GREENPOINT HOME FOR THE AGED - Forgotten New York

I couldn’t resist posting this item in advance of some major posts on Greenpoint, to which I did extensive walks in the spring and late December of 2017. I have always been fascinated with the neighborhood, in which I have had friends for the last 35 years and even briefly rented an apartment in 1982, but never moved in. This building is at one of Brooklyn’s few L-shaped intersections, at Oak and Guernsey Streets, and features an impossibly spooky-loooking brick mansion set way back for the street are completely enveloped by foliage, so it can’t be seen very well from the street except in the cold months.

The Greenpoint Home for the Aged was designed by architect Theobald Engelhart; several buildings in Greenpoint are his works including 143 Kent, 122-124 Milton and the St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church which forms one of the “twin spires” seen on Milton along with the St. Anthony of Padua Roman Catholic Church. It went up in 1887. From the Landmarks Preservation Commission designation report:

Engelhart constructed the building at the behest of former NYS Governor Samuel Tilden, who owned a lot of Greenpoint property and decided to put some of his holdings to good use. At first, 137 Oak Street was a home for indigent women, then became a home for the aged; since 1967, it has been a boarding house or SRO.

I have also read that it has functioned over the years as an orphanage, a convent, a home for unwed mothers and a cathouse frequented by sailors. (This may sound odd, but I have encountered other Brooklyn buildings that have had similar histories. Houses of high repute often end up as houses of ill repute.) But it has most recently functioned at an SRO (Single Room Occupancy), home to thirteen aged male tenants.

There was an attempt to sell the place in 2008, but the residents were determined not to budge. That would explain the property’s neglected state; very likely the landlord has not made any recent repairs. According to one report, the residents appear to be dying one by one. Who knows how many are left now. [Lost City]