House of the Day: 679 St. Marks Avenue

Thanks for the posting, 8:48. I think one of the reasons people buy in Brownstone Brooklyn is out of a sense of the people who once lived there. Merchants in Brooklyn Heights. Industrialists in Clinton Hill and Park Slope. The old Italian-American families in Cobble Hill.

Well, Crown Heights had (and still has) many people with stories. By putting them out in a place like Brownstoner, the neighborhood is given a little bit of context, both for folks living there today and for others who may be thinking of moving in.

I haven’t lived in Crown Heights for almost half a century. That is literally. Emotionally, I’m still back in the old neighborhood. And probably will be forever. That’s something for people looking at Crown Heights to consider. There’s the immediate value of living in a rich and complex part of Brooklyn. There’s the long-term value of coming from such a place.

NOP/(BCHM)

Brownstoner:

The photos posted at Corcoran for this property remind me of the special places backyards and St. Marks Avenue held for kids growing up in Crown Heights in the 1950’s.

While we shared streets and sidewalks with adults, backyards (and courtyards) belonged to us. There was an alternative way of moving through the neighborhood back then: the adjoining courts and yards that were connected by gaps in fences where we squeezed ourselves traveling between friends’ houses or out-of-the-way places to play stickball, handball, and punch ball. (Kids were skinny then – Cokes came in six-ounce glass bottles, enough refreshment for the whole day! – so it was never a problem climbing under, over, or between fences.)

My family’s apartment overlooked both the street and courtyard, and the view to neighboring row houses was very similar to the one shown on the Corcoran site. Brownstone in front, the backs of these houses were brick, and washed in different color paints that gave them a very appealing look. Vines and flowers climbed up the walls and over weather-beaten wood fences. But their aesthetic was less important than the opportunities they gave us to play.

People moving to suburbs at the time said they were doing so for the kids (as they do to this day), overlooking the ability of kids to make a play world from the city’s nooks and crannies. Differences in property elevations were shored up by retaining walls that we crossed like acrobats (developing our balance and motor skills); there were telephone poles to climb; service alleys and ramps to ride our bicycles; and concrete yards to play ball. (This was mostly a boys’ world, but there were also girls – mostly sisters of my friends – who came along, jumping rope, playing hop scotch.)

And there was also the mild thrill of doing something illicit. These were private spaces and we were trespassing, testing our bravery against the possibility of an angry owner, superintendent, (or worse) dog. For the most part, though, there was a tacit understanding of the rules: we weren’t to make too much noise; we weren’t to cuss (that was for the street); and we weren’t to hang out past twilight (or until some elderly crank threw a pot of water on our heads!)

Many of Crown Heights’ apartment houses had “servants’ entrances” through the basements, and these made gateways to our play spaces. Somehow we knew which block had a game going that day, and would slip through these passages one-by-one until we made up teams, playing for hours. Again, there was the thrill of trespassing, sliding by the “keep out” signs, down dark steps, and over metal trash cans (remember those?) and into the bright light of the courtyard.

Mid-blocks were also places to misbehave. Eat ice cream before dinner out of sight of our parents. Play with matches. Experiment with making out.

We were better behaved in the town house gardens, of course. We might zip through on our way to our pals, but when we lingered, it was because we were invited. Play dates. Birthday parties. The occasional garden party under a tent.

St. Marks Avenue was (and probably still is) one of the most impressive streets in the neighborhood, but also good for kids. Here it was possible to stay a whole day. Ride a bike around the service ways, garages, and parking lots of the big apartment houses. Hit the Brooklyn Children’s Museum in Brower Park (back then consisting of two free-standing Victorian mansions with lots of menageries and hands-on exhibits). Play in the park, watched over by the “matrons” (parks department employees in crisp white uniforms – do they still have them in NYC playgrounds?). Check out books in the new public library between Nostrand and New York Avenues, a functional, modernist building that (sadly) replaced one the street’s great mansions. (I much preferred the Brooklyn Public Library’s Bookmobile that used to pull up at Brower Park. It was cramped but happy, its arrival always eagerly anticipated, a long line of kids waiting at the corner to peruse its children’s section.) And on the way home, scour the shelves in the toy shop between St. Marks and Bergen and maybe getting an ice cream at a “fountain” nearby.

Although there were six-story elevator apartment houses with doormen on St. Marks (where men in suits and hats took their hats off when a lady got on the elevator), there were still a number of old architectural beauties left. These were mansions as big as or bigger than any in Clinton Hill or Park Slope. Set far back from the street and with side yards, they were handy for the occasional punch ball game. One of them was full of kids and may have been an orphanage or foster home. We never asked questions, just played ball. (These places are gone now, I understand, with bits of them tossed around the garden at the Brooklyn Museum.)

The house posted today is between Nostrand and Bedford, which I recall as lined with brownstones similar to it. There were few kids living on that stretch in my time, so I never got to know it. But it seems good for a family who’d like Brower Park, the Children’s Museum, and a handy public library. And maybe the kids will make their own kids-only maps of Crown Heights, the way we did back in the day.

Nostalgic on Park Avenue
(BCHM: Back to Crown Heights Movement)

If this was in move in condition and dripping with detail, the price would be about right for this neighborhood with ‘characters’.

I think it’s a tear-down.

If you use the extra 2300 sq. ft. FAR and only do a 12×10 room, you can add an additional 19 floor. Maybe you can then have a view of Park Slope, the best neighborhood.