Building of the Day: 839 Putnam 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: 839 Putnam Avenue, between Malcolm X and Patchen Name: Private House Neighborhood: Bedford Stuyvesant Year Built: Unknown Architectural…
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: 839 Putnam Avenue, between Malcolm X and Patchen
Name: Private House
Neighborhood: Bedford Stuyvesant
Year Built: Unknown
Architectural Style: Greek Revival
Architects: Unknown
Landmarked: No
Why chosen: No fancy mansion here, but a simple and roomy home. What caught my eye was the size and scale. Two stories, a wide 20′ in the main house, a good sized yard, and a delightful addition that still sports the original fishscale and shaped shingles. A comparison of the two cornices would lead one to believe this addition was put on perhaps 10 or 20 years later. Not a lot of detail, which makes what exists stand out: the shingle patterns, the cornices and the wrought iron fencing with the spoked wheel design. It’s now a two family, and I would have loved to have seen the original door. This is way east in Bed Stuy, an area that did not get the extensive re-building that points west received, so there are still a lot of frame houses and earlier Greek Revivals out here. I really like this one.
LC, I love stories like that. Thank you. I’ll definitely save that one, and see if I can find out more.
I believe that this building was used as a pre-school/nursery school in the late 60’s and 70’s. If its the building that I’m thinking of, it was run by Katherine Ray (wife of the late Rev. Sandy Ray, pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church). Mrs. Ray created a replica one-room schoolhouse complete with wooden desks with inkwells where she taught a generations of 3-6 year olds how to read, write and calculate.In nice weather, she would bring her students out for recess where they would walk sedately up and down the block holding hands for a twenty minutes or so each day. In addition, she was the neighborhood piano teacher and during the summer you could hear the piano students all year long.
Love this. Reminds me of the more humble housing stock that has survived in cities like Philly, Baltimore and London. I always wonder where the 2-story 19th century rowhouses are in Brooklyn. You know they existed at some point in the borough’s history. Occasionally you see a few — on 3rd Ave in Gowanus, for example — but not too many. My guess is they were demolished when builders saw the opportunity to either go commercial or — sticking to residential — go denser. Kinda the same principle that saw all the mid 19th c. St Marks Ave mansions getting swept away in favor of early 20th c. apartment buildings.
Chris, you may well be right. It’s hard to tell. It’s still a cool place.
Love this! Wish I could shrink my house to this size.
Did he try to sell you ‘shares’ in a Hudson River sailboat, Minard?
Oh, and I am insanely jealous…quite awesome.
sure the back house wasn’t first, and brick added later?
dibs, I remember the OED. Heard a free concert in some park, City Hall Park? by some old coot named Pete Seeger.
dibs dibs dibs
You’re becoming a grumpy old man.
You know, I was in 3rd grade on the OED. I do remember doing stuff for it. But to honest, I think was completely unaware that it became an annual thing until…way, way later, like 1990 or 1995.