Building of the Day: 1332 Bergen Street

Address: 1332 Bergen Street, between Kingston and Albany
Name: Private House
Neighborhood: Crown Heights North
Year Built: somewhere between 1880-1890
Architectural Style: Queen Anne
Architects: Unknown
Landmarked: No

Why chosen: I love finding a house I had never noticed in my own neighborhood before, and was happy to discover this one on a recent walk. I was not able to find the exact date it was built, or the architect. The house is an unusual double house, and is listed in the records as a two family. I would bet it was originally a one family, and that the house has a center hall with stairs. It’s an interesting mishmash of styles, and the porch and tiny barging over the two windows and entry gives the left side a Gothic Revival feel, while the right side’s bay window is quite Romanesque, and other elements lean towards earlier styles, especially in terms of the cornice. This is when you throw your hands in the air and call it Queen Anne. I did find an early owner, and he and his family turn out to be pretty interesting. He was Colonel William Hemstreet, and he and his family lived in the house from 1890 until at least 1920 or later. The Colonel was a staff officer to General Joseph P. Mower, one of Sherman’s generals in his March to the Sea campaign, at the end of the Civil War. Hemstreet came back to NY after the war, and became a well-known scholar, lawyer, and lecturer. He spent 35 years as the legal stenographer for the County Court of Brooklyn. He was also on the board of the Brooklyn Institute of the Arts, now the Brooklyn Museum. In 1908, he gave Columbia University, his alma mater, the carved wooden shelf upon which Edgar Allan Poe composed the poem The Raven. Who knows where he got that. During his lifetime he was well known for his lectures and reminiscences of the Civil War, and for his active participation in Republican politics. There he was characterized as a radical Republican, well known newspaper and magazine writer, and a firm believer in reform within party lines. He tried to run for Congress in the new 5th District, and had neighborhood support, but was defeated. He died in 1920, here at home. His son, Ralph Emerson Hemstreet, makes the local papers as a graduate of Boys High School, class of 1895, Cornell University, class of 1900, and NYU Law School. He’s a practicing lawyer in 1917, when he enlists in an officer’s training program and goes into the army and World War I, later that year. He then disappears from the papers. He had two sisters, who also lived at 1332 Bergen, Margaret, who died young, in 1911, and another sister, Annie. Did he survive? Who had the house after that? Maybe we’ll find out, someday. It’s currently for sale.