Tag Archives: Victorian Flatbush

The Daffodil Project Plantings on Cortelyou Road

Posted on by
3

Parallel Pit Planting
Parallel Pit Planting

We had a great turnout this weekend for planting Daffodils along Cortelyou Road. I couldn’t make it yesterday; I heard we had 7 or 8 people. Today we had 13, half of them children.

Yesterday all the new tree pits between Argyle and Rugby Roads were planted. Today we planted nine more: 8 between Marlborough and Rugby, plus the one tree pit between Marlborough and the train station, which has an Oak tree. With 13 people we finished up in a little over two hours.

This is my neighbor, Stacey, one of those who ordered and picked up the bulbs from the Daffodil Project and got this whole thing going.
Stacey

Liena and Hugo

DSC_6020

Group Shot

Thanks to everyone who turned out this weekend, including (in alphabetical order):

  • Ben
  • Cecile
  • Chaakam
  • Emma
  • Faith
  • Hugo
  • Jan
  • Jonathan
  • Kaya
  • Liena
  • Natasha
  • Stacey
  • Tracey
  • Zariya

(If I’ve omitted or misspelled your name, please let me know!)

I’m bad with names, and faces, well, people, basically, but I’m pretty sure I’d never met any of the folks I worked with today. I’ve spoken with some on the phone, or corresponded by email. With most I’d had no previous contact. This is the remarkable community aspect of these kinds of activities. I hope we can do more of them.

Weather permitting, we’ll do it again next Saturday, November 10. We’ll meet at 10am in front of the library at Argyle and Cortelyou. We’ll plant the block from Argyle to Westminster, at least.

The following Sunday, November 11, if we still have bulbs to plant, we’ll schedule it later in the day. There will be another gardening-related community event that morning. I’ll post the details as they’re confirmed.

Links

The Daffodil Project
My Flickr photo set from today

The Future Home of the Ex-Lax Gardens

Posted on by
10

Updated 2007.11.03: Updated with more history from Erin’s comment. Added photos of the site I took last April.

Future Flatbush Community Garden

This map highlights the future location of a new community garden to be created in Flatbush, in the neighborhood of Prospect Park South. The red border outlines part of the property, which also includes the smaller wedge of land to the east, next to the B/Q subway line. The underlying image is aerial photography from 2004. The gray shapes are the outlines of buildings. The gray box within the red border is a garage, which you can see in the photos below.

The total area is .8 acres, huge by city standards. You can see from the photo that the property is covered by trees. The property is vacant, but not abandoned. It’s owned by a resident of the area who wants it to benefit the community, as a community garden.

Susan Siegel, outgoing Executive Director of Flatbush Development Corporation, has been in communication with the owner of the property for some time. I first heard about this project in February of this year from Jan Rosenberg of Friends of Cortelyou and Brooklyn Hearth Realty. I attended a meeting of some interested community members. Things have been quiet until this week, when Susan let us know that the owner has given us the go-ahead.

The site has an interesting history. As my neighbor, Erin Joslyn, notes, this was originally the home of Dean Alvord, the developer of Prospect Park South, later purchased by Israel Matz:

One of the most impressive homes in Prospect Park South, was the enormous mansion purchased in 1920 by Israel Matz, founder of the Ex-Lax company. After years of neglect, it was consumed by fire in 1958.
– Forgotten Flatbush: When Flatbush was Greenwich, Victorian Flatbush, An Architectural history

The forest which lives on the site now is just 50 years old, grown since the building burned down in 1958. “Forgotten Flatbush” includes an old aerial photo of the area from 1908, a hundred years ago, which shows the old “Ex-Lax Mansion”, and the future location of the community garden. The trees for which the neighborhood is known are absent from the photo; they were just a few years old.

Here are some views of the site, taken last April.

Future Site of Flatbush Community Garden
This is the view south down the central drive into the site. The garage is on the right. There’s a lamp post on the left, with Daffodils blooming at its base. Not visible in this photo, the house foundation is to the right.

Future home of the Flatbush Community Garden
This is a view southwest, to the right of the central drive. The garage is to the left. The area in front of the garage and extending to the right is where the house stood.

Old foundation
The sunken area in this photo is part of the original foundation of the house.

Future Site of Flatbush Community Garden
This view is southeast. You can see the garage in this view, too. Somewhere between the garage and where I stood, behind the fence on the right, is the foundation of the house which stood there.

Most community gardens don’t start with a forest. This presents unique opportunities and challenges. The southern end of the property is already partially cleared and cultivated as gardens. For more residents to grow vegetables, more trees will need to be cleared.

I hope that the northern end, at least, can be kept forested. Many of the trees are likely “weed” trees, invasive species, which can and should be removed. There is already wildlife there, and this part of the property could be preserved as a wildlife and bird refuge and sanctuary. There could be wildflower walks and native plant gardens, cool ferny sanctuaries, shady refuges, and story circles.

The foundation of the old house is largely intact, now largely filled in by a half-century of leaf litter and plant growth. This could be cleared and restored. This could become an educational part of the site, evidence of its history. I have visions of developing it as a sunken garden, a grotto of native plants and ferns, which can fulfill other important educational purposes.

Now that the owner has given their go-ahead, there will be many community meetings and other events for those who want to participate and contribute. I’ll post these here on this blog and add them to the calendar in the sidebar.

Links

Backyard of the Day
Forgotten Flatbush
OASIS online mapping service
Ditmas Park Blog
[where: 1522 Albemarle Road, Brooklyn, NY 11226]

Victorian Flatbush at risk from inappropriate zoning

Posted on by
Reply

Updated 2007.11.15: Added link to DCP Zoning Glossary and definitions of selected zoning terms used in the post.

