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.
DH- we din’t know but maybe the developer would have renovated it. I think it is the beautiful housing stock that can still be bought reasonably in Bed-Stuy that has been a saving grace. The beauty of the architecture in Bed-Stuy is one of the reasons it is so desirable. Not just to gentrifyiers, but to long time residents. Bed-Stuy has one of the oldest House Tours in Brooklyn. And saving their beautiful neighborhood has created a big contingent of activists in the community. It all ties together (but BSM and MM can phrase this much better than I can).
Upon seeing the picture, before reading the post, I said to myself “Montrose done lost her mind”.
Landmarking is not just about preserving an individual building, it is also about preserving the sense of place. Walking down the street and seeing this building is akin to stepping in do dog doo. It is offensive.
for the record i don’t like this bldg
but if the old brownstone was landmarked, what would be there today? is a vacant, boarded up brownstone better than this?
This city does need a Public Taste Commissioner. I put my bid in years ago. I want a hefty salary and a company car.
Honestly, Benson, building in a landmarked district already does the horrible deed you are accusing me of perpetrating. If this block was landmarked, (and frankly, it should be, as the houses on both sides of the street are quite fine, and those on this side, especially, are exceptional), this house could not have been built as is.
We’ve had the aesthetics vs neccessary housing argument here a thousand times. Bad design need not be synomymous with affordable housing. It is just as easy, and as affordable, to design well as to design badly. Money has nothing to do with it.
“landmarking be used not as a tool for the preservation of historic buildings, but basically as a means to control the aesthetics of new housing.”
Words-in-mouth or not, this sounds like a good idea IMO.
BTW: I’m with Rob abd Heather. I like this building too. I like its quirkiness, as Rob said.
benson- put a sock in it. For a guy who rants on the OT that people are putting words in your mouth, you seem to be a master at doing it to others. Stop attacking Montrose all the time. You’ll be happier (and so will everyone else)
In a word- cripes. And if that’s a juliet balcony, I see why the Bard made it a tragedy.
And they couldn’t make it wider? They had to have that personal parking lot? Ugh. And ugh again.
I ask folks to think about what Montrose is proposing here. She is advocating that landmarking be used not as a tool for the preservation of historic buildings, but basically as a means to control the aesthetics of new housing.
The last thing this city needs is a “Public Taste Commissioner”. It would further drive up the cost of housing.