Building of the Day: 386 Halsey Street
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: 386 Halsey Street, between Marcus Garvey and Throop Avenues Name: 2 family house Neighborhood: Bedford Stuyvesant Year Built:…
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: 386 Halsey Street, between Marcus Garvey and Throop Avenues
Name: 2 family house
Neighborhood: Bedford Stuyvesant
Year Built: 2003
Architectural Style: Pseudo-Mediterranean?
Architect: TSL Architects and Planners
Landmarked: No
Why chosen: Bedford Stuyvesant can easily boast that it has some of the best preserved row house architecture in New York City. Currently, there is a concerted effort by preservationists, homeowners and community leaders to get vast swaths of that very large community protected by landmarking. This is why. Once this address belonged to the first of a group of very fine Italianate brownstones, the rest of the row still stretches unbroken and undisturbed, halfway down the block. By the 1970’s, when the tax photo was taken, this brownstone was boarded up and abandoned, and was now owned by the City. The building was torn down in 1991, the lot, like many others in Bed Stuy, was allowed to lie fallow, until this two family house was built in 2003. I’m sorry, but they could have done better. The original house was 20×40 on a 100′ lot. This house is 14×69, the missing width taken up by a parking corridor. The house itself is just odd. The side windows are certainly necessary, since the house is now so long and narrow, but the sizes are stingy, as are the front windows. The upper doors and the small balconies are superfluous, especially if this is a two family. The top floor set back and roof garden are probably the best features of the house, but should have been done at the rear of the house for the best curb appeal. The ornament in cement is not working either. There certainly is no context here. It seems to me that the city should have simply rehabbed the brownstone, easily making a double duplex like this is. Too many of Bed Stuy’s empty lots were carelessly built on. There are many examples of decent in-fill houses across the city, but most of them seemed to have missed being in Bed Stuy. Landmarking can’t come soon enough.
(Photo: NYC Records, via PropertyShark)
The balconies of 386 can be seen at the end of the row to the far left.
2004 and thereabouts were years for some of the worst architecture in this part of Brooklyn. Williamsburg too. Tons of real estate speculation, small developers, and no sense that there was any point in building a luxury product in fringe neighborhoods. Williamsburg is full of similar examples.
However, again, compared to some of the crap, this is at least distinctive crap. I feel like whoever painted it white and red may not have been the original architect, but it shows a certain panache.
Mopar, it was built in 2003-4. Really. I looked up the permits. The bricked up brownstone in the tax photo was there from the 1870’s up until 1991, when a permit for demo was filed. There were no other permits filed until 2003, when the architects applied for a permit for a new building.
Who knows, maybe it was built in the 70’s or 80’s. Niether time was a great period for architecture. That white paint job has aged terribly.
I don’t know. Philadelphia manages to build new brick townhouses that blend in seamlessly. Why New York trails in this is beyond me.
are these the most comments ever for one of MM’s BOD?
I’m telling you, ugly sells!
why didn’t they build a wider house with a garage?
this really is one of the dumbest man-made constructs I have ever seen.
Yes, I realize the property records say it was built in 2004. Looking at the building, I find that impossible to believe. There must be a mistake. Either the year is wrong or this is the wrong building.
“Of course, maybe I’m wrong and this cost $900,000K to build, was financed eight times, and is falling apart already.”
LOL.
I’m with MM. The homeowners on this street have been house proud for a mighty long time. When my father first immigrated to Brooklyn, he shared a flat with one of his buddies from home. Daddy always proudly pointed out to myself and my sister the fact that he lived on Halsey Street and then President Street before he had the opportunity to buy his own brownstone. That was nearly 60 years ago.
To this day, my sister and I still live in the brownstone belt.
Maybe that wasn’t very coherent… okay, what I meant is, if you look at streetview via rf’s link, there is a really, really nice apartment building next door. Am a sucker for Empire limestone.
Oooh, hello, who cares?
I want to live in that apartment building next door to sad, quirky building.