Lost Park Slope: Gen. Christensen House

Like us, blogger IMBY has also been poking around in Columbia University's online Real Estate Record and Builders' Guide.

IMBY recently discovered an interesting RERBG article about Park Slope's 8th Avenue from 1912. The article features several photographs, including a view looking north from President Street before the tall apartment buildings were constructed on the west side of that block:

8th Avenue, view north from President Street, 1912
Real Estate Record and Builders' Guide, May 18, 1912, p. 1

The buildings on the east side of 8th Avenue (right side in the photo above) are unchanged to the present day. But the buildings on the west side have been replaced by tall apartment buildings.

The RERBG article indicates that the house at the northwest corner of 8th Avenue and President Street, visible to the left in the photograph above, was originally the residence of Civil War General C. T. Christensen.

An idea of General Christensen's prominence can be gleaned from a New York Times article of 1903, noting both his 5oth wedding anniversary and the marriage of Violet, one of his daughters. The article notes that General Christensen "was for many years identified prominently with the military, social, and business life of Brooklyn. He was a long time President of the Brooklyn Trust Company, and prior to that he was connected with the banking house of Drexel, Morgan, & Co.":

New York Times, March 20, 1903, p. 9

It seems that Gen. and Mrs. Christensen were blessed with many daughters. An 1889 article from the Brooklyn Eagle recounts the presentation of the Misses Laura and Hope Christensen "as candidates for the favors of society" at their home on the corner of 8th Avenue and President Street:

Brooklyn Eagle, January 31, 1889, p. 5 ("Two Fair Debutantes")

Below is a view of the corner today. The Park Slope Historic District's Designation Report states that the apartment house on the northwest corner of President Street and 8th Avenue was constructed in 1928, so General Christensen's house must have been pulled down not long before then:

8th Avenue and President Street, west side
Park Slope Historic District

Many of the tall apartment houses in 8th Avenue are similar "second growth" buildings, erected on soft development sites originally occupied by large mansions with spacious gardens.

Pohlman & Patrick in President Street

The American Architect and Building News yields the architects' names for Louis Bonert's 1902 row of four 3-story, 6-family apartment houses on the south side of President Street between 6th and 7th Avenues:

"Building Intelligence; Houses; Brooklyn, N. Y.," AABN vol. 76, no. 1394 (Sept. 13, 1902): p. xii.

– "President St., near 7^th Ave., 4 three-st’y brick dwells., 31' 9" x 83' 6"; $44,000; own., Louis Bonnert [sic - Bonert], 319 Sixth Ave., arch., Pohlman & Patrick, 322 Fifty-third St."

782-788 President Street
Louis Bonert, builder
Pohlman & Patrick, architects - 1902

We visited this row two years ago during our lengthy review of the great many Park Slope buildings constructed by prolific builder and local resident Louis Bonert.

At that time, however, we had not yet identified the architects of the row. It can now be credited to the firm of Pohlman and Patrick.

782 President Street
Louis Bonert, builder
Pohlman & Patrick, architects - 1902

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."

Calder & Calder in 8th Street

On the south side of 8th Street, just above 7th Avenue, stands a row of seven single-family residences. The row dates to 1889 and is the work of Alexander G. Calder, owner/builder, and his son William M. Calder, architect, a prolific pair of Park Slope builders whose 7th Avenue work we recently examined:

428-420 8th Street - unprotected
A. G. Calder & W. M. Calder, 1889

432-430 8th Street

On two of the houses (422 & 424), the original upper half-story was long ago raised in the front to provide a full third floor, at the expense of losing the beautiful original cornices that still grace the adjoining houses.

Our attribution is confirmed by both the Brooklyn Eagle and the American Architect & Building News:

Brooklyn Eagle, April 21, 1889, p.13 ("The Work of Building")

"Building Intelligence; Houses; Brooklyn, N. Y.," AABN vol. 25, no. 699 (May 18, 1889): p. xvi.

– "Eighth St., s s, 90' e Seventh Ave., 7 two-st’y brownstone dwells., tin roofs; cost, each, $5,000; owner and builder, A. G. Calder, 312 Thirteenth St.; architect, W. M. Calder."

