Prospect Lefferts Gardens

Brooklyn, one building at a time.

Name: Semi-detached row houses
Address: 91-93 Midwood Street
Cross Streets: Flatbush and Bedford Avenues
Neighborhood: Lefferts Manor, Prospect Lefferts Gardens
Year Built: 1904
Architectural Style: Renaissance Revival
Architect: Axel Hedman
Other buildings by architect: Hundreds of buildings in PLG, Crown Heights North and South, Park Slope, Bedford Stuyvesant, Clinton Hill. In PLG – Maple Street, between Bedford and Rogers
Landmarked: Yes, part of Prospect Lefferts Gardens HD (1979)

The story: Here in Lefferts Manor, much is made of Axel Hedman’s fine limestone row houses on Maple Street, between Bedford and Rogers, and rightly so, they are among the finest houses in the neighborhood. But this interesting group of houses, by the same architect, often gets overlooked. These three groups of twin semi-detached houses, all with garages and shared driveways, sit on the far end of Midwood, just around the corner from Hedman’s famous Maple street row. They were built in 1904, five years before the Maple Street houses, and represent Hedman’s second job in this fast growing neighborhood. (more…)

Brooklyn, one building at a time.

Name: Private House
Address: 140 Lincoln Road
Cross Streets: Flatbush and Bedford Avenues
Neighborhood: Prospect Lefferts Gardens (Lefferts Manor)
Year Built: 1916
Architectural Style: Neo-Tudor
Architect: Slee & Bryson
Other buildings by architect: most of the houses on this block, also on other Lefferts Manor blocks, Colonial Revivals in Albemarle-Kenmore Terraces HD, Prospect Park South, Crown Hts North and South, Park Slope and Ditmas Park.
Landmarked: Yes, part of Prospect Lefferts Manor HD (1979)

The story: Lefferts Manor, specifically, and Prospect Lefferts Gardens, in general, is a mixture of urban and suburban architecture, a perfect microcosm of the evolution of upper middle class housing, from the age of stables to the age of garages. Across the street from these houses, all up and down this block, are later apartment buildings, themselves an important part of Brooklyn’s housing evolution. This side is filled with large suburban-style single family houses, the same as those that line the streets of Ditmas Park, parts of Prospect Park South, and other neighborhoods in what we now call Victorian Flatbush. A block away are traditional Renaissance Revival limestones and other row houses. (more…)