Day's Avena, 6th Avenue & 9th Street

Okay, folks, we have some winners to announce regarding the mysterious public hall at 9th Street and 6th Avenue.

Day's Avena Hall, 9th Street & 6th Avenue, s w corner

We knew from our last post that the building was constructed in 1892 as a public hall by Edward P. Day, to plans by architect Walter H. C. Hornum. What we didn't know was the name of the building.

Sharp-eyed commenter John Casson found the following Brooklyn Eagle citation that yields the name "Arvena" for this building; the Eagle notes that the word derives from a Greek term for "place of assemblage." Congratulations and thanks for this great find, John!:

Brooklyn Eagle, October 16, 1892, p. 2 ("A New Amusement Hall")

Meanwhile, independently from John's work, we happened across a further clue while researching Columbia Hall. Apparently a "Professor J. O. E. Small" conducted dancing classes at both Columbia Hall and at Day's building, on alternate evenings. However, "Professor" Small's advertisement refers to Day's building as "Day's Avena," dropping the 'r':

Apparently "Day's Avena" is the name that came into common usage. The Eagle lists all the usual fraternal and sororal associations meeting at "Day's Avena" (not "Arvena") in the final decade of the 19th century.

So, congratulations are also due to Professor J. O. E. Small, dancing instructor, for his role in helping to resolve the mystery of "Day's Avena:"

Day's Avena Hall
Edward P. Day, owner
Walter H. C. Hornum, architect - 1892

At least now we know what the building was called. Yet another mystery regarding this building arises: what are those symbols inside the pediment on the 6th Avenue facade? Are they Masonic? There is some Eagle evidence that Edward P. Day was a Mason. Is that the letter 'C', and if so what if anything does it mean? Inquiring minds want to know!:

Detail - Day's Avena

Mystery at 9th St. & 6th Ave.

While we are discussing public meeting halls... does anyone know anything about this building at the southwest corner of 9th Street and 6th Avenue? It certainly looks like it was originally built as a hall, but we're not aware that anyone else has identified it as such.

9th Street & 6th Avenue - s.w. corner
Walter H. C. Hornum, architect - 1892
E. P. Day, owner

According to our research, it was built by one Edwin/Edward P. Day, and indeed it appears to have been a public hall of some kind. The American Architect and Building News lists three separate filings by Mr. Day for this site, all in 1892:

"Building Intelligence; Stores; Brooklyn, N. Y.," AABN vol. 36, no. 852 (Apr. 23, 1892): p. xvii.

– "Sixth Ave., s w cor. Ninth St., four-st’y brick store and lodge-room building, tin roof; cost, $18,000; owner, Edward P. Day, 1280 Third Ave.; architect, Walter C. Horman, 150 East One Hundred and Twenty-fifth St., New York City."

"Building Intelligence; Miscellaneous; Brooklyn, N. Y.," AABN vol. 36, no. 860 (Jun. 18, 1892): p. xxiii.

– "Ninth St., s w cor. Sixth Ave., three-st’y brick public hall, tin or slate roof; cost, $10,000; owner, Edwin P.Day, Third Ave. cor. Fifty-fifth St.; architect, Robert W. Firth, Arbuckle Building."

"Building Intelligence; Miscellaneous; Brooklyn, N. Y.," AABN vol. 37, no. 871 (Sept. 3, 1892): p. 3.

– "Sixth Ave, s w cor. Ninth St., three-st’y brick public hall, tin or slate roof; cost, $10,000 each; owner, Edwin P. Day, Third Ave. and Fifty-fifth St.; architect, Walter H. C. Hornum, 159 East One Hundred and Twenty-fifth St., New York City"

The final variation of the architect's name, Walter H. C. Hornum, is listed in the Hamilton Heights/Sugar Hill Northwest Historic District Designation Report:

Additional information on Hornum is available in the LPC's Mott Haven East Historic District Desgination Report:

"Streetscapes" Visits the Carleton Club

In a recent column entitled "Social Clubs, Long Gone, Left Their Meeting Places Behind," noted NY Times "Streetscapes" columnist Christopher Gray visits four former social clubs in Brooklyn, including Park Slope's Carleton (a.k.a. Carlton) Club, on 6th Avenue just off Flatbush Avenue:

Carleton Club
Mercein Thomas, architect
1889-90

Regarding the Carleton Club, Mr. Gray tells us:

Three of the four were built within two years of one another. So competitive were the Brooklyn clubs that the Carlton (a k a Carleton) put up a headquarters in 1890 at Sixth and St. Marks Avenues in Park Slope simply because of rumors that another club was organizing to build nearby.

