Building of the Day: 289-291 Quincy Street
Brooklyn, one building at a time. Name: Semi-detached wood framed houses, now the Macedonia Church of Christ Address: 289-291 Quincy Street Cross Streets: Nostrand and Marcy Avenues Neighborhood: Bedford Stuyvesant Year Built: Somewhere between 1880 and 1888 Architectural Style: Second Empire Italianate Architect: Unknown Landmarked: No The story: By the end of the 19th century,…

Brooklyn, one building at a time.
Name: Semi-detached wood framed houses, now the Macedonia Church of Christ
Address: 289-291 Quincy Street
Cross Streets: Nostrand and Marcy Avenues
Neighborhood: Bedford Stuyvesant
Year Built: Somewhere between 1880 and 1888
Architectural Style: Second Empire Italianate
Architect: Unknown
Landmarked: No
The story: By the end of the 19th century, Quincy Street in Bedford was one of the nicest streets in the neighborhood. It was dotted with fine mansions and upper middle class freestanding houses, and had fine brownstone rows. Towards the end of the century, beautiful middle class flats buildings designed by the same architects who designed some of the best row houses in the area lined the blocks east of Nostrand Avenue.
But for some reason, Quincy didn’t survive as well as some of the other surrounding blocks. Most of the mansions, which were located between Franklin and Nostrand, survived, but most were altered and chopped up, and covered with siding, stone facing, and strange additions that defy architectural good sense. Many of the brownstones were torn down for whatever reasons; fires, abandonment, carelessness or just for development. Only the flats buildings look the same from the outside as they did in the 1800s, but even there, some were further subdivided into smaller apartments.
Wherever there was an opportunity for new infill housing, in the late 20th century, it seems that there was not much offered to the public beyond the most banal of Fedders housing. Perhaps the downfall of the block is because of the diversity of architecture, or perhaps it’s just chance, but in gleaning from what remains, there are still interesting buildings to be found. Here’s another of the streets’ often overlooked houses.
289-291 Quincy Street is old, but not the oldest group of houses on the block. A look at a map of 1880 shows that the houses were not built yet. They would have been just to the left of the small group of masonry homes on the north side of the street. Most of this block had yet to be developed, and was wide open space. Only eight years later, the entire block was now filled up, and these two houses are right next door to a large flats building which is still there. Most of the houses on this side of the block were wood framed, which may explain why there is so much infill on this block.
The two houses were built to look like one larger mansion, and were probably sided in clapboard. They had large porches that covered the front of both buildings. They also had handsome mansard roofs that probably had slate roof tiles. All of it is now covered in stucco. The houses were separate addresses for a long time. A look at the newspapers shows different families living there over the years. Quiet people who had good jobs and incomes, and married and died well enough to get into the papers at least once or twice in their lives. In 1912, 291 Quincy was for sale, advertised as a “cottage with 8 rooms and bath, all improvements, sacrifice sale.”
By the 1940s, this part of Bedford Stuyvesant had a growing black population, and the buildings may have been a church even then. The buildings were joined, the porches enclosed, and the entire thing encased in stucco at some point. They certainly were in the 80s tax photo.
In February of 1946, Rev. Howard B. Crumpe, identified as Negro in the newspaper article, was issued a speeding ticket in Yonkers. He was going 55 mph on the Saw Mill River Parkway. He didn’t show up for his hearing, but sent one of his congregants. She implored the judge to drop the charges for the Bishop.
The judge told her, “Even the Lord Himself could not drive an automobile in Yonkers at 55 miles an hour without getting a speeding fine, and I’m sorry, but neither can a Bishop.” His parishioner paid $24 of the fine, and promised to send the rest. She needed that extra dollar to get home.
(Photo: Nicholas Strini for PropertyShark)





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