Matthews' Final Flats Were Built in Maspeth

The streets of Long Island City, Ridgewood and to a lesser degree, Woodside, are occasionally lined with blond bricked Matthews Model Flats, each unit produced for $8,000 beginning in 1915 by Gustave X. Mathews, who is virtually unknown today but responsible for much classic residential architecture in Queens. The distinctive yellow bricks were produced in the kilns of Balthazar Kreischer’s brick works in the far reaches of Staten Island. (The Kriescher and Long Island City stalwarts, the Steinways, were linked by marriage.)

These handsome light brown brick homes on Grand Avenue, 82nd Street and Ankener Avenue in eastern Maspeth were the final Mathews Flats built in New York City and were executed by architect Louis Allmendinger in 1930.