The Carlton had been dry, but after an 1889 meeting at which the membership voted, 38 to 11, to serve beer and wine, The Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported that it had “stepped to the front rank of Brooklyn clubs at a strike.”

This momentously fermentative change was thus in effect for the opening of the clubhouse, attended by 1,500 guests, including the mayors of Brooklyn and Manhattan. The club served a 10-course dinner, and members lent paintings by Jervis McIntee, George Inness and Eastman Johnson for the event. The Carlton was apparently designed by Mercein Thomas, and it is a mild, even modest, essay that could just as easily be a small apartment house, which indeed it has become.

In a lengthy article on March 9, 1890, the Brooklyn Eagle published a detailed review of the new club building and its facilities:

Brooklyn Eagle, March 9, 1890, p. 17 ("For the Carleton Club")

The review of the opening gala had appeared a few weeks earlier, on February 19, 1890.

Despite its auspicious beginnings, the Carleton Club apparently lasted only a few years. In 1907 the building became the home of the Cathedral Club of Brooklyn, a Roman Catholic social club. A long-time resident of Park Slope informs us that the Cathedral Club was established because Catholics were not allowed to join the nearby Montauk Club. [UPDATE: this story is apparently apocryphal... see comments below; thanks to "LGR".] According to the Cathedral Club's website, the group owned the building until 1974, when the building was sold and converted to its current residential use.

1870s Park Slope: Prospect Place

A while ago we introduced the 1880 Bromley Brooklyn Atlas, which color-codes structures by building type: pink for brick, yellow for wood.

The excerpt below shows that development in the northwest Slope was well advanced by 1880. The excerpt shows 5th Avenue to the left, 6th Avenue to the right, Flatbush Avenue on the diagonal at the top, and Bergen, St. Marks, and Prospect Place from top to bottom.

1880 Bromley Brooklyn Atlas showing NW Park Slope

Prospect Place between 5th & 6th Avenues, north side, circa 1870s -
unprotected

More Boundary Madness

A recent Brownstoner story brings news that the carriage house at 90 Park Place is undergoing renovation:

90 Park Place - Park Slope Historic District
photo: brownstoner

According to the Park Slope Historic District's Designation Report, this "handsome little Italianate stable" was built to serve the adjacent house at the corner of 6th Avenue and Park Place:

117 6th Avenue - unprotected

However, in yet another example of the current historic district's irrational boundaries, the stable itself is within the boundaries of the Park Slope Historic District, while main house it was built to serve is not. The link between the two buildings, one inside and one outside the current historic district, is confirmed in the Designation Report:

Eastlake Detail in 6th Avenue

Brownstoner's "Montrose Morris", in another of her always-fascinating essays, recently covered the Aesthetic Movement and its impact on Brooklyn's brownstone belt. The essay is highlighted with a photograph of incised facade decoration that Morris identifies as "Eastlake detail". The detailing appears on a house in MacDonough Street, between Throop and Tompkins, in the Stuyvesant Heights Historic District:

MacDonough Street - Stuyvesant Heights Historic District
(brownstoner photo)

What caught our eye about the photograph however is how closely the detailing matches that on a complete row of houses here in Park Slope, on 6th Avenue between 1st and 2nd Streets:

294 6th Avenue, Park Slope - detail

Morris writes:

Charles Eastlake was very influenced by Japanese culture and design, those designs reinterpreted in the American Eastlake furniture and interior woodwork, as well as exterior incised stonework of the Neo-Grec brownstones of Brooklyn.

Interestingly, although the detailing appears identical, the houses themselves were apparently designed and constructed by different builders.

As we have noted earlier, the Park Slope row was apparently constructed in 1887 by Brooklyn owner/architect/builder Christopher P. Skelton:

278-296 6th Avenue, Park Slope - unprotected
Christopher P. Skelton - owner/builder/architect, 1887

MacDonough Street, in the Stuyvesant Heights Historic District, actually has two sets of similar houses on the same block. One row was erected in 1888 by builder John Fraser, while another row was built in 1886 by Arthur Taylor. The district's Designation Report identifies these houses as examples of the "French neo-Grec" style. One wonders whether these guys just handed around the same sets of plans?

Since we never tire of pointing out the inconsistencies, irrationalities, and omissions in the Park Slope Historic District, we must emphasize that the Park Slope row pictured above is not protected by historic district designation. The virtually identical rows of houses in the Stuyvesant Heights Historic District were designated in 1971.