#420 8th Street, the end house in the row and the only one that appears to have been originally a full three stories over basement, was the residence of the developer, Alexander G. Calder, for much of his life. His 1927 New York Times obituary cites 420 8th Street as his residence at the time of his death at age 85, and notes that he developed hundreds of buildings in Park Slope and South Brooklyn. A. G. Calder was also the first president of the South Brooklyn Board of Trade, which later became the Park Slope Civic Council, sponsor of the current effort to expand the Park Slope Historic District:

New York Times, March 6, 1927, p. 20

Another curiosity regarding the 8th Street houses is that they are virtually identical to two other rows by other developers, in Garfield Place and in President Street. Compare the detailing in the examples below:

430 8th Street - unprotected
Alexander G. Calder, builder/owner; William M. Calder, architect - 1889

221 Garfield Place - Park Slope Historic District
Martin & Lee, builder/owners; Charles Werner, architect - 1890

807 President Street - unprotected
Builders/owners/architects, Martin & Lee - 1888

Such are the irrational vagaries of the 1973 Park Slope Historic District boundaries! Identical houses, some protected, some not.

2010 House Tour: 946 President Street

This house will be featured on the 2010 Park Slope House Tour, which will be held Sunday, May 16. Tickets will be available at 7th Avenue merchants, and through the Park Slope Civic Council's website. All proceeds from the House Tour are returned to the community through the Council's Grants Program.

946 President Street - Park Slope Historic District

Part of a 4-house row built in Queen Anne style, 946 President Street was constructed in 1886; the date is visible in the gable. The tall, quoined chimney serves unusual corner fireplaces in the line of rooms below it. According to the Park Slope Historic District's Designation Report, this house once shared a central courtyard with its paired neighbor at #944 through which both houses were entered. The architect might have been Charles T. Mott, who in 1890 modified some of the companion houses in this row.

946 President Street - detail

In 1902, both 944 and 946 President Street were auctioned by the estate of Newbury H. Frost, who served on the Board of Directors of the Long Island Elevated Rail Road. Frost was also a "man of the turf;" the Brooklyn Eagle noted that he was "...one of the most enthusiastic of local horsemen... As he cannot be ranked among the lightweights he rides a seal brown mare of great strength and endurance."

Brooklyn Eagle, March 9, 1902, p. 30

Both houses were bought at auction by Gilbert Elliott, a Brooklyn real estate operator and lawyer; the 1902 price for 946 President Street was $9,500.

For much of the 20th century, 946 President Street was the home and music school of Carl H. Tollefsen, a violinist, music teacher, and collector of musical items. He became a violinist with the Metropolitan Opera orchestra and with the New York Symphony Society under Walter Damrosch, conductor, but gained his widest fame and critical plaudits with the Tollefsen Trio, founded with his first wife in 1908. In his house he had a collection that included more than 1,500 musical manuscripts and excerpts from manuscripts by Beethoven, Bach, Schumann, Paderewski, Tchaikovsky, Mozart and other composers. Mr. Tollefsen owned 30 rare stringed instruments, including a lute that belonged to Catherine the Great and a harpsichord once owned by Marie Antoinette.

Brooklyn Eagle Almanac for 1919

Carl Tollefsen died at 946 President Street in 1963, and his second wife died in 1965. But the historic district's Designation Report still identified the house as the Tollefsen School of Music in its 1973 description.

Carl Tollefsen (holding violin) in 1940
Photo: University of New Hampshire Library

Adjacent and Identical, but Some Historic, Some Not?

The present Park Slope Historic District, designated July 17, 1973, extends west of 7th Avenue only to the north of Union Street. South of Union, the district stops about 100' to the east of 7th Avenue, leaving nearly all of 7th Avenue unprotected by historic district designation.

In several blocks east of 7th Avenue, the arbitrary boundary of the current historic district bisects long rows of identical buildings, leaving some inside and some outside the historic district.

Consider the south side of Union Street and the north side of President Street, east of 7th Avenue.

In Union Street, a long row of 14 identical houses built in 1884-85 by William Flanagan extends east from 7th Avenue. The first five, #810-818, are outside the current historic district, while the next nine, #820-836, are inside the historic district. According to the Park Slope Historic District's Designation Report, Flanagan purchased a large parcel of property extending through the block from Union to President in early 1884 from the Methodist Episcopal Hospital. The land had earlier belonged to the Polhemus family.

810-818 Union Street, SE corner 7th Avenue - unprotected

Park Slope Historic District Desgination Report

Brooklyn Daily Eagle, October 1, 1885, p. 2 ("New Buildings")

"Building Intelligence; Brooklyn," AABN vol. 17, no. 486 (Apr. 18, 1885): p. 191.

