NYT on Why the Pratts Left Brooklyn

Last week’s Streetscapes article looks at the Pratt family’s exodus from Clinton Avenue, then known as the most fashionable avenue in Brooklyn. The Pratt family built on Clinton. from 1874 to 1908, beginning with 241 Clinton and ending at 213 Clinton, which has since been demolished. In 1914 Herbert Pratt left the borough for Manhattan, living instead on the 12th floor of 640 Park Avenue. “What happened was they got caught up in the social and cultural earthquake that shook the entire borough of Brooklyn in the late 19th century, as Manhattan came to dominate its sibling. The absorption of Brooklyn into greater New York in 1898 was the last nail in the coffin, not the first,” says the article. While the Pratt sons continued to build in Manhattan after 1914, the eldest, Charles M. and his brother Frederick lived on Clinton Avenue until their deaths.
When the Pratt’s Decamped for Manhattan [New York Times]