Building of the Day: 1025 Bushwick Avenue

The BOTD is a no-frills look at interesting structures of all types and from all neighborhoods. There will be old, new, important, forgotten, public, private, good and bad. Whatever strikes our fancy. We hope you enjoy.

Address: 1025 Bushwick Ave, corner of Linden St.
Name: Private House
Neighborhood: Bushwick
Year Built: late 1800’s
Architectural Style: Queen Anne
Architects: Unknown
Landmarked: No

Here’s another of Bushwick’s eclectic houses on its main thoroughfare, Bushwick Avenue. Little information is available as to the original owner, or the architect, but the house is textbook Shingle Style Queen Anne, much altered throughout its life, but a survivor, nonetheless, and is still listed as a one family.

The house is actually much larger than it looks from the front. The base of the house is brick. That bulbous oriel on the front probably had large windows all around and thus would be balanced by the arched porch and curved roofline on the other side of the facade.

You can see the main portion of the house from the side, and it’s still got some original detail left in the stained glass transoms and decorative windows, and in the dormer at the center of the house. The house probably had fish scale or plain shingles originally, perhaps painted white or another light color.

A tax photo (with the wrong address) from the 1970’s shows a painted light yellowy sienna brick base with naturally weathered brown shingles, and perhaps the original slate roof. The house also had a nice row of shrubbery at its base, which add much to the curb appeal.

I like this color scheme better than the present monotone red brick, with little vegetation. Bushwick Avenue was once home to the brewers, bankers, lawyers and businessmen who made this a very prosperous neighborhood in the late 1800’s.

[Photos by Suzanne Spellen]