and sheer impressiveness of Beaux Arts and neo-Classic architecture were a reflection of the age of robber barons and big money, and that’s what Morris’ clients in the late 1890’s and early 20th century wanted. In Park Slope, Morris took this new Classicism to heart, but tweaked it, and imbued some of these new commissions with the old Morris touch. The first of these new buildings, in 1894, was corner townhouse at 123 Eighth Ave, at Carroll St. The Classical details are especially fine on the front entrance and on the Carroll St. side of the building. On Prospect Park West, Classical details are combined with a Morris loggia at 17 PPW, while all of his PPW limestones have similar detailing in the stonework, Classical relief columns, arched entries and windows and pedimented dormers. As per usual, with Morris, many are in complementing pairs; 16, 17 PPW (1899), my favorites - 18, 19 PPW (1898), and a single, 22 PPW (1899). All of these houses have large windows facing the park, and all are examples of a restrained elegance in design.
In 1900, Montrose got a huge commission – the largest private house in Brooklyn, to date. Clarence W. Seamans was the head of Union Typewriter, at the beginning of the 20th century, the largest business machine company in the world. He was also a financier, sitting on the boards of Brooklyn’s Schermerhorn Bank and People’s Trust Bank. During the 1890’s he began buying up land in the fashionable St. Mark’s District, on St. Mark’s Avenue and directly behind this plot, on Bergen St. He held a competition to choose an architect for his new home, and chose the designs of Montrose Morris over the others.
November 17, 2009
Walkabout: Part 3, MM - Park Slope and Big Business
This is the third installment of Montrose Morris' story, the first subject in an ongoing series featuring the best of Brooklyn's late 19th century architects. The first two chapters are available here.
Montrose Morris was riding high at the turn of the century, commissions were rolling in, and business was good. He continued as a developer, cashing in on the new desire for respectable middle class apartment buildings, building and renting them out in the desirable neighborhoods of Clinton Hill, Bedford and Park Slope. He experimented in style; two of his buildings, the Clermont in Bedford Stuyvesant, and 515 Clinton Ave have a distinctly French chateau flair. Socially, he was a man in high standing in Brooklyn society, and his name appears often in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle as a member of many prominent clubs and associations. We read of him attending a lecture by Frederick Douglass at the Union League Club, where he was a founding member and long time treasurer. He was a member of the 23rd Regiment Veterans Association, the Mistletoe Lodge, the Montauk Club, the Invincible Club, the Amphion Musical Society, the Royal Arcanum, and the Lefferts Council. The Eagle often commented on the many social events at the Morris home on Hancock Street, including a concert with his fellow members of the Contemporary Club, where it was mentioned that Mrs. Morris possessed a fine singing voice.
The Morris’ social connections, along with the quality of the body of work he was amassing soon attracted the wealthy men looking to build in Park Slope. In 1892, he finished what many consider to be his finest private house. Henry Carlton Hulbert was a paper manufacturer, financier, and prominent board member of the New York Life Insurance Company, as well as the Pullman Car Company. He commissioned Morris to design a double house for himself and his daughter Susie, and her new husband. The house would be made of the finest of materials, and sit majestically on the Gold Coast of Park Slope, Ninth Avenue (now Prospect Park West), at the corner of First Street.
Continue reading "Walkabout: Part 3, MM - Park Slope and Big Business"
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