A Complete Blockfront: Butler & Wirth in 6th Avenue

The west side of Sixth Avenue between 5th & 6th Streets in Park Slope appears to be entirely the work of two men: owner Thomas Butler, and architect William H. Wirth. Once again we find the common motif of a central row of matching buildings, bracketed by differing buildings on the ends:

6th Avenue, 5th to 6th Streets, west side - unprotected

The central buildings compose a row of narrow (16'), brick-faced, 2 1/2 story-over-basement single-family houses built in 1888. The American Architect and Building News documents the row as follows:

"Building Intelligence; Houses; Brooklyn, N. Y.," AABN vol. 21, no. 575 (Jan. 1, 1887): p. xi.

– "Sixth Ave., s w cor. Fifth St., three-st’y brick store and dwell., tin roof; cost, $8,000; owner and builder, Thomas Butler, 389 Sixth St.; architect, W. H. Wirth."

"Building Intelligence; Houses; Brooklyn, N. Y.," AABN vol. 22, no. 627 (Dec. 31, 1887): p. xiv.

– "Sixth Ave., w s, 20' s Fifth St., 10 two-st’y front, three-st’y on rear, brick dwells., tin roofs, wooden cornices; cost, each, $3,000; owner and builder, Thomas Butler, 389 Sixth St.; architect, W. H. Wirth."

"Building Intelligence; Houses; Brooklyn, N. Y.," AABN vol. 23, no. 628 (Jan. 7, 1888): p. xvi.

– "Sixth Ave., n w cor. Sixth St., two-st’y and basement brown-stone dwell., tin roof, wooden and iron cornice; cost, $4,000; owner, Thomas Butler, 389 Sixth St.; architect, W. H. Wirth; builders, Buchanan & Riley."

The row is slightly unusual in that the end buildings, though differing from the central row, do not match each other. A 3-story, mixed-use (flats over store), brick building, which predates the rest of the row by about one year, stands at the 5th St. end, while the 6th St. end holds a two-story-over-basement, brownstone-faced single family house:

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

6th Avenue & 6th Street, northwest corner - unprotected

All were however apparently built in 1887-1888 by owner Thomas Butler to designs by architect W. H. Wirth.

The original, narrow brick houses in the central row are quite charming and are mostly in original condition.

370 6th Avenue - unprotected

Unfortunately one of the central row was "remuddled" at some point and had its cornice line raised to full height, breaking the row's symmetry:

364-362A 6th Avenue - unprotected

We have encountered Thomas Butler before; he it was who built the long row around the corner in 5th St.

Wirth seems to have been an architect in highly localized practice. The 1897 Lain's Brooklyn Directory lists a Wm. H. Wirth in 17th St.:

WIRTH Wm. realestate 358 17th
WIRTH Wm. H. realestate 358 17th

Our documentary history of the Park Slope expansion study area lists many other buildings by W. H. Wirth, mostly smaller buildings toward the lower or southerly parts of Park Slope. A Brooklyn Eagle search confirms that he was not above designing the occasional "frame tenement".

Wirth was also a great promoter of development in the Windsor Terrace neighborhood. We suspect he may have held property there. The Brooklyn Eagle published several letters from W. H. Wirth advocating street improvements south of Prospect Park and the extension of Prospect Avenue (June 06, 1898, p. 8; September 03, 1897, p. 7).

Finally it should be noted that W. H. Wirth apparently chaired several subcommittees of the South Brooklyn Board of Trade, the 19th c. predecessor of the Park Slope Civic Council, the leading advocate for the current push to extend the Park Slope Historic District. The Brooklyn Eagle recounts the minutes of several meetings of the South Brooklyn Board of Trade in Acme Hall, still standing on the northwest corner of 7th Avenue and 9th Street, with committee reports from one W. H. Wirth. In his capacity on the South Brooklyn Board of Trade, he seems to have been an indefatigable advocate of development in the South Slope.

A Complete Blockfront: C. P. Skelton in Sixth Avenue

Another fine example of a complete Park Slope blockfront designed as a unified whole stands on the west side of 6th Avenue between 1st & 2nd Streets:

278-296 6th Avenue - unprotected

We searched the online Brooklyn Eagle in vain for any citation of these buildings. We tried countless permutations of search keys including "Sixth avenue", "First street", "Second street" etc., but no hits. Thus it was highly gratifying finally to find a reference in the American Architect and Building News of 1887:

"Building Intelligence; Houses; Brooklyn, N. Y.," AABN vol. 21, no. 600 (Jun. 25, 1887): p. xiii.

