A Little Love for Prospect Heights
Yesterday The Sun published a wonderful piece on Prospect Heights by Francis Morrone that highlights the neighborhood’s enduring charm and architectural splendors. Morrone notes that Prospect Heights is sure to be named a historic district at some point, and he praises Vanderbilt’s mellow charm, the well-preserved row houses on Prospect Place and St. Mark’s Avenue,…
Yesterday The Sun published a wonderful piece on Prospect Heights by Francis Morrone that highlights the neighborhood’s enduring charm and architectural splendors. Morrone notes that Prospect Heights is sure to be named a historic district at some point, and he praises Vanderbilt’s mellow charm, the well-preserved row houses on Prospect Place and St. Mark’s Avenue, and the industrial grandeur surrounding the rail yards, which includes a structure that’s not long for this world:
A plaintive note: The Ward Bakery, at 800 Pacific Street, clearly visible to the south across the yards, dates from 1911. It’s one of the most beautiful of the city’s early reinforced-concrete factories, sheathed in white brick and white terra-cotta that were meant to convey the utter cleanliness of the bakery’s operations, which involved producing 250,000 loaves of bread a day. The bakery operated (as Pechter Fields) until 1995. At more than a million square feet in floor area, it seems insane that it could not have been saved and adaptively reused in any new development around here. Rather, it is being torn down.
Sound familiar? The whole piece is well worth a read.
Prospect Heights Grandeur [The Sun]
Photo by threecee.
People who support ‘industrial grandeur’ should support industry. Go China!
From what I’ve gathered reading these blogs, from family (5th generation Bkln myself, though I was not raised here), and doing some research, a lot of the neighborhood names that do date from the 19th century (you see references in old newspaper articles for example), fell out of common usage when the neighborhood became poor (e.g. Clinton Hill and Fort Greene being called Bed Stuy; Prospect Heigts being called Crown Heights etc.). Those not living there who did not really know much about the area to begin with just called it Bed-Stuy or Crown Heights etc. and it stuck, from what I can gather, especially with new residents who didn’t know the neighborhood history when they moved in in the mid to late 20th century. On top of that, we all know that realtors push to change borders, and definitely make up neighborhood names too.
Thanks for clarifying the neighborhood border issue. Indeed, this murder occurred in Crown Heights, a much more violent neighborhood than Prospect Heights.
Brenda:
Enjoy your posts, too. I get the feeling you grew up in Brooklyn, too. Perhaps we even passed each other in the toy department at Abraham and Straus (Macy’s to the newcomers here) — although I won’t hazard to put you in my generation.
NOP
Can anyone comment on the impact a historical district designation has on property values? My apartment just barely sneaks into the boundaries of one of the PH historical district proposals.
“Nice try, 12:36. Stats from 2007 showed nearly every murder in NYC were committed by people who knew the victim. They were not crimes committed by strangers. All the truly scary people are in the suburbs. Case in point, every single school shooting ever, in this country. Total nutjobs in middle America.”
Not to mention that the crime to which 12:36 refers took place in crown heights, on Park b/t Classon and Franklin.
1:29:
Your family has a better sense of Brooklyn geography than mine. (For them, Park Slope extends from Grand Army Plaza to Third Street, Prospect Park West to Seventh Avenue. Anything else is beyond them!)
Glad the old neighborhood helped you get a house in Bedford Stuyvesant.
1:30 and 1:31:
Thanks. There’s something about Brooklyn that makes people feel good. Whenever I visit, I want to curl up on a stoop and take a nap, just the way I did back in the day. (You can take the boy out of Brooklyn, but you can’t take Brooklyn out of the boy.)
I wish Nostalgic on Park would write a book, or at least start a blog. Wonderful oral history, too easily lost. Nostalgic, check out Typepad or Blogger, and share with us! The Brooklyn blogosphere has a spot waiting for you.
agree 1:30