Building of the Day: 122-134 Brooklyn Avenue

Brooklyn, one building at a time.

Name: Semi-detached row houses, with garages
Address: 122-134 Brooklyn Avenue
Cross Streets: Bergen Street and St. Marks Avenue
Neighborhood: Crown Heights North
Year Built: 1918
Architectural Style: Colonial Revival
Architect: Eric O. Holmgren
Other Buildings by Architect: Evening Star Baptist Church (former LDS Chapel), Gates Ave, Bedford Stuyvesant; 189 Ocean Avenue, PLG; theaters in Williamsburg; Alku Toinen Cooperative Apartments, Sunset Park.
Landmarked: Yes, part of Phase I of Crown Heights North HD. (2007) both landmarked CHN historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places (2013)

The story: These are among the last single family houses built in Phase I of the Crown Heights North historic district. They were built right at America’s entrance into World War I, a watershed moment in the country’s national psyche. By the time the war was over, New York City had lived through not only war, but also an influenza pandemic, the worst subway disaster in the city’s history, and the rise of a growing middle class, dancing its way to the Roaring Twenties. Much of that middle class was settling in Brooklyn.

This particular row of houses consists of two pairs of semi-detached houses, and a single house at the end of the row, this one in the middle of the block between Bergen Street and St. Marks Avenue. They were designed for developer Harry Hanson by Eric O. Holmgren, a Swedish-American architect who enjoyed a long career here in Brooklyn.

Holmgren designed similar houses in Brooklyn, including a couple of houses on Ocean Avenue, part of the Ocean on the Park landmarked group. His most well-known buildings are the former Church of Latter Day Saints on Gates Avenue in Bedford Stuyvesant, and his Alku Toinen Co-op apartments built for a group of Finnish owners in Sunset Park. He also has a couple of theaters in Williamsburg to his credit.

The houses are in the Colonial Revival style, the most popular architectural style for residences at the time, and for long after. They are quite different from the brownstones across the street, but form a cohesive streetscape, as these houses are a transitional group separating the 19th century row houses from the late 1920s, early 30’s apartment buildings which rise behind them.

The developer, Harry Hanson, could probably have squeezed in two more houses into the group, if he had wanted to make them all attached. But this was 1918. His targeted market wanted off –street parking in a garage, and that was worth much more. All of these houses have a garage in back, accessed either by a shared or private driveway. The house on the corner of Bergen has its garage access on the Bergen Street side. That was a valuable commodity then, and is worth even more today.

That garage came in handy for the owner of 122 Brooklyn Ave. In 1921, an ad in the Brooklyn Eagle announced the sale of a Peerless limousine, “new paint, good tires, private owner” being sold from this address. A garage in the city can be a fine thing to have.

Which is a good segue into announcing my next walking tour for the Municipal Arts Society. It takes place this coming Sunday, September 27th, at 11am. My tour partner Morgan Munsey and I will be leading a tour of Automobile Row; that’s Bedford Avenue, in Crown Heights. Around the time the owner of 122 was selling his car, Bedford Avenue was home to automobile dealerships, garages and service centers, stretching from Halsey Street in Bedford, down to Empire Boulevard in Crown Heights South. There were dozens of them, and many of the buildings still stand. We’ll be highlighting many of the buildings, specifically in the Crown Heights North section. We hope you’ll join us. Tickets and details are available from the MAS website.

(Photograph:S.Spellen)

GMAP