Maple Street

Maple Street, Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, Brooklyn

 

In the latter part of the 19th century and the early years of the 20th century the old town of Flatbush developed front a quiet rural community into one of the major residential areas of greater New York.- Among the factors contributing to this were the extraordinary growth of the independent city of Brooklyn, the construction of Prospect Park, the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge, and the improvement of transit facilities linking the rural areas of Kings County with the cities of New York and Brooklyn. Much of the building in Flatbush during this period took the form of freestanding, single-family, frame residences built for the middle class. These houses ranged from the modest scale of those in the Vanderveer Park development, east of Flatbush Avenue, -to the grand mansions of Prospect Park South. Later, two-family frame dwellings, one- and two-family rowhouses, apartment houses, and tenements began to appear as Flatbush became an increasingly popular residential neighborhood.

 

The Prospect Lefferts Gardens Historic District, located, on the northern boundary of the old village, centers on the only substantial concentration of urbanistic -rowhouses in Flatbush.

 

Settlement in Flatbush probably began in 1652,2 although farms within the boundaries of the Dutch village known as Midwout or Middlewoods, were probably settled as early as the 1630s by fanners moving north from the settlement of Nieuw Amersfoort. Midwout was one of the six towns of Kings County to be founded while the area was under Dutch rule. The other five were Breuckelen, later Brooklyn, located to the north of Midwout; Boswijk, later Bushwick, to the northeast; Nieuw Amersfoort, later Flatlands, to the south; New Utrecht, to the wast; and Gravesend, an English-speaking settlement, the first in America established by a woman, to the southeast. Hie village of Midwout was founded in response to the Dutch West India Company's request that "the people be induced to establish themselves in the more suitable places with a certain number of inhabitant in the manner of towns, villages and hamlets as the English are in the habit of doing."

 

The farms of Midwout were originally laid out in an erratic manner and were not easily defensible; thus, in 1665 a plan for a new village was accepted by Governor Peter Stuyvesant under the condition that plots be sat aside for a church, a school, a courthouse, arid a tavern. The heroes of the farming families were bu5.lt along what is now Flatbush Avenue with farm plots stretching east and west from the houses in long narrow strips.

 

The center of the early village was located where Church and Flatbush Avenues now cross, and the first church on western long Island was erected there. Midwout was chosen by Stuyvesant as the site for the Dutch Reformed Church because of its central location among the six settlements. The church was deeded a large plot of land and in 1662 the first church building, a frame cruciform structure, was completed. This building was replaced in 1699 by a larger stone structure that was* in turn, replaced by the present Flatbush Dutch Reformed Church of 1793, built on the foundations of the second church. This handsome Federal style structure was designed by architect Thomas Fardon and is a designated New York City Landmark, The site is -the oldest in New York City in continuous use for a house of worship.

 

The courthouse that Stuyvesant had requested was erected next to the church, and the first public school was built in 1658 just opposite the church. In 1787 the private Erasmus Hall Academy, the first secondary school chartered by the New YorkState Board of Regents, was founded on Flatbush Avenue just south of the village school, on land donated by the Dutch Reformed Church. Among -the original patrons of the Academy were Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, John Jay, and Robert Livingston, The original Academy building still stands within the courtyard of the present high school and is a designated Landmark.

 

Due to its central location among the early Dutch towns, Midwout became the marketing, legal, end governmental center for the Dutch settlements of Long Island. In 1654, when the Dutch ceded their holdings in New Netherlands to the English, Midwot was renamed Flatbush: an English translation of the Dutch "Vlaake Bos," a name often given to Midwout. This was one of the few changes that affected the Dutch farmers under English rule. The outlying areas of icings County were left alone by the new rulers, and it was not until well into the 19th century that English became the common language of the town.

 

During the Revolutionary War the residents of Flatbush chose to remain neutral, but on August 27, 1776, they became involved in the Battle of long Island, The village lay in the line of the northern advance of the British troops under lord Cornwallis and a number of skirmishes occurred in the Flatbush area. Flatbush was occupied by the British from 1776 until the end of the war in 1783. Independence brought as few changes to Flatbush as the earlier transfer from Dutch to British governance.

