Cypress Hills

Brooklyn, one building at a time.

Name: Originally the Wilhelmus Stoothoff House, now two-family private house
Address: 494 Jamaica Avenue
Cross Streets: Elton and Linwood Streets
Neighborhood: Cypress Hills
Year Built: Original house, before 1800, heavy alterations in 1889, remuddling later in 20th century
Architectural Style: New Netherlands Dutch, with Victorian alterations
Architect: Unknown
Landmarked: No

The story: When you walk by this house, you can tell it’s much older than it looks today. First of all, there’s its position. It’s off the street grid, skewed at bit sideways, usually an indication that it predates the laying out of present day Jamaica Avenue. Secondly, if you look beyond the enclosed porch and the vinyl siding, there is an old Dutch overshot roof, and all of those dormers, front and back. What’s up with this house? Many times, these houses are so mucked up the records are totally gone, but I was surprised to find some real information.

This was originally the Wilhelmus Stoothoff house, built sometime before 1800, when this was still Dutch farm country in New Lots. Up until the middle of the 1900s, several other Dutch colonial houses still stood in the area, the most important being the Isaac Cornell Schenck house, which stood across the street in what would become Highland Park. Early records show that Jan Berents Bloom owned the land and the house, and sold it to Wilhelmus Stoothoff somewhere around the turn of the 19th century. A barn was erected for Stoothoff in 1800, and the house is mentioned in 1814, in the diary of John Baxter, in which he refers to Stoothoff as “Bill.”

Bill Stoothoff died in 1837. Before he died, he sold the property to John R. Pitkin, of Connecticut, who was planning East New York’s development. But the Panic of 1837 caused Pitkin to lose the property, and it went back to the Stoothoff family. After the Civil War, William Stoothoff, Bill’s son, sold the house and forty acres to Edward F. Linton. Edward F. Linton would have a great impact on both the house and the neighborhood. (more…)

Brooklyn, one building at a time.

Name: Private house
Address: 278 Highland Boulevard
Cross Streets: Miller Avenue and Barbey Street
Neighborhood: Highland Park
Year Built: Early 20th century, before 1915
Architectural Style: Arts and Crafts
Architect: Unknown, perhaps Adam Wischerth
Landmarked: No, but entire block should be

The story: Highland Boulevard was the Gold Coast of the Highland Park/Cypress Hills neighborhood. This broad street is lined with some impressive mansions, as well as smaller, but no less interesting turn of the 20th century one family houses. Almost all of the houses on this block date from this time period, when fortunes were being made by the mostly German-American households who lived here. The largest monuments in nearby Cypress Hills and Evergreen Cemeteries all bear witness to the success of those people, and the general community.

One of those successful people was Adam Wischerth (often spelled Wischert, as well). Both variations of his name appear in the papers and building trade magazines, identifying him as a successful local developer and builder and sometimes architect. His name was connected to Adolf Gobel, the “Sausage King of Brooklyn,” who lived just across the street, and Wischerth is on record as the architect and builder of Gobel’s factories in Bushwick. He also built or designed many other small industrial and commercial buildings in the areas of Bushwick, East New York and Ridgewood, Queens.

Researching Mr. Wischerth can be confusing. Between the variations on his name and some confusion as to where he lived, which at times is here, and other times is at the Gobel mansion address, he seemed to be all over this block. Perhaps he was, but the preponderance of evidence seems to be that this house, number 278, was his actual home. There are mentions of his wife entertaining here, which appear in the Eagle and other local papers. It’s an interesting house with a large parcel of land around it, giving it a wonderful isolation within a city block. The land also allows the house to present itself with great panache. (more…)

Brooklyn, one building at a time.

Name: Originally Trinity Episcopal Church, now St. Joseph’s Anglican Church
Address: 131 Arlington Avenue
Cross Streets: Corner Schenck Avenue
Neighborhood: Cypress Hills/Highland Park
Year Built: 1886
Architectural Style: Romanesque Revival
Architect: Richard M. Upjohn
Other buildings by architect: St. George Episcopal Church, Bedford Stuyvesant; St. Paul’s Church, Carroll Gardens. Other churches in the U.S., as well as the Connecticut State Capitol Building in Hartford.
Landmarked: No

The story: For most New Yorkers who love church architecture, or the history of the city, Trinity Episcopal Church is the name of architect Richard Upjohn’s masterpiece in Lower Manhattan, one of the oldest and most beautiful churches in the city. This church, of the same name, has both a Manhattan and an Upjohn connection. From lower Broadway to far off Cypress Hills, Brooklyn, that’s a long connection. Here’s the story: (more…)

Brooklyn, one building at a time.

Name: Originally the James Royal House
Address: 18 Ashford Street
Cross Streets: Corner of Ridgewood Avenue
Neighborhood: Cypress Hills
Year Built: 1904
Architectural Style: Queen Anne
Architect: John J. Petit
Other buildings by architect: “Japanese House” and other houses in Prospect Park South, Ditmas Park, and Victorian Flatbush. Also the Siatta House in Dyker Heights, house on Stuyvesant Avenue, Bed Stuy, and other buildings.
Landmarked: No

The story: John J. Petit was one of the “go-to” architects at the turn of the 20th century, if you wanted a fine, sprawling suburban style house. He must have made a tidy living with these McMansions of their day, some of which are extremely well designed homes, showing great imagination and style. This was one of those fine houses. It lies in Cypress Hills, once an upper middle class suburban enclave, part of the greater East New York neighborhood. Cypress Hills, Highland Park and East New York were all once part of the Dutch town of New Lots, itself an offshoot of Flatbush. When Flatbush farmers needed more land, they came to this part of Brooklyn to farm the new lots, hence the name. This was all farmland, and the house now stands on what used to be part of the nearby Schenck farm, now only remembered by a street name. (more…)

Brooklyn, one building at a time.

