STUYVESANT AVENUE, BEDFORD-STUYVESANT

FORGOTTEN New York, believe it or not, does get some complaints. A recent one (maybe the Comments section, Twitter, or Facebook) is that the book did not discuss enough Bedford-Stuyvesant, the vast neighborhood in central Brooklyn. Remember, I had enough material for 700 pages which my beleaguered Harper Collins editor, Matthew Benjamin, blue pencilled down to about 375. That said I have always found Bedford-Stuyvesant a repository for beautiful architecture and a time machine of what NYC looked like from 1880-1920 as most of its buildings date to those years. I have wandered around there for many years but have not found many truly “Forgotten” artifacts (For a thorough discussion of Bedford-Stuyvesant’s architecture, the work of Suzanne Spellen, found mainly in Brownstoner, is a good place to start, as well as Francis Morrone, in his many publications. Me, as a humble webmaster, I see something I like, I point the camera at it and record it.

I am unsure why the neighborhood, a trapezoid bordered by Flushing, Atlantic and Classon Avenues and Brooklyn’s Broadway, is named for those two streets at all and it seems they chose them at random. The neighborhood may as well be called Nostrand-Lewis or Franklin-Ralph. Maybe someone can chime in in Comments.

Today’s page, a look at Stuyvesant Avenue, is part of a much lengthier walk I did in mid-2019 from Carroll Gardens all the way to Bedford-Stuyvesant. More images from this walk will leach out in the coming weeks, as well as photos taken from my walk on Thanksgiving 2017, one of my longest, from Sunset Park to Maspeth which found me crossing straight through “Bed-Stuy.” Alone, as Billy Joel advises against. I haven’t been able to march around much in recent months, but thankfully I have a big backlog of images to get to.

There are a pair of substantial green patches on Fulton Street between Lewis and Stuyvesant Avenues. Charles C. Pinn Triangle was originally the west end of Fulton Park, but was cut off from it in the 1970s when the Department of Transportation redirected Lewis Avenue to flow traffic with the northbound Troy Avenue south of Fulton Street. (Similar traffic engineering was done with Utica Avenue and Malcolm X Boulevard). The triangle was originally plan concrete, but received lush plantings in 2010 and was named for the late Charles “Chris” Pinn (1966-1995), a neighborhood activist and staffer of NY State Assemblyman Al Vann.

Fulton Park was founded in 1904, with its distinctive columned comfort station, designed by the well-known firm of Helmle and Huberty opening six years later. In 1930, a statue of the park and Fulton Street’s namesake, steamboat pioneer Robert Fulton, sculpted by Bohemian artist Caspar Buberl in 1872 and originally located at Fulton Ferry at the west end of Old Fulton Street was placed in Fulton Park. Unfortunately, the statue was damaged by weathering over the years and was replaced by a copy in 1955.

While not the inventor of the steamboat, Robert Fulton (1765-1815) was very instrumental in constructing a steamboat named the “Clermont” and parlaying it into a commercial success with the first permanent commercial route in history on the Hudson River.

Fulton was originally a landscape painter (as was the inventor of the telegraph, Samuel Morse, a historical portrait painter). In partnership with Robert Livingston, he designed and constructed a steamboat, his ultimate venture, named “The North River Steamboat and later called the “Clermont.” The craft left New York City, proceeding up the Hudson River to Albany in only 32 hours.

At age 49, at the height of his fame and while working on various projects, a serious cold developed into pneumonia, bringing about his death at his residence located in what is now Battery Place in lower Manhattan. His body lay in state there until a procession was formed conveying him to historic Trinity Church, the site of his funeral. Thousands lined the route as minute-guns were fired from a steam-frigate anchored off shore in the Hudson River and the New York Battery. His service was attended by representatives from both the National and State governments as well as high officials of the City of New York. Interment followed with placement beside his wife (nee Harriet Livingston) in her family vault at Trinity Churchyard Cemetery.

As I have said Bedford-Stuyvesant’s dwellings are well preserved and the south end of Stuyvesant Avenue near Fulton Street has had Landmarks Preservation commission protection since 1971. The Romanesque Revival #401-409 Stuyvesant at Chauncey Street were constructed in 1892 by developer R. Sweet.

I won’t belabor you with architect-speak from the Landmarks Preservation reports (they’re written for architects and architectural students, not laymen and people wandering around with cameras) but I’ll link the reports here. Note that in 1971, for the original Stuyvesant Heights landmarked district, there was a 52-page typewritten report prepared, by by the time we get to the expanded Stuyvesant Heights district in 2013, reports are professionally typeset and this one’s a whopping 644 pages!

The older Stuyvesant Heights report in particular gives a detailed history of the are, not just its architecture.

408-410 Stuyvesant between Chauncey and Bainbridge, built in 1910 by Charles Tritschler to designs by William Debus, feature massive pediments with human faces and leonine figures above the Corinthian pilasters (side columns).

#387 Stuyvesant on the NE corner of Bainbridge

is a three-story b brick residence erected by Brooklyn developer George P. .Chappell for Thomas Prosser, Jr., of the firm of Thomas Prosser & Son, American agents of the Krupp Steel Works of Germany. The Prosser family owned a great dewl of property in the area. Built in 1888 (one of the greatest years for American architecture) it features both Romanesque and Queen Anne stylings.

