Proposed Borough Hall Skyscraper Historic District

BOROUGH OF BROOKLYN

In the first half of the nineteenth century, especially following the chartering of the City of Brooklyn in 1834 and the completion of its New City Hall in 1848, a distinct civic and commercial center began to crystallize along the eastern edge of residential Brooklyn Heights. As the city continued to grow during the 1850’s and 1860’s in the process becoming the nations third-most populous urban area the streets immediately adjacent to City Hall were taken over almost exclusively by businesses.

In the later decades of the nineteenth century transportation improvements further encouraged commercial development in the area. The Brooklyn Bridge, which opened in 1883, directly connected the neighborhood with Manhattans financial center. Soon newerand often much taller buildings began to rise on the surrounding streets, including the impressive Romanesque-Revival Franklin Building that survives at 186 Remsen Street.

Brooklyns commercial heart continued to grow in the years following the consolidation of Great New York in 1898. The Temple Bar Building, for example, was erected in 1901 at the corner of Court and Joralemon Streets and was intended to attract the citys leading lawyers to the borough. Other office buildings soon followed including the speculative venture at 32 Court Street that was completed in 1918.

The conception and construction of the Brooklyn Municipal Building originally planned in 1909 but not completed until 1927 lead many to speculate that the area surrounding Brooklyns Borough Hall would become a financial center to rival that of Lower Manhattan. The areas tallest and most architecturally intricate skyscrapers were erected during this period, particularly the stately, 35-story Montague-Court Building at 16 Court Street and the handsomely detailed Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce Building at 75 Livingston Street, both completed in 1927.

The proposed Borough Hall Skyscraper Historic District, comprising approximately 20 properties, is characterized primarily by tall commercial buildings erected in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Designed in a range of styles from the Romanesque-Revival to the Beaux-Arts to the Modern, the structures in the study area represent the work of an impressive group of architects including Helmle, Huberty & Hudswell; McKenzie, Voorhees & Gmelin; George L. Morse; the Parfitt Brothers; Schwartz & Gross; H. Craig Severence; and Starrett & Van Vleck. It contains many of the boroughs most architecturally distinguished business buildings, as well as its two most significant civic structures the Brooklyn Municipal Building and the individually-designated Brooklyn Borough Hall.

Bedford-Stuyvesant/ Expanded Stuyvesant Heights Historic District

316 Decatur Street

535-541 Halsey Street

284-A Stuyvesant Avenue

278-290 Macon Street

Decatur Street

79-81 Decatur Street

First African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church

Bethany Baptist Church (former Sumner Avenue Baptist Church)

PROPOSED CROWN HEIGHTS NORTH III HISTORIC DISTRICT

BOROUGH OF BROOKLYN

The proposed Crown Heights North III Historic District contains a rich variety of late-19th- and early-20th-century residential buildings, including long blocks of well-preserved row houses, the inviting enclaves of Revere, Virginia, and Hampton places, and an extraordinary collection of Kinko houses perhaps the most extensive and varied group of these remarkable two-family houses in the entire city. It also includes one of the neighborhoods great houses of worship, the former Shaari Zedek Synagogue (Simeon D. Eisendrath and B. Horitz, 1922-25) at the southeast corner of Kingston Avenue and Park Place.

The proposed district, which comprises approximately 640 buildings, lies to the east of the Crown Heights North and proposed Crown Heights North II historic districts. Most of its houses were constructed in the Renaissance Revival style, including the stunning group of red-brick and limestone houses at 1096 to 1104 Park Place (William Debus, c.1906). These complement the proposed districts earliest houses, which include the neo-Grec/Queen Anne style group at 1513 to 1521 Pacific Street and the neo-Grec style group at 1112 to 1124 Prospect Place (both c.1888).

As Brooklyns population boomed in the late 19th century, developers began constructing short, midblock courts and places that had the feel of private enclaves. Streets of this type in the proposed district include Revere Place, completed in 1897, and Hampton and Virginia places, which were begun in 1899. All are lined with handsome two- and three-story homes, and Virginia Place, which is anchored by large corner houses with monumental side entrances, is particularly impressive. The southern portion of Hampton Place is home to two groups of the innovative two-family, four-story dwellings called Kinko houses, which enjoyed a brief period of popularity between 1905 and 1915. Along with the Arts-and-Crafts style group at 35 to 41 Hampton Place (William Debus, c.1908), other Kinko houses in the district include the Renaissance Revival style group at 1083 to 1089 Prospect Place (c.1908) by the notable firm of Chappell & Bosworth.

