| Neighborhood
at risk: Wallabout
Wallabout, a neighborhood in Northwestern
Brooklyn near the former Brooklyn Naval Yards, is noted for having
the largest concentration of pre-Civil War frame houses in the city.
In addition to Greek and Gothic Revival wood homes with original
or early porches, cornices and other details, brick and stone row
houses in Italianate and Neo-Grec styles along with masonry tenements
line the streets between Myrtle and Park Avenues. James Marston
Fitch, founder of Columbia University’s Historic Preservation
Program, described the buildings in 1973 as an “outdoor architectural
museum in themselves.” The homes were built as working-class
and middle-class housing, and designation of this area would complement
the Fort Greene and Clinton Historic Districts to the south built
primarily for more affluent households.
| |
 |
|
Dutch settlers named this area Waal-bogt,
meaning a bend in the harbor. Walloons (French-speaking Protestants
from what is now Belgium) settled here as early as 1624. Through
the 18th century, the area remained rural. During the Revolution,
dozens of infamous British prison ships docked in the nearby Wallabout
Bay. An estimated 11,000 American soldiers died there and were buried
in shallow graves along the waterfront. In 1801 the federal government
opened the Brooklyn Naval Yard nearby. The yards operated for more
than a century and a half until its 1966 decommission. Over the
decades, many of the homes in the district were built for employees
of the yards.
Residential development of the area
in the 1830’s, 40’s, and 50’s coincided with the
rapid population increase in the city of Brooklyn. Being part of
the flatlands along the East River, Wallabout was not looked upon
with the prestige allotted to neighboring Fort Greene or Clinton
Hill. As the century progressed, industrialism spread through the
East River waterfront including DUMBO, Williamsburg, Greenpoint,
and Wallabout. Neighborhood industries included Consumers’
Biscuit and Manufacturing Company, the Drake Brothers Bakery, Rockwood
Chocolate Company (whose factory is now listed on the State and
National Registers of Historic Places), Giddings & Enos (manufacturers
of gas fixtures), and the Mergenthaler Linotype Company. The Wallabout
produce market operated from 1890 until World War II.
In a neighborhood full of wonderful
homes, there are a few residences deserving special note. Some of
the area’s earliest homes dating back to the 1830’s
can be found on Vanderbilt Avenue. In 1878 the wealthy Pratt family
built five neo-Grec style brownstones on this block, the first of
their many speculative ventures. No. 99 Ryerson Street is believed
to be the only surviving New York City home of poet Walt Whitman.
Rudophe L. Daus, one of Brooklyn’s leading late 19th-century
architects, designed the Queen Anne style red brick tenement at
93 Clermont. The building retains its ornamental terracotta trim
as well as its entrance hood and iron railings. Only one structure
in the district is presently designated a New York City Landmark,
the Lefferts-Laidlaw House at 136 Clinton Avenue. This impressive,
temple-fronted Greek Revival Style house was built c.1836-1840.
In the 1970’s the area was
twice proposed as a historic district, by the Fort Greene Landmarks
Committee as part of the Fort Greene HD and by the Landmark Commission’s
staff as part of a Brooklyn survey. Like much of western Brooklyn,
the general low-rise density of Wallabout has recently begun to
feel the brunt of new, over-scaled development. In addition, decades
of poor maintenance have resulted in the loss of character in some
of the buildings, as well as enticingly open lots prime for development.
The Myrtle Avenue Revitalization Project has, with funding from
the Preservation League of New York State, sponsored a cultural
resources survey and has helped establish a residents’ association
– the Historic Wallabout Association – with the goal
of preserving this neighborhood. The first step, re-zoning the area
to better fit the existing built fabric and encourage appropriately
scaled development, is currently moving forward. The next step to
preserving this special neighborhood would be to designate part
of the area as a historic district.
For more information, visit:
Return to Neighborhoods at Risk
|
