I don’t get out to Cypress Hills often and I have a hard time getting a handle on it when I do. The neighborhood sits between East New York, one of the last nongentrified frontiers, and the undefended land border between Brooklyn and Queens. In the spring of 2025 I did a rare shoot there, walking west along Arlington and east along Ridgewood. I was displeased having heard that the colonial-era Wilhelmus Stoothoff House at Jamaica Avenue and Linwood Street had been demolished in 2022, having never been landmarked. One of those batches I have yet to flesh out fully; I am lucky to now have a backlog of thousands of photos that have yet to make it to the website.
There are a pair of oddities in Cypress Hills that I’ll rush to the head of the line. Just like its fellows, the original brick or wood facing of #81 Essex, south of Ridgewood Avenue is hidden behind aluminum siding. But it has a mighty portico, fronted by four stout Corinthian columns.
Several blocks east, #111 Pine is almost a carbon copy, with the portico and four columns. My guess is the same architect handled both. Tax photos from 1940 show the columns in place on each building. Research at the East New York Project claims the two were built around 1900, when the rest of the area gained its residential buildings. That empty lot used as a driveway to 111 Pine’s south was in place in 1940, as well.
Two oddities in a sea of run of the mill…
Check out the ForgottenBook (HarperCollins, 2006), as well as Forgotten Queens (Arcadia, 2013). I also have a chapter in the anthology “New York Calling: From Blackout to Bloomberg” (Reaktion, 2007). As always, “comment…as you see fit.” I earn a small payment when you click on any ad on the site.
9/24/26