 

In 1832 the Flatbush courthouse burned, and the courts moved to the city of Brooklyn, thus removing the last vestiges of Flatbush's early role as a governmental center. This move did not, however, lead to a juried of stagnation in Flatbush, for other forces were at work that were to irrevocably change the character of the area, In the 1830s Flatbush was still too far from the commercial centers of Brooklyn and New York and too inconvenient for daily commuting to attract a massive influx of well-to-do suburban residents. However, the first post-colonial development in the area began in this decade.

 

In 1830 Smith Birdsall opened a stage line connecting Flatbush and Brooklyn. ' Birdsall ran one stage to Brooklyn each morning and returned to Flatbush each evening. Tnis was the first transit link between the two cattnunxties, and the operation of the stage line undoubtedly influenced the opening of new streets in Flatbush. In 1834 Erasmus and Johnson Streets,- east of Flatbush Avenus, wsre laid out. Several English tradesmen built small frarce tones on these streets, Stre? and the area became known as "English. neighborhood." This settlement led to the establishment, in 1836, of a Protestant Episcopal church in Flatbush, the first church to challenge the religious supremacy of the Dutch Reformed denomination.

 

In 1835 Mrian Vanderveer surveyed his farmland east of Flatbush Avenue near "English neighborhood" and divided it into building lots, but litt3.e development occurred on this land until the 1360s when major changes began to alter FlatbushT s rural character. The Birdsall stase line had been replaced by a horse-drawn omnibus in 1S43 and by other stage lines that began operating in the 1350s. In 1856 Flatbush Avenue was opened from. Fulton Street, Brooklyn, to the Flatbush town line. By 1360 the Brooklyn City Railroad Company had constructed a line down Flatbush Avenue to the village of Flatbush. The horsecars were soon replaced by horse-drawn streetcars, and travel time to downtown Brooklyn was reduced to only fifty minutes. The transit link to Brooklyn was undoubtedly a catalyst for the construction of a large number of small frame houses on the Vanderveer farm lots.

 

Robert G. Strong noted in 1884 that after construction began on the Vanderveer property "this once secluded little hamlet of 'English neighborhood' /had/ assumed the appearance of the suburbs of a large city."- A number of the modest frame vernacular peaked-roof houses that were built at this time remain in the area.

 

An additional spur towards the development of Flatbush occurred in 1866 when construction began on Prospect Park, the southern part of which lies within the boundaries of Flatbush. The years 1867-69 saw the opening of a large number of streets near the park, and by 1873 there was talk of annexing Flatbush to Brooklyn (a notion that was defeated by the residents of Flatbush). During the late 1860s and 1870s, particularly as the construction of Prospect Park advanced Flatbush became a popular spot for weekend outings. The Rural Gazette, a newspaper that served the outlying towns of Kings County, noted an July 5, 1873, that "during the suiYtnsr months and particular ly on Sundays our streets are thronged by pleasure , seekers."

 

The 1860s and 1870s also saw an increase in urban services in Flatbush with the formation of the Flatbush Gas Co. and the Flatbush Vfeiter Works Co., the organization of a Eoard of Public Improvement and a Board of Police Canmlssioners, and the construction of a large Town Hall. The Town Hall, a High Victorian Gothic style structure built of red brick with stone trim, was designed in 1874 by JoJm y. Culyer, and it is a designated New York City Landmark.

 

Even more important was the great iixproverrent in the transit line linking Flatbush to Brooklyn, and New York City allowing Flatbush residents to carmnte to their offices. In July, 1878, a steam railroad was opened between the lobby of the Brighton Beach Hotel and Prospect Park. In August the service was extended to Atlantic and Franklin Avenues, along the route of what is now the Flanklin Avenue shuttle, and from 1878 to 1883 trains continued on the Long Island Railroad tracks 16 the Atlantic Avenue Terminal. In 1896 the line was linked with the Fulton Street elevated, thus extending service from Brighton Beach to -the Fulton Ferry, and on June 18, 1898, through service was initiated over the Manhattan Bridge to Park Bow, making NSanhattan directly accessible to the residents of Flatbush.

