Why this Blog Exists

To make the case for expanding the Park Slope Historic District

Monday, June 22, 2009

Louis Bonert: Five 8-Family Double Flats in Sterling Place

In 1909 Louis Bonert traded five four story, 8-family "double flat" apartment houses in Sterling Place for a large parcel on the other side of Prospect Park, in a deal recounted in the New York Times:

New York Times, August 4, 1909, p. 10 ("In the Real Estate Field")

164-180 Sterling Place - unprotected


168 Sterling Place - unprotected

The buildings exhibit some of the stylized hoods over the central stairway windows that we have come to associate with Bonert from his apartment houses in 3rd Street and in 6th Avenue:

180 Sterling Place - detail

The doorways are a riot of classical detail. We can make out swags and egg-and-dart molding, but our limited architectural vocabulary cannot begin to describe everything here. What are those pointy things on the upper corners called?:

164 Sterling Place - detail

Bader's roadhouse, which occupied a large parcel at the corner of Ocean Parkway and Coney Island Avenue, just outside Prospect Park, was a popular destination for excursions, apparently as much for the outsized personality of its proprietor as for its convenient location and popular prices:


Brooklyn Daily Eagle, July 4, 1897, p. 20 ("Havens for Cyclists")

3 comments:

brikenny said...

The "pointy things" in the corners are anthemions. While the term could be used for any stylized floral form, it is now used almost exclusively for the palmette-form in the inverted shield-shape at the top of a pediment, or the variations used on corners as you pointed out.

HDEC said...

Many thanks for the tip!

Or would that be "anthemia"?

Eric McClure said...

George Bader was way ahead of his time, catering to cyclists and offering ample bike parking. To steal a song title from Tim Roberts's 1992 film "Bob Roberts," perhaps "the times, they are a-changin' back."

Thanks for another fascinating look at our neighborhood's architectural history.