Louis Bonert: 6th Avenue & 5th Street, 1892

Next up in our continuing series of posts about Park Slope builder Louis Bonert is the row at the southeast corner of 6th Avenue and 5th Street:

Brooklyn Daily Eagle, April 21, 1892, p. 2 ("New Buildings and Real Estate")

6th Avenue & 5th Street, southeast corner - unprotected

The corner building is mixed-use, with three flats over the first floor commercial space, a configuration it retains to this day. The corner commercial entrance retains the original wooden doors and cast-iron pilasters. A round window bay above the commercial entrance faces the intersection. Pressed tin detailing, familiar from many period ceilings, is here employed in panels set into the round bay:

6th Avenue & 5th Street, southeast corner - detail

The brownstone facing on the corner building contrasts with the yellow brick used in the adjoining four-family "single flats", but the identical cornice detailing serves to unify the row:

6th Avenue & 5th Street, southeast corner - detail

Bonert here employs an unusual two-story projecting window bay on the second and third floors of the apartment buildings:

367-369 6th Avenue - unprotected

This delightful corner of Park Slope, like many others in the neighborhood, retains its original emergency call box:



Later that same year, Bonert erected a matching row of buildings across 5th Street:

6th Avenue & 5th Street, northeast corner - unprotected

Brooklyn Daily Eagle, August 29, 1892, p. 5 ("New Buildings and Real Estate")

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle article incorrectly specifies the number of buildings as five; the row actually comprises four buildings, one less than the matching row to the south. But the article correctly identifies the number of dwelling units (four buildings times four units per building less one unit of commercial space equals fifteen dwelling units).

The corner building, whose brownstone facing again contrasts with the adjacent apartment houses, lacks the rounded window bay of its companion across 5th Street. But as in the neighboring ensemble, the cornice detailing helps to unify the otherwise disparate elements of the row:

6th Avenue & 5th Street, northeast corner - detail