 

The Brooklyn, Flatbush and Coney Island Railroad, originally planned as a road to bring tourists to the resort at Brighton Beach, quickly changed from a seasonal line with erratic winter service, to a reliable corjraiter rail system. In the last years of the 19th century ridership on the line increased to such an extent that in 1899 it was electrified, and, betvoen 1904 and 1908, it was totally rebuilt. The section between Fulton Street and Prospect Park was elevated? the portion that ran through the suburban residential areas between Prospect Park and Newkirk Avenue was depressed into an open cut; the remainder of the line was raised on an earth fill; the section south of Church Avenue was increased to four tracks; and new stations were built.

 

The Flatbush farm, only a small portion of the Lefferts family's vast holding in Brooklyn, descended to Pieter Lefferts (1680-1774), treasurer of Kings Comity from 1737-1772; then to John Lefferts (1719-1776), a delegate to the Provincial Congress and a judge of the Court of Sessions and Coram Pleas; then to Pieter Lefferts, also a judge of the Court of Sessions and Ccrrcron Pleas, a state senator, a delegate from Kings County to a convention in Poughkeepsie tiiat adopted the Unitec-States Constitution, and ore of the original contributors and trustees of the Erasmv Hall Academy; then to John Lefferts (1783-1829), a congressman, state senator, and a delegate to the convention of 1823. which net to amend the New york State Constitution; then to his son John, a gentleman farmer; and finally to his son, James Lefferts.

 

It was the heirs of the last John Lefferts who decided to subdivide the family estate for residential development. James lefferts lived in the family homestead and supervised the division of the land. The Lefferts Homestead was originally located, on Flatbush Avenue between Maple and Midwood Streets, but was given to New York City in 1918, soon after James Lefferts' death, when an apartment building was planned for the site. The first Lefferts Homestead was built in the late 17th century, but was burned by American Revolutionary War forces retreating northward through Brooklyn on August 23, 1776. The family salvaged lumber and hardware from the burnt house and it was rebuilt between 1777 and 1783 in a garrbrel-roofea style typical of the Dutch Colonial farm dwellings in Brooklyn for over 150 years. The house, now located in Prospect Park, is a museum run by the Daughters of the American Revolution, and it is the only surviving Dutch farm house from Flatbush.

 

In 1893 James Lefferts divided the family farm into 600 building lots in anticipation of the construction of a "high-grade" residential development to be called Lefferts Manor. James Lefferts sought to assure the success of the lefferts Manor area by establishing a restrictive covenant for each lot that clearly defined the type of building allowed. As was typical of many property documents of the period, the Lefferts Manor deed prohibited such unsavory uses as stab3.es, pig-pens, forges, iron foundries, fertilizer, gunpowder, saltpeter, soap, candle, ink, glue, and varnish factories, tanneries, breweries, etc., as well as hospitals, theaters, apartment houses, tenements, "or any noxious, offensive, dangerous, unwholesome...business whatsoever." In addition to those understandable restrictions, Lefferts had a number of restrictions placed in the deeds to regulate building in the area.

 

No house was permitted that was worth less then $5,000 and all of• the buildings were to be single-family residences built of brick or stone (this latter rule was not adhered to on Lincoln Road and Fenimore Street). All houses had to be at least two stories -with a cellar and vsere to be set back at least fourteen feet frara the street, with bay windows and bcw fronts projecting no more tVian 3k inches over the building line. All stables and outbuildings were to be at least sixty feet from the street and fences were to be placed at least twslve feet frcm the curb line. Due to the efforts of the Lefferts Manor Association, founded in 3.919, the area lias remained one of the few in New York City where the original deed covenants are still in force, thus giving much of this eight block section of the Historic District a special cohesiveness.

