Building of the Day: 273 Hancock Street
Brooklyn, one building at a time. Name: Row House Address: 273 Hancock Street, between Marcy and Tompkins Avenues Neighborhood: Bedford Stuyvesant Year Built: 1888 Architectural Style: Romanesque Revival Architect: J.D. McAuliffe Other buildings by architect: Other houses on Hancock: #261-265, 274-284. Landmarked: Not yet. Working on it. The story: Bedford was developed as an upper…
Brooklyn, one building at a time.
Name: Row House
Address: 273 Hancock Street, between Marcy and Tompkins Avenues
Neighborhood: Bedford Stuyvesant
Year Built: 1888
Architectural Style: Romanesque Revival
Architect: J.D. McAuliffe
Other buildings by architect: Other houses on Hancock: #261-265, 274-284.
Landmarked: Not yet. Working on it.
The story: Bedford was developed as an upper middle-class enclave by a score of developers who built high quality speculative housing on a huge swath of land. Around this housing, a real community grew up, with commercial blocks, schools, clubs, and houses of worship. William Reynolds was one of the largest and most successful of these developers, and for a while, this was his house.
He grew up nearby on Madison Street, and went to public school on Decatur St. His father was a successful builder, and by the time he was in his early 20’s, he had already become a successful real estate broker in the Bedford community. He turned that success into a development business, hiring some of Brooklyn’s best architects to design quality homes. This block of Hancock Street is famous for all of the Montrose Morris homes on it, but a look at the records shows that much of the rest of the block was developed by Reynolds, who had excellent taste in the blocks he picked. His homes can also be found on the next block of Hancock, between Marcy and Nostrand, and also on Jefferson, Halsey, Macon and other nearby streets.
Reynolds also developed in the Stuyvesant Heights area, and in the 1890’s, would go on to significant development in Prospect Heights, building with few exceptions, all of the houses on Sterling and Park between Vanderbilt and Underhill, as well as on some other nearby blocks. While he was working in this area, he had a magnificent new house built on Eastern Parkway, and he moved from Hancock Street.
Reynolds, who was a one term state senator, had his sights on bigger projects, including the development of Dreamland Amusement Park in Coney Island. He also developed and named Borough Park, plus Laurelton in Queens, and was the main developer and mayor of Long Beach, LI. The full story of his life, which is fascinating, was the topic of several Walkabouts. See links, here, here, and here.(The link to part one is not working, sorry)
This house was built by J.D. McAuliffe, who, along with Axel Hedman and Magnus Dahlander, did a lot of work for Reynolds across brownstone Brooklyn. Reynolds must have loved carved ornament. All of his architects use it profusely, and well. This house has a great cornice line, and the use of smooth and rough cut stone is quite well done, the textures created highlight the windows and elevate the façade from the ordinary, also a signature motif in the Romanesque Revival style. The best part of the house is the masterfully carved lion’s head capstone over the door. The anonymous stone carver gave his lion great dignity and majesty, amongst a swirl of Byzantine Leaf foliage. I wouldn’t be surprised if Reynolds planned it that way, after all, he was the king of Brooklyn, at least in his own mind. GMAP
Indeed there were, minard. I would imagine also there were master journeymen artists who would carve the original models. It’s interesting ,actually to look at brass stampings, of all things and the Rhode island industry. Some of the dies in use today are the originals- you can tell by the sharpness of the detail. But over time they get worn down and new dies are made from – often it seems- the stampings themselves. I assume the original models were lost or destroyed. So you see over time as the detail gets less and less. Certain designs are stolen by other companies- you can actually see the minute differences in the final stampings. Sometimes the artist/craftsman was hired by another company to copy the design of another company that proved popular. Many of them are based on architectural elements.
Why I found this relevant- although you and Mr. Gray may not 🙂 – is that I was looking through a book of MM’s that showed architectural details around NYC and saw several unrelated buildings where a sharply carved 3 dimensional face was copied and inset into a completely different architectural element. It was a very distinctive face so there was no question it was the same, but the copied version was of lesser quality. The patterns and interrelationships in visual elements is a particular fascination of mine. All by way of saying- great lion! 🙂
the coloring of the sandstone van be pleasing, except for the redder variety, which is hideous no matter what. But the real problem was that it was not a good architectural stone. It deteriorates and delaminates and crumbles. It is a terrible facade material.
In terms of there not being any master anything working on these houses. I thing doalgae is being somewhat arch.
There were certainly master carpenters and master masons and master iron workers producing high-quality work.
1. “hideous”? dueling pistols, sir, at 6 PM on Wednesday
2. yes there certainly were master this and that. the question is: WERE THEY WORKING ON SPEC ROWHOUSES? if you answer yes, then where were the non-masters working? is it not safe to assume that “masters” were a minority, possibly a distinct minority, in the trade? so there, bossy-pants-brownstone-carver christopher
doover, as you well know, by 1888 most of the work was done off-site. The windows and doors were made at a factory and delivered, likewise the masonry, cut by hydraulic saws at the quarry, were dressed and shipped ready to go up. The keystone over the door may have been partially designed from a stencil but the lion face itself was the work of a master carver. That lion probably cost the developer $100 extra. The techniques involved in stereotomy and drafting were improving rapidly and would reach their zenith by 1900. It really is too bad that New york builders couldn’t find nicer stone to build with. Could you imagine Brooklyn if there had been ample deposits of Parisian-like limestone in the suburban quarries rather than chocolate colored sandstone?
“the work of a master carver”
LaFevre, I don’t doubt you but … where do you get that conclusion? Nothing else in the commodity of rowhouses was done by a “master” anything.
Christopher
We know next to nothing about the economics and operations of the stone carving industry. Was the piece above carved with steam power? (Almost cerrtainly.) How did steam power change carving techniques? Just exactly what did a steam powered carving tool – a reciprocating hammer, probably – look like? What level of design drawings were prepared? By the architect? Or did the architect just say “gimme a leafy lion, like the last job, but bigger, and give it Springsteen’s face”? Many ornaments appear to be quite close – identical? – in execution; did they use a pantograph? A stencil-type device? Was any ornament ever carved on site, for rowhouse-quality projects? Even in the earliest brownstone days? Limestone vs. brownstone – what are the working considerations for the softer vs. the harder stone? Yes, granite is hard, very hard – but just how hard, especially when you are using steam power? Is there an example of a developer mixing stones on the piano nobile or above?
In short, where is Benson when we need him?
Christopher Gray
Appearances of the word “mason” in the 1869 New York City directory: 1810; ” carver”: 450; “stone” 916.
In the 1890 directory, same words: 2999, 568. 829.
While interesting, I surmise these are useless pieces of information.
great carving. the house looks nice and wide and was probably sumptuous inside.
blayze, brownstone window shutters usually do not retract into the wall but rather fold back flat against the window reveals. the reveal is simply the side area of a window or door opening. Often these shutters are painted shut with many layers of paint. A careful scraping and prying can re-expose them.
Except for Nova Scotia stone, there is no rowhouse building stone in New York more beautiful than good, well-chosen, well-laid brownstone, whether the crusty, rusty red of LongMeadow, or the rich, swirling, glint of Portland.
Yrs. Herb Caen