The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) today
designated the East 25th Street Historic District in East Flatbush, Brooklyn.
The East 25th Street Historic District is a group of 56
Renaissance Revival style row houses that extends along both sides of East 25th
Street between Clarendon Road and Avenue D.
The block is the first historic district in East Flatbush
“Through this designation, the Commission is recognizing both the architectural quality and the residents’ incredible stewardship of their historic homes and their block,” said Landmarks Preservation Commission Chair Sarah Carroll.
“I have been so impressed by how the historic architecture
drew people to this block and how their community spirit has grown stronger
through their collective efforts to green, beautify and preserve it. This
designation exemplifies the intersection of historic preservation and
community, which is very rewarding.”
According to the PLPC, the District owes its “exceptional
cohesiveness and strong sense of place” to three major factors: its
construction within a very short time frame by a single developer, its architectural consistency, and its
excellent historic integrity.
All of the houses were built by a single developer, the
Henry Meyer Building Company, between 1909 and 1912 and designed by the
Williamsburg firm of Glucroft & Glucroft in the Renaissance Revival style.
Each house is of one of four types, with either a limestone
or brownstone front and rounded or angled bay. All of their main facades remain
essentially intact. The high degree of integrity and long, unbroken rows of the
historic district are especially distinctive for this area of Flatbush, with its
typically more varied streetscapes.
During their early years, these houses were owned and
occupied by the families of white merchants and other upper-middle-class
professionals. Notable early residents of the district included suffragist
Nellie Marshall, and the influential executive director of the Port Authority
Austin Tobin.
In recent years, the
houses’ ownership has come to reflect Flatbush’s increasing diversity,
especially the growth of its African American and Afro-Caribbean communities
which grew significantly in the 1970s and 1980s.
Council Member Farah N. Louis said, “I am proud to join my neighbors and
constituents in celebrating the first-ever historic district in East Flatbush.
The predominantly Black and Caribbean homeowners can now rest assured that
their properties are beyond the reach of developers.”
Elsewhere in Flatbush, developers are moving int to build affordable
housing and educational space.
Mayor Bill de Blasio along with Councilmember Mathieu Eugene, recently announced plans to develop 130 affordable homes at 2274-2286 Church Avenue in Flatbush, which was once the historic Flatbush District No. 1 School and a slave grave site before that.
The school was demolished in 2015 because of hazardous
structural conditions. The city is launching a ‘request for proposals’ (RFP) to
develop housing units and space dedicated to educational and vocational
training programs on the 29,000 s/f site.
The Department of
Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) will release the ‘request for
qualifications’ (RFQ) later this year, followed by a RFP later next year that
will include a plan to identify the descendent communities of the colonial
enslaved and freed Africans of early Flatbush and to establish a memorial for the historic site
and the significant role of African Americans in the creation of the
neighborhood.