Name: Public School 108
Address: 200 Linwood Street
Cross Streets: Corner Arlington Avenue
Neighborhood: Cypress Hills
Year Built: 1895
Architectural Style: Romanesque Revival
Architect: James W. Naughton
Other buildings by architect: Girls High School, Boys High School, both in Bed Stuy; P.S. 9 Annex in Prospect Heights; many other schools in Brooklyn
Landmarked: Yes, individual landmark (1981)

The story: It’s not very often that an architect can shape an entire portion of a city, but that’s what James W. Naughton did with the Brooklyn Public School system between the years 1879 and 1898. In those nineteen years, he was the sole architect of hundreds of school buildings in the City of Brooklyn, all the result of his position as Superintendent of Buildings for the Board of Education of the City of Brooklyn.

As Brooklyn was growing in leaps and bounds at the end of the 19th century, so too was the need for more public schools. Immigration, the influx of people from Manhattan and the rest of the country; all contributed to an ever-growing number of children who needed to be educated. As an independent city, Brooklyn led the region in educational innovation, having established the first high schools in the New York City area. Naughton was there when it happened, and designed some of Brooklyn’s most iconic schools. (more…)

Brooklyn, one building at a time.

Name: Row houses
Address: 149-181 Sunnyside Avenue
Cross Streets: Barbey and Hendrix Streets
Neighborhood: Highland Park/Cypress Hills
Year Built: Between 1900 and 1920
Architectural Style: Mediterranean/Colonial Revival-inspired row house
Architect: William C. Winters
Other buildings by architect: Much of the Sunnyside Avenue area, as well as other buildings in Brooklyn, Queens and Long Island.
Landmarked: No

The story: The great glacier that tore its way through Brooklyn on its way to the sea, a millennia ago, gave us the spectacular topography of the Highland Park/Cypress Hills area. From the highest points, such as in the Cemetery of the Evergreens, you can see for miles in every direction. By the time the late 19th and early 20th centuries rolled around, and the neighborhood was being laid out for development, the hills of the terminal moraine made for some tricky urban planning, with steep streets and homes hugging the hills unlike anywhere else in Brooklyn. But, land is money, so the developers made it work. The blocks of Sunnyside Avenue between Miller Avenue and Highland Park are a perfect example of this.

Most of the houses on Sunnyside, as well as on Schenck Court, a cul-de-sac which backs Sunnyside, as well as other nearby streets, were built by Richards Real Homes, a Queens development company which built much of the neighborhood between 1900 and 1920. The company put up 90 houses on Sunnyside Avenue, with as many or more on the other streets in the area. Frank Richards, owner of the company, hired a fellow Queens resident, William C. Winters, as architect for the projects. (more…)

Brooklyn, one building at a time.

Name: Formerly Arlington Avenue Presbyterian Church, now Presbyterian Church of the Crossroads
Address: 266 Arlington Avenue
Cross Streets: Corner of Elton Street
Neighborhood: Highland Park
Year Built: 1905-1906
Architectural Style: Romanesque Revival
Architect: Henry Rutgers Marshall, Sunday School: William Gompert (1916)
Other works by architect: First Congregational Church, Colorado Springs, CO, Naulakha; Rudyard Kipling’s home in Vermont.
Landmarked: No, but should be.

The story: What an overlooked architectural gem this church is! Here in Highland Park, near the border of Brooklyn and Queens, at the edge of East New York, sits a church worthy of notice anywhere. The church was built at the Arlington Avenue Presbyterian Church, and has a long history in this community.

The congregation was founded in 1889, and before this church was built, they worshipped in a small wooden church built in 1893. That church stood in a lot right next door to the present church, on Elton Street. On April 15, 1905, the cornerstone for this church was laid, and the church was dedicated a year later, in 1906. The building was designed by Henry Rutgers Marshall, a student of Henry Hobson Richardson, the father of the Romanesque Revival movement in America. (more…)

Brooklyn, one building at a time.

Name: Single-family homes
Address: 124 and 130 Arlington Avenue
Cross Streets: Schenck Avenue and Barbey Street
Neighborhood: Highland Park/Cypress Hills
Year Built: 1908-1912
Architectural Style: Classical Revival
Architect: Rosemary Songer Unknown
Landmarked: No

The story: I recently got the opportunity to wander around parts of Highland Park and Cypress Hills, which, according to Forgotten NY, is one of the most forgotten and little-known neighborhoods in Brooklyn. Often lumped in with, and then dismissed by many, as part of East New York, these two neighborhoods have a long and proud history. There is a lot of great architecture there, much of which has little or no information available about it, but I hope to be able to find out what I can, and add some of their architecture to the growing map of Brooklyn’s significant buildings. (more…)