Building of the Day: 131, 135 Hicks Street
Brooklyn, one building at a time. Name: Row Houses Address: 131, 135 Hicks Street, between Pierrepont and Clark Streets Neighborhood: Brooklyn Heights Year Built: 1848 Architectural Style: Gothic Revival Architect: Unknown Landmarked: Yes, part of Brooklyn Heights HD. The story: Gothic Revival houses are few and far between in Brooklyn and the Heights has some…
Brooklyn, one building at a time.
Name: Row Houses
Address: 131, 135 Hicks Street, between Pierrepont and Clark Streets
Neighborhood: Brooklyn Heights
Year Built: 1848
Architectural Style: Gothic Revival
Architect: Unknown
Landmarked: Yes, part of Brooklyn Heights HD.
The story: Gothic Revival houses are few and far between in Brooklyn and the Heights has some of the best examples. These two houses are gems. The 1840’s were a decade of great upheavals: the American war with Mexico (“Remember the Alamo”), the Gold Rush, and the Irish Potato Famine and subsequent immigration to America, were among the more important events. But on a lighter, cultural plane, the decade was one of great imagination and creative output. The Gothic Revival Movement in Europe represented a philosophical and literal return to the Middle Ages, and a reinterpretation of Gothic architecture was seen as a fitting choice for not only churches, but homes and other buildings as well. Popular culture also embraced the idea of the tragically romantic, with novels such as Jane Eyre enjoying great popularity, as well as the writings of Edgar Allan Poe.
The architects of these Hicks Street buildings took just enough of the Gothic to be identifiable without going full guns. The results are two very beautiful houses with classic Gothic Revival touches. 131’s front door, with iconic Gothic tracery, both houses have the classic drip moldings over the windows, and the elegant arched doorways with finely carved spandrels.
131 was built by Henry C. Bowen, a wealthy merchant, and one of the founders of Plymouth Church. He also was the founder of The Independent, the newspaper of intellectual evangelical Protestantism, whose most famous editors would later be Henry Ward Beecher and Richard Salter Storrs.
Number 135 was home to the prominent architectural critic Louis Mumford, and his wife Sophia. They moved to 135, renting a tiny basement apartment in 1925. In his autobiography, Sketches from Life (1982), he wrote: “That September we found just what we wanted in an old brownstone with a slightly Gothic touch, at 135 Hicks Street, now deservedly marked as an historic building. There we had a one-and-a half room basement apartment, with an open fireplace, and a share in a rear garden….The small rear alcove, whose only ventilation came through an airshaft, we dedicated to typing and dressing.”
Louis Mumford would write as architectural critic for the New Yorker for over 30 years, as well as penning important works of literary criticism and writings on urban life and the human experience. He wrote his second book, Sticks and Stones, from this apartment, in 1924. (Thanks to Francis Morrone for the Mumford information in his book An Architectural Guidebook to Brooklyn). GMAP
And, Montrose, just by the way, I will be going around Prospect Park looking at the arches tomorrow. I will make sure to wear blaze orange. If you do shoot, please make it a clean kill.
great question BX. I don’t know for sure, but my guess is that the original door is the one on the left. It has the same basic configuration as a Greek Revival door. The double door on the house to the right was probably a replacement put in shortly afterwards when newer houses all featured double doors.
There are many Greek revival houses in the Heights and Cobble Hill with double doors that you would swear were original, but old work was done really well, and they were actually early replacements.
I thought that might be it. The double doors looked later to me, and the sidelights on the other door seemed more period appropriate. It kinds of changes the whole aspect of the design, don’t you think? The original door has a solidity and gravitas, like entering a church or cathedral. The double door gives it more of a family home aspect.
ooooh, lust lust. Love the Gothic Revival style. Were the entry doors always different?
these really are very unusual “Gothick” style houses from that early period. They were built out of good quality brownstone, that unlike the crap later houses were built with, still looks good today. The 1840’s must have been the heyday of Brooklyn Heights. It was the exclusive suburb then. Separated from the overcrowded precincts of New York but close enough to commute by ferry every day.