 

Lefferts placed these building restrictions on the lots to assure that the area would develop in a uniform manner. By restricting the area to fairly subt stantial, although not exorbitantly e^ensive or excessively grand houses, Lefferts hoped to attract a stable middle-class population that would give the newly developing area an aura of respectability. Lefferts undoubtedly saw a need to restrict building to one-family residence due to the growing popularity of multiple dwellings, particularly of two-family rowhouses. In the 1890s, two-family rushouses that, from the exterior , look identical to one-family homes began to be erected in Brooklyn, particularly in areas north of Lefferts Manor. In this decade the blocks of Crown Heights, just north of Eastern Parkway, were built up with a large nunber of two-family ixwhouses.

 

As development moved south through Crown Heights, towards Flatbush, more and more of these two-family rcwhouses ware built, but Lefferts' restrictions assured that his estate would not be inproved in this manner. This restriction was a farsighted one, for of the nine major blcckfronts ir the Prospect Lefferts Historic District that are not part of the Lefferts Manor development, five were built up with two-family rowhouses. Rogers Avenue, both inside and outside of the District was developed primarily with residential structures with commercial ground floors, and the streets surrounding the Historic District contain a mixture of primarily two-family and multiple-residence dwellings.

 

Building in the Prospect Lefferts Gardens area, prior to the 1890s, was quite sparse. Of the rural and suburban houses that once existed in the vicinity only one seems to have survived—the extraordinarily well-preserved Italianate frame dwelling at 250 Empire Boulevard, east of Rogers Avenue. The earliest concentrated residential develop-rent in the Prospect lefferts Gardens areas wars a group of Colonial Fevival style houses located on the north side of Lincoln Road between Flatbush and Bedford Avenues, just outside lefferts Manor. These late 19th-century houses were not protected by convenants and were demolished in the 1920s and 1930s and replaced by apartment houses. The earliest residential buildings within the District, a row of four houses at 185-191 Lincoln Road but . outside of the Manor, date from 1895. The first buildings within the boundaries of lefferts Manor are to frame dwellings at 107 and 115 Fenimore Street built in 1896.

 

The major development of the District, however, took place .in three periods. The earliest movement by real estate interests to build in the area of the Lefferts estate spanned the years from 1897 to 1899, when 160 houses were erected, ail within Lefferts Manor or on the blockfront of Lincoln Road just across the street freer; the Manor. Building slewed during the first triree years of the 20tli century, possibly because the large number of homes built in the late 1890s had flooded the market. As noted earlier, the area surrounding Lefferts Manor was sparsely built up in -tihe late 19th century due to the fact tiiat the southward development of Brooklyn's residential districts did not reach the Flatbush line until the second decade of the 20th century. Since this area still was relatively underdeveloped people may have been hesitant to purchase a rewbouse in the neighborhood.

 

A look at the deeds of ownership for the twenty houses built for developer William A.A. Brown at 51-71 and 52-72 Kidwood Street in 1898 substantiates this supposition. Brown was one of the major developers responsible for building construction in the District, particularly during this early period. Born in Brooklyn in 1856, Brown noved to Flatbush in 186.' Before entering the real estate market in 1898, Brazes investments were primarily in brewing, and lie was president of the Nassau Brewing Co. In 3.893 Brown began to build in Flatbrish, and the Midwood Street houses, designed by William M. Miller, were advertised in the Brooklyn Eagle in 1898. It was clan-fed that "probably no better houses in the city are better built, frort foundation to roof, in trim and finish, in arrangement and appointment than these houses."3 Although built in 1898 and advertised by the end of that year, trie houses did not sell quickly.

 

Only four were sold in 1899, and others were not purchased until as late as 1906, when development in the entire area was expanding. Brown's advertisement was written in such a way as to appeal to the modest middle-class family that could not afford to live in Manhattan or in a large brownstone ir» a more established Brooklyn neighborhood. He stated, that "In Manhattan such a house would cost $20-35,000: here they cost $7,250 for 2-story ana $11,000 for 3-story,"10 an indication of the economic level of ttose who moved to the area.

