Building of the Day: 1267 Pacific Street

Brooklyn, one building at a time.

Name: Flats building
Address: 1267 Pacific Street
Cross Streets: Nostrand and Bedford Avenues
Neighborhood: Crown Heights North
Year Built: Late 1880’s-early 1890’s
Architectural Style: Romanesque Revival
Architect: Attributed to Montrose Morris
Other Buildings by Architect: on same block – Bedfordshire and Imperial Apartments, on Dean and Bedford- Chatelaine Hotel
Landmarked: No, but hopefully part of Phase 4 of CHN HD. No plans present by LPC at this time.

The story: The great Brooklyn architect Montrose Morris was quite busy over here on Pacific Street. After the success of his Alhambra Apartments, on Nostrand and Macon Street, completed in 1889, developer Louis Seitz commissioned him to design several more luxury apartment houses. The result of that commission was first, the Bedfordshire, (1891) then one of his masterpieces, the Imperial Apartments. (1892) But not all architectural commissions are big, showy extravaganzas. Sometimes one has to do a couple of practical, everyday buildings in order to pay the mortgage. This flats building is one of those projects, but with Morris, he took the everyday, and made it special.

It may not wow you now, but originally, this building had a lot more going for it. It, like the neighborhood, has seen some rough days. A period photo of this block shows Pacific from Nostrand Avenue, stretching on down to Bedford. There is an intriguing early frame house with a white picket fence near the foreground. That house is long gone, replaced by an apartment building. But next door is 1267, once resplendent with a turret and tall octagonal slate roof, and tall, English style chimneys. Both are Morris standard designs, and can be found in many of his buildings.

The photo is not dated, but is from at least 1895, the year the 23rd Regiment Armory was finished. Its crenelated tower rises in the background. This block of Pacific was now part of the St. Marks District, a posh area of homes for the upper middle classes and the wealthy. The new luxury apartment buildings were a part of this cachet, and this building would have shared it, although it was not as luxurious. It’s listed as an Old Law tenement, which only means that it predates the New Law Tenements, buildings which were built after new laws regarding light, and space for tenements were enacted in 1901. The word “tenement” applies to all multiple unit dwellings, back then, and is not indicative of the social status or income of the tenants.

If this was built as a classic Montrose Morris apartment building, there were only four units, one on each floor. Morris usually designed his apartments with large pocket doors, to join the public spaces together, and he utilized fine woods, tile, and stained glass, as well as the latest in bathroom and kitchen fixtures and appliances. This is a wide building, at 30’, and probably had servant’s rooms and several bedrooms, as well. This was not a tenement, in the usual sense of the word.

As the years went by, another story was added to the building, causing the eye-catching roofline to disappear. The building became just another apartment building, and was further subdivided. In 1969, one of the tenants here was sought by the police as a murder suspect, accused of killing his 19 year old girlfriend, and setting her apartment on fire, leaving the woman’s two young children in the apartment. Fortunately the kids were rescued by a neighbor. By the 1980’s, when a tax photo was taken, the building was abandoned and boarded up.

The building eventually became the property of the City of New York, and finally, in 1993, it was opened up, gutted and rehabbed. Today, still city owned, it now has eleven units. The renovators kept a bit of the exterior detail, in the form of some terra-cotta trim, a decorative panel and a bandcourse on the third floor. Knowing Montrose Morris, the original building would have had much more terra-cotta trim, stained glass, and a fine doorway, and was probably as pleasing a sight to passersby, as his other buildings further down the street. GMAP