Closing Bell: Photos of the Crown Heights North House Tour
[nggallery id=”24947″ template=galleryview] Missed the tour this weekend? Take a virtual one here, or visit the Crown Heights North Flickr page.
[nggallery id=”24947″ template=galleryview]
Missed the tour this weekend? Take a virtual one here, or visit the Crown Heights North Flickr page.
theandrewlee and Montrose Morris:
Of course, Montrose Morris can correct me, but back in the day, Crown Heights extended from Fulton Street to Empire Boulevard, Albany Avenue to Flatbush Avenue. (Actually, it may have gone beyond Albany Avenue!) Growing up in the 1950s, I never heard any of my friends or their parents along Eastern Parkway above Washington Avenue (or on the east side of Plaza Street, for that matter) use the term “Prospect Heights.” It simply didn’t exist for us.
I understand there’s some historical root to the name, but it’s really a re-branding of the area by locals and realtors to differentiate it from the less “gentrified” area of Crown Heights. (And it’ll be cast in stone with the passage of the Prospect Heights Historic District.)
Of course, the name Crown Heights virtually disappeared as African Americans became the neighborhood’s majority and the area was popularly called Bedford Stuyvesant. Next I expect that as Brownstoners spread east, Prospect Heights will extend to Nostrand Avenue!
Montrose, that’s a nice story about “St. Bart’s.” It made me recall there’s a church of the same name on my street in Manhattan. Time to get religion!
NOP
NOP, I will walk down Pacific and check. If it’s there, it’s going down towards Nostrand, not across from the Imperial. Adjoining the St. Bart’s rectory is an apartment building, maybe 2, which extend to the corner. I think there is a semi-detached brownstone after the church lot, going towards Nostrand. Maybe that’s it.
They probably still call St. Bart’s the country church. That’s usually the description I get when people ask. It’s still High Church – Bells and Smells, with processions, chant and incense. I sang the Laudamus Te from the Mozart Mass in C Minor in there one Christmas Eve, with fir boughs, candles and choir robes. It was beautiful. Now that’s heaven!
I went on the tour.
The second (front Mansion view) and third (tree mural) pictures are from a beautiful Mansion on New York Ave. When the current owner bought it, it was totally abandoned, and there was a tree growing through the roof. He was really happy to show the place.
Many of the yards of the homes on tour were unbelievably deep. 30-40 meters is no joke. Never seen anything like it.
Also, I was blown away when I walked into the Schaare Synogogue on Kingston. It was full of gospel singing. The building became a pentecostal church in the 1960s. Nice acoustics in there.
“(The first about the 1.7 million-dollar sale at 135 Eastern Parkway. And yes, Brownstoners, that’s in Crown Heights.)”
Hmm… I live on Eastern Parkway just past the Museum. I’ve always been told that the boundary between Crown Heights and Prospect Heights is Washington Avenue. Of course, I didn’t grow up in Brooklyn, so I have no idea if the definitions moved over the years. In any case, Turner Towers (135 Eastern Parkway) seems a world away from Brower Park and Brooklyn Avenue.
Brooklyn Greene:
My life is split among two apartments and a hotel on three points around the globe. In ten years, maybe I’ll consolidate in my old stomping ground.
I did look at On Prospect Park (the builders sent unsolicited brochures up and down Park Avenue), but in the end decided if I were to live in NY in an apartment, I’d keep my parents’ old place (which has nice associations for me).
But I do speak with my brother about splitting a house in Brooklyn. His life’s similarly complicated, and the time just isn’t right.
Well, it’s late where I am now.
Thanks for the good advice!
NOP
NOP,
I’ll ask it again, why don’t you come back to Brooklyn for goodness sake? I escaped Park and don’t miss the UES AT ALL! In fact, I am creeped out when I’m there to do anything there or have to go to some show at the armory. I can deal with the museums somehow but walking around the 70’s and 80’s and on Madison, Park, etc. and I have a visceral reaction, a weird anxiety. Plus, a lot of the decent little shops I used to go to closed in the late 80’s/early 90’s recession and I’m not really into much of what replaced them.
The husband unit doesn’t regret FG at all though he doesn’t have any “problems” with the UES like I do.
Don’t think you’re at the age you couldn’t do it. Come to FG or PS…there are lots of people at retirement age who made the decision to renovate or live in an already renovated townhouse. FG is an easy car ride in and out of Manhattan and has great transportation. Some neighborhood have some edginess mixed in with a lot of interesting stuff and decent restaurants. There are a lot of young people but many “older folks” also moving into FG and CH. The older set are just not so visible.
Crown Heights may not be your retirement first choice. Stay away from BH because it is so deadening. I find it is like a retirement early grave!
I guess you’re still working quite a bit so living outside Manhattan is not possible, but think about it for the future! I know, I know…you’re thinking “it’s complicated.” I guess you’d have to convince family or companion which might be seemingly impossible.
Good luck!
Thanks MM and Susan for identifying the house. (I think what I like best about that parlor is that the arch is so over-sized, forcing the room to be grand, even if it’s kind of small and narrow. The effect is Mannerist — to use my Columbia College art history education — at the same time it’s so Brooklyn!)
Montrose, I remember St. Bartholomew’s largely because I had a friend who lived in a house right nearby. We called it the “country church.” Probably because of its anamolous English-heath style. Do the neighbors still call it that?
My friend’s house was also different from the rest. I remember it as semi-detached with a deep side-yard and driveway, where her parents had parties during the spring before leaving for Sag Harbor. Is there such a house, opposite the Imperial Apartments on Pacific? The mind gets addled with time.
And although I spent lots of time in Brower Park, I don’t remember the synagogue at all. Some buildings were just too big for my small brain to take in — same with the Union Methodist Church around the corner from us on Dean and New York.
I do remember learning about synagogues for the first time, however. It was in the playground at P.S. 41 (which stood opposite Union Methodist). I was playing with a pal who happened to be Jewish and the subject of religion came up. (Don’t ask me how. We were only in first grade!)
“Synagogues are where Jewish people go to church, right?” I asked.
He was deeply offended! After then, I never confused the two.
NOP
Hey Montrose, you are certainly more discreet than me… sorry.
NOP– That house was 868 Prospect Place. The house was fairly unassuming from the outside, but inside was fantastic. Only the garden and parlor was open, but hopefully as the restoration progresses they will open up the entirety.
That one’s on Prospect, between Nostrand and NY.
Interested to know if you have ever been in either church. St. Bartholomew’s is the one with the Tiffany window and lovely arched wooden ceiling, on Pacific and Bedford, and Historic First Church, located on the edge of Brower Park, at Park and Kingston, used to be the Schaare Zedek Synagogue.