 

Enough construction liad taken place in Lefferts Manor by 1910 to allow the publication Flatbush Past and Present to state that since the Lefferts Estate had opened, the area "has naturally assumed the character of a high-grade city inproverrent. ../so that/' Flatbush can thus give to the prospective buyer tine highest typo of city residence as well as the suburban vil la."11 Most of Flatbush was developed with suburban residences, but the rowhouses of Prospect Lefferts Gardens, the later tenements and more luxurious apartment houses gave an even wider range of choices for prospective Flatbush residents.

 

The construction of new buildings in the Historic District carre to a total halt in 1903, the year of one of America's worst financial panics. Construction picked up slightly in 1904, and by 1905 new building had begun in emest. It was during this second period of development that the majority of the houses in the Prospect .Tjefferts Gardens Historic District were built. During the years 1905-1911, 507 hcsnss ware begun, 163 of these in 1909 alone. Almost all of these buildings were stone structures built in the neo-Renaissance style (see Architectural Introduction). Although Brown was still active in the District, particularly on Fenimore Street between Flatbush and Bedford Avenues, line three irost active builders of the period were Frederick B. Morris, who later became incorporated as the Frederick B. Norris Canpany, Realty Associates, and the Kingston Building Conpanv.

 

Frederick B. Norris was born in Brooklyn, where his father was a builder of some importance. Norris built a hone for himself in Flatbush and then began to build speculative housing in the area, particularly on the lefferts estate. Flatbush of To-day noted in 1908 that "when he arrived in that section /in 1901/ the houses were few," but development soon increased dramatically. Norris' first buildings were a row of neo-Renaissance style houses designed by Axel Hedrran and built in 1901 on the south side of Lincoln Road between Bedford and Rogers Avenues. Norris also built most of the frame, suburban-type dwellings designed by Slee & Bryson on the south side of Lincoln Road between Flatbush and Bedford Avenues, and masonry houses in the neo-Reriaissance and neo-Federal styles, and in various medieval-inspired styles, some built as late as 1925.

 

Realty Associates was a real estate firm founded in 1901 with the intention of building lower priced houses on a large scale. The firm built 175 houses in the District between 1908 and 1912, all designed by Benjamin Driesler—105 virtual] identical houses ranged along the eastern edge of Lefferts Manor, six others on Fenjmore Road, and fifty-four on both sides of Sterling Street between Rogers and Nostrand Avenues. With only two exceptions (187-289 Sterling Street) these houses are extremely modest limestone or brownstone neo-Renaissance style structures, most of which cost only $3,500 to build; the larger houses on the corners cost §6,500.

 

The Kingston Realty Cartpany built 108 small primarily two-family, neo-French Renaissance style houses, designed by architect Frank S. Lowe, on the four block-fronts of lefferts Avenue within the District. The Kingston Realty Ccnpany, locate-on the corner of Fangs ton Avenue and Eastern Parkway, also built houses virtually identical to those of Lefferts Avenue elsewhere in Brooklyn, including Lincoln Place in Crcwn Heights and Stratford Road between Caton and Church Avenues in Flatbush.

 

By 1915 almost the entire portion of the District east of Bedford Avenue had been improved, but curiously, Fenimore Street, Midwood Street, and Rutland Road between Flatbush and Bedford Avenues, still had large plots of vacant land.

 

Daring the third period of development, between 1915 and 1925, eighty-seven houses were built on these streets. Frederick E. Norris remained an active presence in the District during this period. All of Morris' later houses—forty-four built by the F.B. Morris Company and ten built by the Fenirrore Realty Company of which Korris was president—were modest brick dwellings with ornament derived from American colonial and English medieval decorative forms. Most of these dwellings were designed by Slee & Bryson, a prolific Brooklyn architectural firm known for its nee-Federal and neo-Tudor style structures.

