Except for a surge of activity in June, 2024 was largely a slow year for landmarking in Brooklyn, though it did see two major designations.
At the six-month mark, the borough gained one individual landmark and one historic district. The Willoughby-Hart Historic District designation followed years of community activism from Bed-Stuy locals that was reinvigorated by the demolition of the Jacob Dangler Mansion.
That same month, the commission designated Brooklyn Edison Building, which was key to the borough’s electrification and embodies the history of Downtown Brooklyn as a commercial center.
Currently, there are no other proposed landmarks for Brooklyn before the commission, according to the LPC.
Willoughby-Hart Historic District
After first contemplating a stretch of Willoughby Avenue and Hart Street in Bed-Stuy for protection in 1992, the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission officially voted in June to make it a historic district after a tumultuous hearing process.
The district includes more than 100 houses and covers most of the two blocks between Nostrand and Marcy avenues. The blocks consist of “historically and architecturally significant brownstone streetscapes that stand out within the broader neighborhood and exemplify its early residential development,” LPC researcher Sarah Eccles told the commissioners. She said the houses had maintained good integrity in the nearly 150 years most had been standing and created “a distinct sense of place within the Bedford Stuyvesant neighborhood.”
Explaining the history of the district, Eccles said the “remarkably intact group of brownstone row houses” were constructed by early landowners and developers between 1872 and 1891, largely in the most popular style of the time, Neo-Grec. The land was mostly owned by early landowner Henry Boerum, who started developing the area with his family in the 1870s. Eccles said many of the houses developed by Boerum are still intact. Other houses in the district were constructed by builders, owners, and local architects, including Thomas E. Greenland, Arthur Taylor, and Isaac D. Reynolds, Eccles said. By 1898, all the buildings in the proposed district were constructed.
While the most common style in the proposed district is Neo-Grec, the oldest houses in the district, built by the Boerums in 1872, are a small group of six Second Empire-style row houses on Willoughby Avenue. Eccles said they are “exemplified through their distinctive mansard roofs, which have largely remained intact.”
The Neo-Grec houses most common in the proposed area are exemplified through projecting angular bays, incised detail, high stoops, and heavy door hoods, Eccles said. She added some of the latest buildings on the blocks are on Hart Street, and were designed in a hybrid Queen Anne and Romanesque Revival style, the latter “exemplified through its distinctive rough-faced stone, rusticated basements, and arched entrances.” The Queen Anne elements include “checkerboard patterning, intricate carved detail, and imposing L-shaped stoops.”
Altogether, Eccles said, “the consistency and age and style creates a distinctively cohesive streetscape.” Alterations existing on some properties “do not detract from the strong historic architectural character, streetscape integrity, and sense of place consistent with similar historic districts,” she added. The district does not include the now-empty lot where the Danger Mansion once stood.
Also in June, the commission unanimously voted to designate the stately Renaissance Revival-style Brooklyn Edison Building in Downtown Brooklyn. The 14-story commercial building located at 345 Adams Street sits at the intersection of Adams, Pearl, and Willoughby streets in Downtown Brooklyn, very much in the commercial and civic center of the borough.
It was commissioned by the Brooklyn Edison Company, which played an important role in pushing technology and electricity forward in the the borough, and designed by architects McKenzie, Voorhees and Gmelin, according to LPC research department staff.
Built in two phases, the original structure fronting Willoughby Street rose in 1922, and a 1926 addition extended north along Adams Street. The building was designed by architects McKenzie, Voorhees and Gmelin. In the 1950s, the buildings to the west of the Brooklyn Edison Building were demolished and the Adams Street facade became its primary one.
In 2008, Muss Development entered a contract with the city, which owned the entire building, to buy the first two stories. Muss rep Jeffrey Kay said at the hearing that at the time, the building was “an eyesore” and covered in scaffolding. The organization, which is also behind the nearby Marriott Hotel, redid the storefront facade in 2009, mimicking the historic arches along Adams Street.
“Today, highly visible from Adams Street, Columbus Park, and Fulton Street, the architecturally and historically significant building continues to provide a monumental backdrop to Brooklyn civic center with elaborate Renaissance Revival style decoration and setback massing that recall the time of this construction,” LPC research department staff member Bilge Kose told the commission during the designation process. “Designed by one of the most prominent architectural firms in the city, the building became a hallmark in Downtown Brooklyn’s evolving urban setting.”
A version of this story first appeared on Brooklyn Paper’s sister site Brownstoner
