Tuesday Photo of the Day

I used to live a few blocks from 3rd and 3rd and I actually looked into finding out if it was for sale a couple of years ago. It appeared to be owned by an automotive air conditioning company or something like that. They never answered their phones (even though you could hear it ringing through the window next door to third and third). I finally spoke with someone and they said that only the whole lot was available and it was large ($$$). It sits partially on the canal. I was sad because I would have liked to make it an art space, gallery and home. I spoke with the gallery/art space nearby as well. They were friendly. My boyfriend said that I was crazy because I obsessed over third and third. I’m glad to see I’m not the only one. We ended up buying a 1920’s castle-like villa on Staten Island (St. George) which was written about here on Brownstoner and in the NY Times). Cheers, CvB

david’s right about the brooklyn improvement company. but while litchfield WAS a real estate developer (he basically sold park slope. because of his clout he was able to keep his villa within prospect park when olmsted and vaux designed it.) the BIC was actually the builder/promoter of the gowanus canal. not quite real estate, but development for sure.

i also doubt it was ever a carriage house but it’s a good story! a little too far away (6 avenue blocks), it doesn’t look like a carriage house (there are many on waverly pl–one real nice one right behind the caroline ladd pratt house), and there were still plenty of landowners in between litchfield and 3rd/3rd.

now, real quick on the ‘old stone house of gowanus’ in j.j. byrne park that nyrland refers to. i’m assuming all know of its revolutionary war history. but a cool tidbit (that may be slightly apocryphal) is that in its original location (it used to be down the block a bit, was torn down in the late 19th century, even though it had been there since the early 18th, and reassembled in the park in the 1930s) it served as a clubhouse for the brooklyn superbas/bridegrooms/dodgers before they moved to ebbets field. their field was on the block bounded by 3rdA, 3rdS, 4thA, and 2ndS (it’s now a coned building). they say that the old wall to the field is still incorporated in the coned wall on 3rd ave. forgottenny has some good stuff all about it.

sorry if i’m telling everyone things they already know. i just love sharing history.

At one time Litchfield could stand on his front stoop and watch his ships unloading in the harbor. Thats some front lawn.

Well it looks bad for my story. I thought you all should know where it came from. Has anyone been to the stone house on 3rd street and 5th ave? Its a funky museum with some misc. exhibits and occasional they hold events there. Anyway, a friendly older guy who worked there had a wealth of knowledge about South Brooklyn told me it was the original carriage house to Litchfield Villa. I secretly think he could still be right…If you read the Times Article:

“Although the style of the office building is of the heavy Renaissance of the mid-1860’s, it first appears in city directories in 1882, and tax assessments and land maps confirm that date. ”

So the author is assuming the first use was the office for the Brooklyn Improvement Company. It still might have been a carriage house to the property, but on the other hand, I could be grasping at straws too.

On the east side of that building there is a section where brick has been removed showing something underneath. Was this building originally brick?