There’s this enclave in Queens where Jamaica meets Briarwood, on 145th and 146th Streets and 88th and 89th Avenue east to Sutphin Boulevard, where the avenues are paved with incredible red brick. Every few years I go back to see if the red brick streets are still there, and as of December 2013, I have not yet been disappointed…
Forgotten NY correspondent Sergey Kadinsky recently reminded me, though that the architecture on 146th Street is also fairly special and unique to this area… neo-Federal style attached buildings. Indefatigable NYC photographer Matthew X. Kiernan says that on old maps the area is labeled Everett Park.
This 1915 atlas plate (I labeled some of the streets with the modern numbers) shows an “Everett Park” on Colonial Avenue (now 146th Street). And, this 1916 article in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle notes the interntions of the developer F.W. Scutt & Co. to build new housing in the area:
The map was produced in 1915 and the listing was in 1916, so we can imagine the neo-Federal attached houses were built sometime between 1915 and 1920. That, of course, has given the homeowners plenty of time over the year to alter their properties in this non-landmarked enclave:
As you walk down 146th, though, you can tell that this was designed as a group of houses not found very often in Queens. It’s too late for landmarking (though I wish the red-bricked 88th and 89th Avenues could be). See Everett Park while you can…
Photos courtesy Sergey Kadinsky
3/5/14