Detouring to #347 Macdonough Street, I wanted to see the Akwaaba Mansion, an Italianate mansion constructed in the 1860s for a beer baron, according to Suzanne Spellen. (I have always wanted to have an enclosed front porch with plenty of windows; I did rent an apartment with an enclosed porch with wide windows in Dyker Heights briefly in 1990-1991). Since 1995 this has been the Akwaaba Mansion, a bed and breakfast owned by Glenn Pogue and Monique Greenwood-Pogue, who purchased it from the Lilly family, who had owned it since the 1940s. Have a look at the Akwaaba Mansion website for some beautiful interiors. Akwaaba means “welcome” in Twi, a Ghanaian language.

Across the street at #336 Macdonough is another freestanding building, unusual in Bedford-Stuyvesant. It was built in the slant-roofed French Second Empire style in 1872 as two attached homes divided in the center.

The midblock St. Philip Episcopal Church, #334 Macdonough, was built in 1898-99 for the congregation of the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd by the firm Dehli and Howard. The church was purchased by the St. Philip Episcopal congregation in 1944.

From the LPC report:

St. Philip’s has, from the beginning, been deeply involved in the development of the Black community. The first charter for a Black chapter of the Brotherhood of St. Andrew’s was issued to St. Philip’s in 1903 and the first Black company of the United Boys’ Brigade of America, a forerunner of the Boy Scouts, was chartered here in 1907. Dr. J.M. Coleman, rector of the church from 1931-61, was the first Black member of New York City’s Board of Higher Education. The Stuyvesant Community Center of Brooklyn opened in St. Philip’s Parish House on November 16, 1945 and moved to larger quarters on December 31, 1950. This was the first community center in Bedford-Stuyvesant run for and by Blacks.

A senior citizens group met for several years at the Parish House until 1965 when public agencies opened centers in the area.

Street art, Halsey Street at Stuyvesant Avenue

#521 Halsey/#307 Stuyvesant was constructed in 1889; many buildings in this period feature windows facing the corner allowing a catercorner view of the street. That attic corner window looks boarded up but I would like to see inside.

This parking lot on the SW corner of Lexington and Stuyvesant Avenues was the site of “Sal’s Pizzeria,” built as a set here for the famed 1989 movie “Do The Right Thing,” filmed as an exploration of race tensions in the hot summer of 1989 by Spike Lee. The wall painting of boxer “Iron Mike” Tyson shown in the film was nearby, but is also long gone. The pizza ovens worked and pizzas were made there for cast and crew.

This block of Stuyvesant Avenue has been subnamed “Do The Right Thing Way.” A wall painting depicting characters from the movie, including Radio Raheem and Mother Sister and Da Mayor, played by Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis, are on a wall at the SE corner; the film’s Korean deli was built as a set there.

Most residents are unaware of it now, but an elevated train clattered above Lexington Avenue from the 1880s through 1950.

I wish I knew more about this brick factory building at the NW corner of Van Buren Street and Stuyvesant Avenue; my usual source, the Belcher Hyde 1929 Brooklyn desk atlas, says only “Jos. M. Reiss,” who was likely the owner. As the curtains indicate, it is residential these days.

A trio of large schools can be found on the plot south of Lafayette Avenue facing Stuyvesant Avenue, including this one, Whitelaw Reid Junior High School; there are also the K688 The Brooklyn Academy of Global Finance (BAGF) and PS 26, The Jesse Owens School. Owens (1913-1980) was a famed track and field superstar who won four golds at the Berlin Olympics in 1936, much to the annoyance of Adolf Hitler. Among layer accomplishments, Owens served as a NY Mets running coach in 1965.

Whitelaw Reid (1837-1912), meanwhile, succeeded Horace Greeley as publisher of the New York Tribune. Additionally, he was the Republican Party’s candidate for Vice President in 1872. Reid’s grandson, also Whitelaw Reid (1913-2009), served as president and editor of The New York Herald Tribune. He won a tennis doubles title for his age bracket at age 90.

Another freestanding mansion, #28 Stuyvesant Avenue at Willoughby, was built as a Renaissance Revival-Colonial Revival in 1904. It was one of the first houses in Brooklyn built with an auto garage. It is now home to 4 separate apartments.

The former Prudential Savings Bank at #5 Stuyvesant Avenue and Vernon Avenue at the border of Bushwick, is a worthy sentinel at the uneasy line separating the two deep-Brooklyn neighborhoods. It’s a Classically-themed building with an entrance pediment, Corinthian columns and a dome originally lined on its interior by Guastavino tiling, constructed in 1908 by the German-American design firm Daus & Otto. Rudolph Daus and also designed the Church of Notre Dame on Morningside Drive, which tends to get lost on the massive shadow of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.

The bank itself did not survive the ravages of the late 1970s, and it was purchased in 1994 and converted, after most of the interiors were removed, into the Urban Sports & Cultural Center, teaching martial arts.

Suzanne Spellen has more at Brownstoner.

There’s the J, or is it the M, as I approach the Myrtle Avenue elevated station at Broadway.

Before I wrap it up here’s a pair of post-top lamps under the el on Broadway laden with signage.

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7/9/23