– "Union St., s e cor. Seventh Ave., and President St., n e cor. Seventh Ave., 8 three-st’y brown-stone dwells., metal roofs; cost, each, $10,000; owner, architect and builder, Wm. Flanagan, 46 Berkeley Pl."

American Architect and Building News

In President Street, Flanagan built a similar row of 9 houses altogether. The first five, #823-831 President Street, are outside the current historic district, while the next four, #833-839 President Street, are inside the district.

823-827 President Street - unprotected

Park Slope Historic District Designation Report

Brooklyn Daily Eagle, October 1, 1885, p. 2 ("New Buildings")

The houses nearest to 7th Avenue were likely fitted very early on with commercial spaces at the basement and parlor levels. #810 Union Street has a particularly fine stained-glass bay window overlooking 7th Avenue at the parlor level:

810 Union Street - detail

Why does the current historic district cut rows of identical buildings in this way? We have no idea. But we note that in both streets, five 20' buildings were left out. 5 * 20' = 100', which is the depth of a standard Brooklyn building lot. It is almost as if the historic district boundary anticipates that buildings within 100' of 7th Avenue, lacking historic district protection, will someday be demolished, perhaps to make way for the kind of buildings recently being constructed along nearby 4th Avenue. Could this be the ultimate future of 7th Avenue?:

Argyle (brownstoner)

It seems to us that the 10 excluded buildings (5 each in Union and President) are just as historic and worthy of protection as their identical neighbors in long rows constructed at the same time by the same builder, and that they equally contribute to Park Slope's unique and historic "sense of place".

Louis Bonert: Six-family apartment houses, President Street, 1902

In 1902 Park Slope builder Louis Bonert was granted a permit for a row of four apartment houses on the south side of President Street between 6th & 7th Avenues. The apartments are immediately adjacent to a row of five 8-family apartments he constructed three years earlier, in 1899:

Brooklyn Daily Eagle, August 28, 1902, p. 16 ("Real Estate Market")

788-784 President Street - unprotected

The row represents an innovation in small apartment house design.

In his earlier, adjacent 8-family apartments, the staircase was set deep within the building, and had no external illumination or air. Each of the small windows in the center of each story illuminated the same room as the adjacent bay window:

790 President Street - unprotected

In these newest apartments, by contrast, the staircase was pushed to the front of the building and had its own external windows, illuminating the stair landing halfway between each floor:

782 President Street - unprotected

This innovation was made possible by the nearly 35-foot lot width of the new buildings, in contrast to the 30-foot width of the older buildings.

The new row features many characteristics associated with the Neoclassical style including dentils, egg-and-dart detailing, and "Greek Ears" on the central windows:

782 President Street - detail

The apartments also feature Bonert's by-now-standard "florid classical" doorway:

782 President Street - detail

These apartments are uncharacteristically small in scale, housing only six families in each. Also rather uncharacteristically, the facades are flat and feature no projecting rounded bay. The top-floor windows, however, are arched, in an echo of a feature Bonert has not employed since 1895.

Bonert would soon explore this "wide lot" apartment configuration to even more striking effect nearby.

Louis Bonert: "Quiet Dignity" in President Street, 1900

Normally we ignore buildings within the current Park Slope Historic District, both because they are already protected by the Landmarks Preservation Commission, and also because anybody who wants to read about them can do so by consulting the current district's Designation Report.

We make an exception today to visit some apartment houses built by Louis Bonert in President Street between 8th Avenue and Prospect Park West:

945-953 President Street - Park Slope Historic District

Below is the description for these buildings, copied in its entirety from the Park Slope Historic District Designation Report:

"Nos. 945-953. Begun in 1900, these five apartment houses of limestone have paired entrances and stoops except at No. 945. They are four stories high and have full-height, bow-fronted bays. Designed with a simplified neo-Classical detail, they lend a quiet dignity in this block of one-family residences." (pp.87-88)

"Quiet dignity" is a great way to describe Bonert's small apartment houses. But what's exceptional about this entry is that Louis Bonert's name appears nowhere within it. Somehow the fact that he built these apartment houses escaped the notice of the Park Slope Historic District's original researchers.

Bonert sold the President Street houses to "a Manhattan capitalist" in one of the largest Brooklyn real estate deals of 1901. A Brooklyn Eagle article describes the deal, noting that the buildings are "among the finest" of their class and that the apartments are "handsomely decorated" and "constructed of the best materials throughout":

Brooklyn Daily Eagle, November 26, 1901, p. 20 ("$207,000 Realty Deal")

The deal was notable not only for its size, but also for the fact that Brooklyn real estate was beginning to attract the interest of Manhattan-based capitalists. It was a kind of "break-through" deal for Louis Bonert, who would later put together even larger real estate deals, as we shall soon see.

