Why this Blog Exists

To make the case for expanding the Park Slope Historic District

Friday, January 30, 2009

1889 "Elegant Brick Row" in Carroll Street

Early Park Slope developers frequently constructed long rows of similar or identical houses. This simplifies matters somewhat for the researcher, since one can identify details about the entire row at once.

Such is the case for the long row of 23 houses in the north side of Carroll Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. This row was obviously developed all at once: three building styles repeat throughout the central sequence, in ABCABCABC... pattern:

633-635 Carroll Street - unprotected

The facades of the houses at each end of the row step forward to meet the adjoining structures and to bookend the entire ensemble:

653-655 Carroll Street - unprotected

According to the Brooklyn Eagle, the entire row was just finishing contruction in April, 1889. The owner was James C. Jewett and the architect was A. E. White. The article calls the style "colonial", but we would probably call them Queen Anne. The article includes an extensive description of the interiors of this "elegant brick row", a development clearly aimed at the top of the market for home buyers in late 19th-century Brooklyn:

Brooklyn Daily Eagle, April 10, 1889, p. 6 ("Flat Houses")

Remarkably, all twenty-three houses, the entire row, still stand, appearing much as they did when they were first constructed in 1889.


2 comments:

Old First said...

I'm intrigued by the "style" type, whether colonial or Queen Anne. I was always struck by their "Dutch" style "step-gables" (trap-gevels in Dutch). Were they evoking Brooklyn's Dutch past?

HDEC said...

Yes, the houses definitely seem to refer back to New York's Dutch colonial past.

Interestingly, Chris Gray published an article in today's NY Times about Dutch/Flemish-influenced buildings on West End Avenue, from right around this same time, late 1880s.