HDC's "Six to Celebrate" Shines Light on Proposed Prospect Heights Apartment House District

Prospect Heights is getting a boost, thanks to the Historic Districts Council.

This year the preservation nonprofit’s “Six to Celebrate” campaign will bring attention to the proposed Prospect Heights Apartment House District, a group of 82 apartment buildings constructed in the neighborhood between 1909 to 1929. The buildings are lookers, cohesive, and exemplary of their moment, according to their champions, when Brooklyn was transitioning away from the row house to the apartment building.

The Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council and the Cultural Row Block Association on Eastern Parkway are drumming up support for a future proposal to submit to the Landmarks Preservation Commission for historic district status. As part of the campaign, HDC has offered to provide assistance over the next year and continued support in the years to come.

Other areas being touted this year are Arthur Avenue and Westchester Square in the Bronx, Elmhurst, Queens, the Lower West Side of Manhattan and citywide cultural landmarks.

Concerning the last one, it could give a boost to the movement to landmark Walt Whitman’s modest wood-frame house at 99 Ryerson Street in Wallabout, where he is believed to have published his monumental work of poetry, Leaves of Grass.

Although the LPC last month declined to consider it for landmark status, the commission stated that “we remain open to further evaluation should additional information come to light.”

Past landmarks based on cultural significance have included Manhattan’s Stonewall Inn, and HDC will work together with the New York Preservation Archive Project and the NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project to highlight culturally significant sites throughout the city.

The “Six to Celebrate” initiative began in 2011 and helped landmark the Empire State Dairy in East New York in December, among others.

The 2018 groups will be formally introduced at the Six to Celebrate Launch Party on Thursday, February 8 at 6 p.m. at the Metropolitan College of New York at 60 West Street in Manhattan. More information and tickets are available here.

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