Readers' Questions: Lost Park Slope

Faithful reader "LGR" commented a while back on our "Lost Park Slope" post about the John H. Hanan residence that formerly stood at 118 8th Avenue, corner Carroll Street:

John H. Hanan residence - 118 8th Avenue
C. P. H. Gilbert, architect - ca. 1890
Demolished ca. 1935

"LGR" asks:

If you look at the earlier image of the residence, the row houses just visible are actually not where they should be, if you actually take a look on Carroll Street. Rather, these look very suspiciously like the two houses on the south side of President Street, right off of Eighth Avenue. So, what's going on? Is the original photo reversed? (though I note the mansion is also cited in Merlis in the location given here). I mean, something is amiss.

Here's a closer view of the adjacent Carroll Street house, peeking out from behind the Hanan mansion:


Good question, LGR! What's going on, indeed? Because that house is certainly not there today. Or is it? LGR suggests that what we see in the photo above might actually be one of these houses in President Street, south side, just below 8th Avenue, and that perhaps the old photo above is reversed:

878-876 President Street
Park Slope Historic District
Albert E. White, architect - 1889

An interesting theory! We had noticed the anomaly when we found the photo of the Hanan residence, but just assumed it had been knocked down and incorporated into the footprint of the current apartment building that occupies the corner lot.

But then we checked the DOITT block/lot map, and saw immediately that the current apartment tower's lot had not expanded beyond the original 100' depth on Carroll Street. We have added the rear lot line in green, in the screen shot below:


So what's going on? Here's a recent photo of the adjacent 799 Carroll Street building:

799 Carroll Street - Park Slope Historic District
Albert E. White, architect - 1889
1918 redesign by George Chappell

Actually, the answer is "hiding in plain sight", in the Park Slope Historic District's 1973 Designation Report:

No. 799 Carroll Street was built in 1889 and designed by Brooklyn architect Albert E. White for James C. Jewett. White also designed Nos. 876 and 878 President Street. Originally, it may have resembled the President Street houses, but in 1918 the house was altered to its present neo-Federal appearance by architect George Chappell of Manhattan who had a long and distinguished career in the history of Brooklyn architecture...

So in fact, the old photograph of the Hanan mansion does not lie. That is indeed 799 Carroll Street peeking out from behind the mansion, as it appeared prior to its 1918 remodeling! It looks quite like its President Street companions.

[Sorry for the delayed response, LGR... We don't actually "own" this blog, so we don't receive notifications when someone comments. We should really start a new blog one of these days.]

Updated 7-Dec-2010: The Real Estate Record and Builders' Guide, March 22, 1890, states of the Hanan mansion that "the billiard room will be in the tower, circular in form, and with a height of 20 feet."

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 stepped gables of these Colonial Revival houses recall antecedents in Dutch New Amsterdam.  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.