 

The Brighton Building Company erected three rows of houses on Rutland Read—two unusual rows with neo-Tudor facades designed in 1915 and a long row of neo-Federal houses dating fran 1919. The president of the Brighton Building Co. was Peter J. Collins. Collins was not only a builder, but an architect as well, and it was he who designed the Rutland Road houses, as well as the neo-Tudor rows on nearby Chester Court, outside the Historic District. Collins also was the owner-architect of a number of houses in the Park Slope Historic District and served a tern as Brooklyn's Comissioner of Buildings. He lived in Prospect Park South, at 135 Vfestminister Road, in a neo-Tudor house designed by his brother Frank C. Collins.

 

The two blcckfrcnts of Maple Street between Flatbush and Bedford Avenues are quite different fron anything else in the Historic District. Most of the buildings on this street are large, freestanding brick houses erected in the 1920s for individual owners. For the most part the designs of these houses are loosely based on colonial, medieval, or {Mediterranean precedents. Only three of the houses on Maple Street predate 1915, while one was built in the 1930s and four in the 1950s" most however, were built between 1922 and 1927.

 

Although primarily a low-rise residential neighborhood, the Historic District does incline one elevator apartment house of 1939 (148-154 lefferts Avenue), two rows of tenements on Rogers Avenue, and a very fine church complex— the Grace Reformed Church and Sunday School located an Lincoln Road and Lefferts Avenue, at Bedford Avenue.

 

The thirty-years time span for the development of Prospect Lefferts Gardens, from C.1895-C.1925, is typical of the growth pattern of most of Brooklyn's 19th and early 20tl)rcentury neighborhoods. Scattered early development in rrost areas lasted for abbut five years, follcwsd by a twenty-year period of intense building and a five-year period in which the few remaining vacant lots were improved. Generally, after an area of Brooklyn was built up, it became a quiet, middle-class community where little building took place. This pattern occured in Cobble Kill in the 1840s and 1850s, in Fort Greene in the 1860s and 1870s, in Bedford in the 1870s and 1880s, in Crcwn Heights North in -die 1880s and 1890s, and in Flatbush in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

 

Prospect Lefferts Gardens always has been a well cared for and stable cccnnunity. The early residents of the area were solid nuddle-class business and professional people, many of whom lived in the District for only a short time, as they established themselves and moved to larger houses. Today the District is one of the few successfully integrated middle-class communities in New York City. The rexvhouses of the neighborhood did not see the post-war decline of many of Brooklyn's brownstone areas. The buildings remain in excellent condition and are now attract! a middle-class population that is seeking many of the same neighborhood attributes as the original residents.

 

Agreeably sited along tree-shaded sidwalks the buildings of Prospect Lefferts Gardens constitute a remarkably coherent sample of residential design dating fron the 1890s to the 1920s. Two- and three-story rowhouses predominate throughout most of the neighborhood and form an extensive series of unified blockfrents. This regular streetscape is varied by an admixture of larger, freestanding and semi-detached dwellings constructed of frame and brick, which are clustered along Fenimore Street and in the blocks of Maple Street and Lincoln Road west of Bedford Avenue. Even the smallest rowhouses contribute to the effect of substantial dignity and comfortable, if somewhat restrained, respectability that is the most striking visual cuality of this neighborhood. The buildings, with the exception of those on Fenimore Street,, have generally been kept in good repair without major alterations to 'facades, thereby preserving nearly intact the original unified composition of entire blockfronts.

 

Consistent building heights, facade materials, and setbacks throughout much of the district resulted from stringent covenants imposed by the lefferts family. Rapid development of their estate and adjacent parcels of land by speculators employing a small group of architects encouraged architectural homogeneity. The houses were designed in various revival styles that reflect the development of popular taste around the turn of the century and the following three decades. As one would expect of speculative building designed for a middle-class clientele, the ardiitecture of Prospect Lefferts Gardens is neither avant-garde nor markedly idiosyncratic in style, although the Brooklyn architects who worked here did adapt standard elements in a distinctly individual manner that relieves the uniformity of repetitive block-fronts.

