Thomas Bennett for Louis Bonert in 3rd Street

Long ago we identified prolific Park Slope builder Louis Bonert as the developer of much of 3rd Street between 6th and 7th Avenues.

More recently we identified Pohlman and Patrick as the architects for 8 westermost of these apartment houses, 4 on each side of the street, toward 6th Avenue. Pohlman and Patrick's buildings were erected in 1903, and can be identified by the flat, foliate entablature surmounting the entrance:

458 3rd Street
Pohlman and Patrick, architects - 1903
Louis Bonert, builder

458 3rd Street - entrance detail

Bonert apparently felt he had found a winning formula with these spacious, 8-family, 38'-wide apartment houses, because he built seven more of them one year later, in 1904, just uphill from the first group. For reasons unknown, however, he chose to employ for the later group another prolific Brooklyn architect, Thomas Bennett, with whom he had collaborated on some other apartments in 3rd Street a few years earlier:

"Projected Buildings," RERBG v. 73, no. 1882 (April 9, 1904): p. 847.
-639- 3rd st, n s, 293 e 6th av, three 4-sty brk tenements, 38.3x68, 8 families, steam heat; total cost, $45,000; L Bonert, 6th av and 3rd st; ar't, T Bennett, 3rd av and 52d st.

The 1904 buildings are nearly identical to the earlier group, and are distinguished mainly by a peaked entablature surmounting the doorway. The 1904 group also has one less window illuminating the central staircase:

461 3rd Street
Thomas Bennett, architect - 1904
Louis Bonert, builder

461 3rd Street - entrance detail

The similarity between the buildings from two different architects is remarkable. Bonert certainly seems to have maintained no loyalty to a particular architect from one development to the next.

L Bonert & T Bennett in 3rd Street

Here's another new finding gleaned from the Real Estate Record and Builders' Guide. The RERBG issue of April 6, 1901 carries news of plans filed by prolific Park Slope builder Louis Bonert for four 4-story, 8-family "tenements" (i.e. multi-family housing), on the south side of 3rd Street between 5th & 6th Avenues. Bonert's architect here is Thomas Bennett, who designed a great many Park Slope apartment houses from around this same time:

"Projected Buildings," RERBG v. 67, no. 1725 (April 6, 1901): p. 634. -468- 3rd st, s s, 247.8 e 5th av, four 4-sty brk tenements, 32.2x90, 8 families; cost, $72,000; L Bonert, 6th av and 3rd st; ar't, T Bennett, 198 53rd st.

The first of the row, all of which still stand in virtually unchanged condition, is shown below:

392 3rd Street - erected 1901
Louis Bonert, builder
Thomas Bennett, architect

Louis Bonert is of course well-known to long-time readers of this blog; we suspect he built more housing in Park Slope than any other developer. We had a hunch these buildings were erected by Bonert, although we never had any concrete evidence before now. In part our suspicion was based on the unusual tripartite windows on the first floor; other examples from Bonert's buildings are found directly across the street.

392 3rd Street - window detail

392 3rd Street - cornice detail

Calder Flats in 11th Street

At nearly the same time in 1899 that William M. Calder filed plans for three mixed-use buildings in 7th Avenue, he also filed plans for five small apartment houses on the adjacent plots in 11th Street, south side, east of 7th Avenue:

Brooklyn Eagle, March 24, 1899, p. 14 ("Real Estate Market")

And in fact the apartment buildings are still there, unchanged since they were erected in 1899. Apologies for the rather poor quality of the photograph, but it is possible to make out the five 8-family "double flat" buildings, just beyond the building at the southeast corner of 11th Street and 7th Avenue, also by Calder and reviewed in our last post.

496-506 11th Street - erected 1899
William M. Calder, owner

The photograph below shows the easternmost two of the row of 5 matching flat houses:

506-504 11th Street - erected 1899
William M. Calder, owner

Calder apparently gained control of a large parcel of property on the south side of 11th Street, east of 7th Avenue, and developed it all at about the same time: apartment houses on the side street, and mixed-use (flats over stores) on the corner and facing 7th Avenue.

Further confirmation that these 11th Street buildings were constructed by Calder is found in the Brooklyn Eagle of January 31, 1903. The photograph is of some buildings in 12th Street designed by architect Thomas Bennett for William Calder in 1901. But the photograph's caption reads, in part:

About two years ago [William Calder] sold five fine flat houses on Eleventh street, near Seventh avenue, to William Dick, the sugar refiner, for $75,000 cash.

493-497 12th Street - William Calder, owner (Park Slope Historic District)
Thomas Bennett, architect - 1901
Brooklyn Eagle, January 31, 1903, p. 11 ("Comfortable Conditions Prevailing in Real Estate Market")

Builder James Jack in 10th Street

Just above 7th Avenue, on the south side of 10th Street, stands a row of 11 matching buildings (#552-572 10th Street). Each is three stories, with the low stoop characteristic of early multi-family housing:

560-558 10th Street - unprotected

The row was apparently constructed in 1887 by local Brooklyn builder James Jack:

Brooklyn Eagle, May 21, 1887, p. 2 ("Houses - Lots")

The flat, brick facades are enlivened with simple brownstone trim, and by an unusual row of terra-cotta tiles below the second and third stories:

558 10th Street - detail

The brickwork runs continuously from one building to the next, and the terra-cotta band drops by two courses of bricks from house to house:

568-566 10th Street - detail

James Jack also built many buildings within the nearby Park Slope Historic District, including nearly the entire south side of 12th Street between 8th Avenue and Prospect Park West:

474-482 12th Street, Park Slope Historic District
James Jack, owner; Thomas Bennett, architect; 1899-1900

484-514 12th Street, Park Slope Historic District
James Jack, owner; William Calder, builder/architect; 1898-99

Jack's distinctive buildings in 10th Street are similar to several other rows of multifamily dwellings elsewhere in Park Slope:

369-379 7th Street - unprotected