– "Sixth Ave., s w cor. First St., three-st’y and basement brown-stone dwell., tin roof; cost, $5,000; owner, architect and builder, C. P. Skelton."

– "Sixth Ave., n w cor. Second St., three-st’y and basement brown-stone dwell., tin roof; cost, $5,000; owner, architect and builder, C. P. Skelton."

– "Sixth Ave., w s 20' s First St., 8 two-and-a-half-st’y and basement brown-stone dwells., tin roofs; cost, each, $5,000; owner, architect and builder, C. P. Skelton.

This is one of those cases, apparently not uncommon in 19th c. Brooklyn, in which a single individual, one C. P. Skelton in this case, alone assumed the role of owner, architect, and builder. Skelton seems to have carried off his responsibility quite nicely here. The end houses bracket the row with full-height, two-sided projecting window bays and a full three stories over basement, in contrast to the two-and-a-half story, flat facades of much of the rest of the row. The central pair of houses again rises to a full three stories. Altogether this row seems to us perhaps a slight echo of the wonderful townhouse blocks of Knightsbridge or Belgravia.

The entire Neo-grec block is in nearly original condition, excepting one of the central pair which has regrettably lost its stoop and cornice.

278-296 6th Avenue - unprotected

The 1897 Lain's Brooklyn Directory lists 296 6th Avenue, the choice corner lot with full southern exposure, as the residence of Christopher P. Skelton, "builder".

SKELTON Chris'r P. bldr. 296 6th av

296-294 6th Avenue - unprotected

Beyond the fact that he designed and built this fine row in 1887 and occupied the end house himself, we have found nothing else about Christopher P. Skelton.

Postscript: Louis Bonert

Our intrepid band of historic researchers has uncovered a wealth of new material regarding our favorite Park Slope builder, the prolific Louis Bonert, about whom we have written a great deal on this blog. We won't review the entire Bonert thread, but we want to clarify a couple of earlier tentative attributions.

Most of our latest material has been culled from the American Architect and Building News (AABN), a great resource for researchers of historic buildings. Some of the AABN is online, but we are lucky to have a researcher who has access to nearly the complete run in hardcopy, from which we have derived a wealth of new material for our ever-expanding "Documentary History of Park Slope" (which we hope to publish shortly on the web). Our Research Committee is winding up a chronological scan of the entire AABN run, extracting all of the "hits" for Park Slope. As the hits are obtained, we are logging them in the comments section of our comprehensive photo survey of Park Slope, and also compiling them in a master file we are calling the "Documentary History" of Park Slope, which we will be publishing in a few days.

At any rate, in our earlier Bonert series, we went out on a limb a few times and engaged in "interpretation" or "speculation", in contrast to simply publishing the documentary evidence.

One of these cases is the west side of Sixth Avenue between 4th and 5th Streets (the block from Puppetworks to the Park Slope Ale House):

6th Avenue and 5th Street, northwest corner - unprotected

6th Avenue and 4th Street, southwest corner - unprotected

Despite a complete lack of any evidence, we speculated earlier that this row was by Bonert, based on its similarities to buildings across the street for which we have a documented connection. And we are gratified that the AABN has now confirmed the connection. According to the AABN, Louis Bonert constructed this row in 1891 to the plans of prolific Brooklyn architect W. M. Coots:

"Building Intelligence; Apartment-Houses; Brooklyn, N. Y.," AABN vol. 34, no. 823 (Oct. 3, 1891): p. xvi.

– "Sixth Ave., n w cor. Fifth St., 5 four-st’y brick apartment-houses, tin roofs; cost, $35,000; owner and builder, L. Bonnert [sic - Bonert], 528 Tenth St.; architect, W. M. Coots, 26 Court St."

"Building Intelligence; Stores; Brooklyn, N. Y.," AABN vol. 34, no. 826 (Oct. 24, 1891): p. xviii.

– "Sixth Ave., s w cor. Fourth St., 5 four-st’y stores and apartment-houses, tin roofs; cost, $35,000; owner and builder, L. Bonnert, 528 Tenth St.; architect, W. M. Coots, 26 Court St."