 

The earliest rcwhouses built in the District exemplify the Romanesque Revival style developed by Henry Hobson Richardson during the 1870s. Constructed of a combination of smooth- and rock-faced sandstone and smooth Roman brick, the houses exhibit interesting textural and chromatic contrasts. Other characteristic features are boldly defined round-arched openings, a crisp foliate decorative ornamentation known as Byzantine carving, and the use of such motifs as dwarf colunt cox-stoops, stone transceu bars, and stained-glass transom windows. Among the finest Romanesque Revival style houses in the District are those located at 56-60 Rutland Road.

 

By the time Prospect Lefferts Gardens was developed, the Rananesque Revival had lost popularity in fashionable Manhattan neighborhoods, and had been supplanted by the classically-inspired neo-Penaissance and Beaux-Arts forms popularized by the Chicago World's Columbian Exposition of 1893. There are few purely Ronanesque Revival style houses in the District; instead, the buildings combine Romanesque and Classical forms. This eclectic spirit is handsomely illustrated by two identical rows at 51-71 and 52-72 Midwood Street designed by architect William M. Miller in 1898. These transitional Romanesque Revival/neo-Renaissance style houses are more lavishly decorated than the Romanesque Revival structures, and their assortment of ornamental root if s juxtaposes sons of the standard Romanesque elements described above with features of classical derivation.

 

The use of different materials of various textures and a chromatic scale limited to earth tones, is Romanesque in character, but a new design vocabulary, consisting of classically-inspired forms such as Palladian windows, cartouches, swags, foliate moldings, etc., is also evident on these structures.

 

The World's Columbian Exposition caused a great change in the character of building in the United States. The variety of form and detailing characteristic of the Romanesque Revival gave way to a more uniform style based heavily on Classical and Renaissance prototypes within the District. Buildings designed in this neo-Renaissance style generally have monochramtic facades, often faced with Indiana limestone, although a few have brownstone facades. The houses, frequently arranged in long rows, create uniform streetscapes. The uniform rows on both sides of Maple Street between Bedford and Rogers Avenues, designed in 1909-1 by Brooklyn architect Axel Redman, exemplify the ideal of the neo-Renaissance style. The ornamental forms on these houses, including cartouches, foliate panels, pediment doorways, swags, classical moldings, etc., are typical of the design vocabulary found on houses built in this style throughout the country.

 

Nineteenth-century interest in the revival of architectural styles of the past led, late in the century, to renewal of interest inland a re-evaluation of early American architecture.

 

Although Colonial Revival style buildings began to appear as early as the 1870s, it was not until the early years of the 20th century that Colonial Revival styles such as the neo-Georgian and neo-Federal became major factors in the design of urban housing. These Colonial Revival style residences use ornamental details associated with 18th- and early 19th-century * architecture, but adapt these forms to contemporary usage. In rows such as those at 13-49 and 74-88 Midwood Street, designed in 1935 and 1917 by architects Slee & Bryson, Georgian and Federal forms are combined to create the illusion of a colonial house. The red brick facades are ornamented with decorative elements such as Georgian splayed lintels, Federal paneled, lintels, Georgian pedimented doorways, and Federal doorways with fanlights, but these historical details are juxtaposed with contemporary forms such as mansard roofs and angular bays.

 

Within the District are a number of houses with medieval detailing that, in their basic messing, resenble the Colonial Revival residences. Designed by Slee & Bryson; houses such as those at 69-87 Fenimore Street, built in 1919, are similar to the Colonial Revival houses on Midwood Street, but have entrances in the form of Tudor arches. The row of eleven houses at 94-116 Rutland Road designed in 1919 by Peter J. Collins carbines neo~Georgian, neo-Federal and neo-Tudor details yet retains its coherence. More obviously neo-Tudor are the rows on Rutland Road, just east of Flatbush Avenue, designed by Collins in 1915. These unusual picture sqi: buildings have half-timbered gables linking them to English Tudor architecture. This revival of interest in medieval forms occurred early in the 20th century, but the use of such forms on rcwhouses is unusual.

