Tag Archives: Fiske Terrace

Fiske Terrace-Midwood Park Historic District Designated

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700 East 17 Street, Midwood Park, Flatbush, Brooklyn
700 East 17 Street, Midwood Park, Flatbush, Brooklyn

The Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) today approved the designation of the city’s newest Historic District. Fiske Terrace-Midwood Park, in Flatbush, becomes the city’s 91st Historic District.

Map of the boundaries of Midwood Park and Fiske Terrace, as presented to LPC on October 16, 2007 (PDF)
Midwood Park - Fiske Terrace Boundaries

776 East 17th Street, Fiske Terrace, Flatbush, Brooklyn
776 East 17th Street, Fiske Terrace, Flatbush, Brooklyn

Here’s the description from the LPC’s press release:

Bound on the north and south by Foster Avenue and Avenue H, and on the west and east by the Brighton subway line and Ocean Avenue, this district comprises 250 eclectic houses that were largely completed and occupied by 1914, and were built by two prominent local builders and developers.

The primary developer of Fiske Terrace, which lies south of Glenwood Road and is named for George B. Fiske, an oil merchant, was the T.B. Ackerson Company, whose owner once boasted of transforming the area “from woods into city in 18 months.” Approximately 75 percent of the houses in the Midwood Park part of the district, which lies north of Glenwood Road, were constructed by the John R. Corbin Company.

Most of the houses in the district adhere primarily to the popular early 20th-century architectural styles, especially the Arts and Crafts, Colonial Revival and Dutch Colonial Revival styles. The houses were typically constructed in one of three forms: the box-like foursquare, crowned by a hipped or pyramidal roof; the temple-house, featuring a prominent front-facing gable; and the bungalow, with its low profile, deep porch with thick tapered columns, and broadly overhanging eaves.

Related Posts

Times admits past errors: We are not all Ditmas Park, March 15, 2008
Other posts on Victorian Flatbush

Links

Map of the Fiske Terrace – Midwood Park Historic District (PDF)
New Landmarks Include Webster Hall, New York Times, March 18, 2008
Press Release (PDF) from LPC, March 18, 2008
Coda: Fiske Terrace/Midwood Park Designated as Landmark by LPC, Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn, March 20, 2008
Fiske Terrace-Midwood Park in Flatbush Gains Landmark Status, Brooklyn Eagle, March 20, 2008

Another reason to loathe real estate brokers …

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Trying to locate their recent report on sales figures, I idly browsed the Corcoran (“Live Who You Are”! Be All That You Can Be!) Web site for my neighborhood. I don’t expect to find Beverley Square West. I would hope to find Victorian Flatbush. They’d don’t even list Flatbush. I found what I expected:

Ditmas Park: Runs from Parkside Avenue to the north, Ditmas Avenue to the south, Ocean Avenue to the east and Coney Island Avenue to the west.
– Corcoran Neighborhood Guide to Ditmas Park

Lest one quibble “Oh, it’s just a real estate name,” they continue in the second paragraph:

… This landmarked district …

WRONG! The landmarked Ditmas Park Historic District lies only within the boundaries of Dorchester and Newkirk Avenues, and Ocean Avenue and the B/Q line. The only other landmarked area within the boundaries they describe is Prospect Park South. The rest of their “Ditmas Park” is not landmarked.

It’s worse than that. They have no idea where they are.

Their descriptions conflate several neighborhoods – some landmarked, most not – and get basic information wrong. They provide the wrong school number for P.S. 139. There’s this:

These homes were originally built for the likes of the Guggenheims and films stars like Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks.

Again, not in Ditmas Park. The Guggenheim Honeymoon Cottage is in Beverley Square West, my neighborhood. The Pickford/Fairbanks House is in Ditmas Park West.

And there’s this:

Many have porches and garages and sit on wide tree-lined streets with English sounding names like Argyle and Rugby.

Only the streets between Coney Island Avenue and the B/Q lines – half the area they claim to describe – carry these names, borrowed from the status of Prospect Park South. Four different neighborhoods span those streets from Parkside to Ditmas, and none of them are Ditmas Park.

The boundaries they give describe only part of greater Victorian Flatbush; they omit half the neighborhoods. Extending the southern boundary from Ditmas Avenue to Avenue H, between Coney Island Avenue Ocean Avenue lie West Midwood, Midwood Park, and Fiske Terrace. The latter two are proposed Historic Districts and are on track to become landmarked. Extending the eastern boundary to Flatbush Avenue, the Albemarle-Kenmore Terraces Historic District lies east of Prospect Park South, between Ocean and Flatbush Avenues, and South Midwood lies between Ocean and Bedford Avenues, and Foster Avenue south to Brooklyn College.

I’ve never had any dealings with Corcoran. We tried working with them when we were shopping for our home three years ago. They had yet to “discover” this area, and so had nothing to show us. Their reach had only extended to Windsor Terrace at that point, and we went to one open house there.

And, don’t bother trying to find a house a house on their Web site. You won’t find any. They only have “townhouses” …