We speculated elsewhere that the northeast corner of 6th Avenue and First street might also have been from Bonert, based on similarities to some of his other work:

6th Avenue and 1st Street, northeast corner - unprotected

However, the AABN confirms that these buildings were built in 1895 by M. S. Buckley to designs by architect Robert Dixon:

"Building Intelligence; Houses; Brooklyn, N. Y.," AABN vol. 49, no. 1019 (Jul. 6, 1895): p. 7.
– "Sixth Ave., e s, 22' 8" n 1^st St., 4 four-st’y brick dwells., 19' 4" x 62'; tin roofs; $19,000; own. and bld., M. S. Buckley, 287 Tenth St.; arch., Robt. Dixon, 219 Montague St."

– "Sixth Ave., , n e cor. 1^st St., four-st’y brick dwell., 22' 8" x 90'; tin roof; $8,000; own. and bld., M. S. Buckley, 287 Tenth St.; arch., Robt. Dixon, 219 Montague St."

In truth we harbored doubts about our earlier tentative attribution to Bonert. The buildings lack the distinctive "Green Man" panels beneath the windows, and also feature only single columns flanking the doorways, rather than Bonert's distinctive column clusters. Now the AABN confirms that they are in fact not by Bonert at all, although they do seem somewhat derivative of his buildings.

Watch for the upcoming publication of our "Documentary History" of Park Slope.

In Memoriam: Louis Bonert

We conclude our review of the work of prolific Park Slope builder Louis Bonert with a glimpse into his personal life.

Bonert maintained a country residence in Sayville, Long Island. In 1908 his 25-year-old daughter Lucille was driving a car that was struck by a Long Island Rail Road train at an unguarded Sayville crossing, and was permanently injured. Lucille sued the LIRR and was awarded $10,000 in damages in 1910:

New York Times, April 13, 1910, p. 4 ("$10,000 For Her Injuries")

Louis Bonert, toward the end of his life, and having done so much to create the built environment of Park Slope, actually moved into one of his own buildings, a fine townhouse at 625 Second Street in the park block:

625-627 2nd Street, Park Slope Historic District

Bonert built this house, designed by architects Eisenla and Carlson, in 1908, as part of a longer row. This house was Bonert's residence at the time of his death, at 74, on May 15, 1916:

New York Times, May 17, 1916, p. 11 ("Died")

Bonert's funeral observances occurred at what was then the Emanuel Lutheran Church, in 7th Street just above 6th Avenue. The building still stands today:

Park Congregational Church

- unprotected

The building, whose history we hope to recount in a later post, dates to 1870 and is now hemmed in closely by buildings on both sides.

It was Louis Bonert, careful readers will recall, who sold the land on which another Lutheran church, St. Matthews English, now stands at 6th Avenue and 2nd Street in Park Slope:

St. Matthews English Lutheran Church - unprotected

Louis Bonert died intestate, a situation that unfortunately precipitated a legal battle between his widow, Louisa, and his daughter Lucille, who was appointed "administratrix" of the estate. Although Bonert was deemed a wealthy man in life, apparently his estate was reduced to virtually nothing by the claims of creditors, taxes, and administrative fees, prompting Bonert's widow Louisa to mount a lawsuit against her own daughter Lucille:

The New York Supplement

, 1921

But let us draw the curtain on this unfortunate family squabble. We prefer to remember Bonert as the man who build so many fine buildings in Park Slope.

We recall our Greek philosophy professor, quoting Alfred North Whitehead, saying that all Western philosophy is a series of footnotes to Plato. In the same way, It can almost be said that the development of Park Slope, at least along 6th Avenue and side streets in the central Slope, is a series of "footnotes to Louis Bonert".

Early Louis Bonert: 5th Street, 1891

Somehow this early "flat house" by Louis Bonert in 5th Street just below 6th Avenue escaped our notice. The new building notice appeared in an 1891 Brooklyn Eagle:

Brooklyn Eagle, October 10, 1891, p. 1 ("New Buildings and Real Estate")

393 5th Street - unprotected

The building, at three stories, is uncharacteristically small for Bonert. But it does exhibit the top-floor rounded windows, and terra cotta spandrel panels, with which we have become so familiar from his later "Green Man" style, Romanesque-inflected apartment buildings:

393 5th Street - detail

The building is located just around the corner from two complete blockfronts that we have linked to Bonert. We have not yet uncovered evidence to document Bonert's hand in the west side of 6th Avenue between 4th and 5th Streets, but we have linked Bonert to the east side of that block of 6th Avenue. In any case, the doorway of the 5th Street building is identical to doorways from the 6th Avenue rows.

393 5th Street - detail

348 6th Avenue - detail

355 6th Avenue - detail