 

It is more corrmon to find neo-Tudor half-tinkering and other medieval details on freestanding structures such as those designed by Slee & Bryson between 1907 and 1916 on Lincoln Road between Flatbush and Bedford Avenues. Both the Colonial and Medieval revivals remained popular in the 1920s and 1930s as evidenced on Maple Street where large freestanding brick houses designed in these modes were constructed.

 

Due to the developsnent pattern in Prospect lefferts Gardens it is not unusual to find buildings desigred in all of these styles on a single block. On Midwood Street and Rutland Road between Flatbush and Bedford Avenues, houses with Romanesque, Renaissance, Federal, Georgian, and Medieval details are juxtaposed. Although the houses in Prospect lefferts Gardens are nodest examples of their styles, built for a middle-class population, they have a direct link to contemporary residential design in New York's most elegant neighborhoods. Streets on Manhattan's Upper East Side, built in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, shew the same stylistic mix. The Manhattan houses are considerably larger, caimissioned by individual owners rather than by speculators, and were designed by the major architects of the period. These buildings, however, were extensivly publicized and set stylistic trends that were followed by architects working on a smaller scale.

 

Although more than twenty architects were active in the Historic District, it is the work of Brooklyn architects, Benjamin Priesler, Axel Hedman, and the firm of Slee & Bryson, that gives the area its coherence.

 

By far the most prolific architect in Prospect lefferts Gardens was Benjamin Driesler (d.1949). Driesler moved to Flatbush from Rockville Center, long Island, in 1392 "foreseeing a much wider field in that crowing section"! and soon became one of Brooklyn's most active architects. His earliest known work in Brooklyn includes freestanding frame houses such as those in the Prospect Park South Historic District designed during the years 1898-1911. Mostly undistinguishc.. adaptations of the neo-Tudor and Colonial Revival styles, these and many similar buildings typify the vernacular residential design that proliferated in many suburban areas around the turn of the century. Markedly different in style and materials are the rews of tewn houses designed by Driesler which were built in the Park Slope Historic District during the years 1902-1903. Constructed of brick, browns tone, and limestone, they incorporate an eclectic array of Romanesque Revival. neo-Renaissance, and neo-Classical motifs.

 

DrieslerTs earliest houses in Prospect Lefferts Gardens are a series of typical frame structures built in 1905 on Fenimore Street. His major contributions to the District, however, are the many modest stone houses built from Lincoln Road to Fenimore Street between Bedford and Rogers Avenues and on Sterling Street between Rogers and Nostrand Avenues in the years 1907-1910. The elevations of Driesler's numerous rows are uniform in style, representing the classically-inspired neo-Renais sance idiom. The typical Driesler house in the District is a two-story, limestone or browns tone-fronted residence with a full-height rounded or angular bay.

 

Axel Hedman is one of the many nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Brooklyn arcliitects about whom little is known. He joined the Boooklyn chapter of tlis American Institute of Architects in 1894 and completed his earliest recorded, buildings in the Stuyvesant Heights Historic District soon thereafter. For these houses Hednan employed the neo-Itenaissance forms that were to predominate throughou his career. Rowhouses designed by Hedman are found throughout Brooklyn with particularly notable examples in the Park Slope Historic District, on Union Street in Crown Heights South, on Dean Street in Crown Heights North, and on Midwood and Haple Streets in Prospect Lefferts Gardens. Hedman's neo-Renaissance designs are among the finest in New York City. Within the limited stylistic vocabulary of the neo-Renaissance he consistently designed interesting and frequently original buildings, all with finely crafted details.

 

The Prospect lefferts Gardens Historic District retains its architectural integrity to an astonishing degree. Exaitples of houses designed in styles popular in tum-of-the-century middle-class neighborhoods, including the late Romanesque Revival, neo-Renaissance, neo-Federal, neo-Georgian, and neo-Tudor, line the streets and these residences have undergone few inappropriate alterations. Due to a series of restrictive covenants, the neighborhood was built up in a cohesive manner and it remains one of the finest enclaves of 19th- and early 20th-century housing in New York City.

 

- From the 1979 NYCLPC Historic District Designation Report

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