At the turn of the 20th century, St. Marks Avenue was one of Brooklyns most fashionable streets, and today, the portion within the proposed district has some of its finest flats buildings and row houses. In the 1960s, however, it was suffering from the widespread disinvestment that gripped the broader neighborhood following World War II. In the late 1960s, as part of an effort to revitalize the area, St. Marks was closed to through traffic between Kingston and Albany avenues, and a park, intended to serve as a neighborhood focal point, was constructed in the middle of the street.

The districts most significant historical figure is Shirley Chisholm (1924-2005), who was the first black woman to serve in the United States Congress and to run as a major-party candidate for the Presidency. Chisholm lived much of her life within the proposed district; during part of her time in the New York State Assembly, she and her husband, Conrad, resided at 28 Virginia Place, and shortly after her election to Congress, they bought the house at 1028 St. Johns Place, where they lived during her dramatic 1972 Presidential run. Rich in history and historic architecture, the proposed Crown Heights North III Historic District is one of Brooklyns most distinctive areas, and a worthy complement to the existing Crown Heights North and proposed Crown Heights North II historic districts.

PROPOSED PARK PLACE HISTORIC DISTRICT

Borough of Brooklyn

The proposed Park Place historic district consists of 13 Romanesque style row houses with Queen Anne style details that were constructed by 1894 and possibly designed by Walter Coots, who designed the recently-designated Alice and Agate Courts Historic District. These modest, but inventively-detailed two story on raised basement houses with high stoops are of brick, sandstone and terra-cotta. The row features three fade designs that are arranged to create a picturesque composition of alternating triangular gabled and flat roofed houses culminating in a central section of two unusual round gabled houses flanking a triangular-gabled dwelling. The five triangular-gabled houses feature rusticated sandstone trim, a variety of terra-cotta decorative moldings below the second floor windows and at the cornice, over scaled bead and reel brick molds and a decorative triangular terra cotta plaque surround by bull-nose decorative bricks at the gable. The six flat roofed houses feature heavily rusticated door and window surrounds, corbelled projecting pilasters at the second floor and bracketed and elaborately molded cornices. The two unusual round gabled houses feature smooth and rusticated door and window surrounds and a molded cornice with a decorative keystone. The proposed Park Place historic district is an excellent example of modest row houses made unusual by the architects inventive detailing and picturesque composition.

PROPOSED PARK SLOPE HISTORIC DISTRICT EXTENSION

BOROUGH OF BROOKLYN

The proposed Park Slope Historic District Extension focuses on the blocks between 7th Street and 16th Street, including both sides of Seventh and Eighth Avenues, as well as the west side of Bartell Pritchard Square, adjoining Prospect Park. This phase contains approximately 582 buildings that are located on blocks that border the south and southwest boundaries of the current historic district, designated in 1973. Most of the structures are row houses and apartment buildings that were constructed in the 1880s, following the completion of Prospect Park and the opening of new streetcar routes along the neighborhoods major avenues. An additional factor in the areas development was construction of the Ansonia Clock Factory in 1879, which occupied a significant portion of the block bordered by Seventh Avenue, 12th Street, and 13th Street. Now condominium residences, at one time the factory employed a reported 1500 workers. Many buildings in the vicinity were constructed to serve this community, particularly the 4-story buildings along Seventh and Eighth Avenues, which incorporate walk-up apartments and ground-floor commercial space, often designed with distinctive corner entrances and projecting bay windows. Similar buildings extend along Seventh Avenue, with Acme Hall, at the corner of 9th Street. Built by developer Charles Nickenig, this large Romanesque Revival style structure originally contained a large ballroom, bowling alleys, and meeting rooms for area organizations. Eleventh Street features two handsome buildings erected for fire protection, a 2-story red brick Italianate structure built in 1883 by the City of Brooklyn and a 3-story tan brick Beaux Arts-style structure built for the New York City Fire Department in 1907.

The blocks that the surround the firehouses, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues, contain many handsome examples of late 19th century row house design. Particularly homogeneous groups can be found along both sides of 8th, 10th and 11th Streets. Erected by commercial developers during the 1880s, these brick and brownstone houses are mostly well preserved and display simple, mostly classical, details. The south side of 9th Street is more stylistically varied, with Italianate and Queen Anne-style designs of the 1880s. The latest buildings in the extension can be found close to Prospect Park, along 15th Street, where mostly two-family houses and multiple dwellings were erected in the neo-classical style during the first decade of the 20th century. At Bartell Pritchard Square, the whitish-brick buildings turn the corner and curve, echoing the shape of the traffic circle and the granite columns that McKim, Mead & White added to the parks southwest entrance in 1906.