WHEN prominent apartment buildings in Bay Ridge are under discussion, Flagg Court (seen on this page), developed by premier architect Ernest Flagg (Singer Building) comes first to mind, but the neighborhood is chock full of beautiful residences. I spent a great deal of time in the Splendor Apartments, #7502 4th Avenue, in Bay Ridge for almost 30 years…though I never lived there. I’ll explain. The Moderne-style apartment building opened in 1931 at 4th Avenue and Bay Ridge Parkway (75th Street, as the natives call it), with the main entrance on 75th. Bennett & Koeppel supplied architectural flourishes.
Here’s the front entrance, virtually unchanged since 1931.
This newspaper ad, rendered in the magnificent Bodoni font, relates the building’s amenities. Rents, no doubt, were mostly under $100 a month in 1931, which in the Depression was still a good chunk of change.
Why was I in this building so often for all those years? The reason is simple. My dentist office was on the ground floor. I never went in through the front: the side entrance, facing 4th Avenue, led directly into the office. I patronized the same dental practice for over 55 years, from 1964 through the Covid era in 2020, first with Dr. Leon Tempkin, who in 1985 handed off to his associate, Dr. Mark DeBock. Dr. DeBock suffered from health issues and passed at a relatively young age at the end of the pandemic, and I then found a practice closer to my home in Little Neck. For many years, I commuted from Little Neck to Bay Ridge for dental work!
If anyone remembers either dentist…Comments are open.
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2/24/26
5 comments
I grew up on 93rd Street between 3rd and 4th Ave.My grandparents lived on Ridge Blvd.We had family and friends all over the neighborhood. We would drive by Flagg Court frequently. I loved looking out the car window into the courtyard. I would always ask my why we couldn’t live there
They would just laugh!!!
For the kiddies the dentist would sometimes send them home
with their pulled tooth in a little plastic treasure chest.My old dentist
used belt driven drills.I wish denfists still used them.The shrill whine
of these new air powered jobs is unnerving.
Lots of apartment buildings had medical suites on the first floor, with separate entrances. When we lived in Brooklyn, both our dentist and my pediatrician had such offices. The eye doctor was in an apartment building on Ocean Avenue, across from Prospect Park, but I recall we had to enter the building and take the elevator.
Curious about that “ballroom with kitchen service.” My building’s (601 Pelham Parkway North, 1937) sales brochure also lists a “recreation and ballroom,” and we can’t figure out where that possibly could have been.
Those stand-alone windows atop the corner towers are odd. Is there an “extra” bedroom behind them, connected somehow to the apartment below?