The Eagle followed up a few days later with another article whose headline ("Manhattan Capital in Brooklyn Apartment Houses") stretched across seven columns, the entire page:

Brooklyn Daily Eagle, November 30, 1901, p. 17 ("Manhattan Capital in Brooklyn Apartment Houses")

The article reviewed the deal for Bonert's President Street apartments and featured them in an illustration:

Brooklyn Daily Eagle, November 30, 1901, p. 17 ("Manhattan Capital in Brooklyn Apartment Houses")

Brooklyn Daily Eagle, November 30, 1901, p. 17 ("Manhattan Capital in Brooklyn Apartment Houses")

Even without the Eagle documentation, the apartments are immediately reminiscent of Bonert's nearly identical apartment houses in 6th Avenue:

951-953 President Street - Park Slope Historic District

615-617 6th Avenue - unprotected

The classical detailing around the doorways is identical:

953 President Street - detail

615-617 6th Avenue - detail

All of which begs the question: if the President Street apartments, with their "quiet dignity", are worthy of inclusion in a Historic District, are not the identical 6th Avenue buildings, by the same builder, equally worthy? Why are the President Street buildings included, but the 6th Avenue buildings excluded? And what about all the other Louis Bonert buildings we have been so laboriously documenting on this blog? They seem to exude as much "quiet dignity" as these President Street buildings.

Alone amongst all of Bonert's apartment houses, the President Street buildings are in the current historic district. Like much else about the current district's boundaries, it makes no sense to us.

At any rate, at least we now know who is the builder of the President Street apartments. If you are the kind of person who has a hardcopy of the Park Slope Historic District Designation Report lying about (and, if you are reading this, we suspect you are), then fetch it down off the shelf, turn to page 87, and write "Louis Bonert: Brooklyn Eagle, November 26, 1901" in the margin, and your copy will be ever so slightly more complete.

Louis Bonert: First 8-Family Apartments, President Street, 1899

Our unfolding story of Louis Bonert, Park Slope builder, next shifts a few blocks away from Park Slope's Bonert epicenter to President Street, between 6th and 7th Avenues. We here find the first 8-family apartment houses positively associated with Louis Bonert; up until now, from what we have been able to discover, he has built 4-family apartments exclusively. 8-family apartments are of course more efficient in that the overhead of the stairwell, hallway, and landings are shared by eight apartments, rather than just four.

Brooklyn Daily Eagle, April 11, 1899, p. 14 ("New Buildings")

798-796-794 President Street - unprotected

Note the Brooklyn Eagle's description of these articles as "tenements". These buildings are 30' wide, or 15' per apartment. Bonert's early "Green Man" apartments, by contrast, were usually 19-20' wide, and his newer limestone-faced apartments in 6th Avenue were a spacious 23.5' wide. And those earlier buildings held only a single apartment per floor. Thus the 15'-wide apartments necessitated by an 8-family configuration on a 30' lot might seem rather narrow by comparison.

The Brooklyn Eagle once again mangles Bonert's name, citing him as "Bonnert" or "Donnert". Any suspicion that these apartments might have been built by someone else is resolved by an article about a year later, which recounts how Louis Bonert trades two of the finished buildings to a "syndicate of capitalists" for a block-front of lots in Bedford Avenue, on the other side of Prospect Park:

Brooklyn Daily Eagle, June 16, 1900, p. 22 ("A Big Real Estate Deal")

We now recognize the President Street buildings as classic Park Slope 8-family apartment houses. Certain stylistic details echo some of Bonert's earlier buildings: three stories of brick, trimmed with stone, over a limestone-faced first story, over a brownstone basement, with full-height, rounded window bays:

792 President Street - unprotected

The buildings exhibit graceful notes perhaps not often associated with "tenements", including small stained-glass windows (not all of which survive). Note also the use of narrow, elongated "Roman" brick:

790 President Street - detail

Bonert's signature florid capitals and pediment embellish the doorway and windows:

792 President Street - detail

Look closely to see winged figures peering out from some of the buildings.

792 President Street - detail

Is Bonert revealed here as an angelologist?

Below, from Google's "street view", the buildings in Bedford Avenue, across Prospect Park, most likely another Bonert row of 8-family flats.

Bedford Avenue, Lincoln Place to St. Johns Place