A comment on Ditmas Park Blog open thread, Landmarking Pro and Con, led me to begin writing a lengthy response, which I thought I’d post here instead.

The area’s R1 and R2 zoning already prohibits anything but a detached single-family house.

I’ve written about this issue several times before on this blog.

Only Prospect Park South, Ditmas Park, West Midwood, Midwood Park, and Fiske Terrace – maybe a third of Victorian Flatbush in area, if that – are covered by R1 and R2. The rest is mostly R3-2. The most at-risk are the R6 zones; there have already been several teardowns along Stratford Road in Ditmas Park West that I’ve seen and photographed.

Zoning only addresses physical properties, such as setbacks, curbcuts, building height, Floor-to-Area Ratio (FAR), and so on. You can still rip off all architectural details, stucco over the entire woodframe house, add faux quoins, brick in the porch, add picture windows, and top it off with a six-foot rolling gate stainless steel barricade. Only landmarking can protect the street character of a neighborhood.

Check DCP for an index of all Zoning Maps. South Midwood is on map 23a; the rest of Victorian Flatbush is on 22c. DCP includes an explanation of basic residential zoning regulations on their Web site.

Related Posts

State of Flatbush/Midwood, October 5
Illegal Conversions Kill, September 24
Another reason to loathe real estate brokers, April 6
Four Borough Neighborhood Preservation Alliance Recommending Brooklyn Neighborhoods, March 23
Landscape and Politics in Brooklyn’s City Council District 40, February 14
NASA Earth Observatory Maps NYC’s Heat Island, Block by Block, August 1, 2006

Links

DCP: Residence District Zoning Explained
DCP Zoning Glossary

Newkirk Avenue

Posted on by
3

Newkirk Plaza
Newkirk Plaza

This afternoon, Blog Widow and I had brunch at Picket Fence on Cortelyou Road, then strolled through Ditmas Park and Ditmas Park West. Yes, yes, there are beautiful houses there. But today it’s about Newkirk Avenue.

Watching You
Watching You, Newkirk Avenue and East 16th Street
A half-block from the Newkirk Avenue subway station is this imposing array of surveillance cameras. I’m sure I’m recorded somewhere now, and facial recognition systems will soon match this suspicious character to my 25-year old blog profile photo, my identity revealed.

Christ My Sufficiency
Christ My Sufficiency, Brooklyn Foursquare Church, 603 Rugby Road
This is just south of Newkirk Avenue on Rugby Road. The sign caught my eye, as well as Blog Widow’s. He said I had to take a picture of this store-front church. He’s in the biz, so I assume it’s out of professional interest.

Of course, I had to ask him, “What’s a FourSquare Church?” It was founded by Aimee Semple McPherson in 1927. Which doesn’t explain anything to me. I’ll read the Wikipedia article later.

Markets and Grocery Stores
Kim's Market, 1521 Newkirk Avenue, Ditmas Park
SSC Market, 4 Newkirk Plaza
Rupali Grocery, 1408 Newkirk Avenue

MYSTERY SOLVED! Bitter Melon on Newkirk Avenue
Mystery produce, Newkirk Avenue
Frank Jump, neighbor and general cohort, identifies these objets as bitter melons. It looks like a hairy, warty cucumber. It just doesn’t say “Eat ME!” to me.

Two Guys
Two Guys, Newkirk Avenue
I was taking a photo of the Drupali Grocery on Newkirk Avenue when these guys told me to "Make it a good picture!"

Each said I should take a picture of the other guy. So I asked to take a shot of both of them together. This was the third and last photo, after I prompted them to "smile!"

Welcome in Eleven Languages
Welcome in Eleven Languages
This is the sign on the corner of the Newkirk Family Health Center, at the northeast corner of Newkirk and Rugby Road.

I don’t even recognize half of the alphabets, let alone the languages.
The first four are English, Spanish, Russian and French. I recognize Hebrew second from the bottom. I think the bottom one is Arabic script, and fourth from the bottom are Chinese characters.

Illegal Conversions Kill

Posted on by
2

Update, September 25: This morning’s news reports have additional information about the living situation in the building.

251 East 19th Street, the morning of September 25
251 East 19th Street

Shortly after midnight this morning (September 24), a fire broke out in a house several blocks from mine, in the adjacent neighborhood of Beverly Square East, one of the neighborhoods of free-standing, wood-frame Victorian homes in the larger area known as Victorian Flatbush. Early reports misidentified the neighborhood as Kensington. Some reports are still misidentifying the neighborhood as Ditmas Park, which is a historic district whose northern boundary lies two blocks to the south.

The immediate cause of the fire was an electric malfunction. The deeper cause is the illegal conversion of a single-family home to multiple units. The property is on file as a single residential unit, a single-family home. There were as many as 6 people living on the attic floor where the fire broke out; three of them, aged 76, 50 and 12, were killed by this fire, and one remains in serious condition. The only working smoke detector was on the first floor.

At least one report cites “numerous violations” against the owner of the building. However, most of the violations and complaints I can find are all several years old, and were all “cured” or “resolved”. There is one active complaint, created today, for failure to maintain a fire-damaged building.

I learned from news reports the morning of the 25th that this was not an absentee landlord situation. The 11 people who lived on the top two floors of the building, including the three killed, are part of the owner’s extended family. Three more people live on the first floor.

The existing system of DOB violations is broken. Fines and liens are insufficient deterrents. DOB and FDNY must have the authority to obtain warrants to enter buildings to investigate outstanding safety and occupancy violations. Owners’ income from such buildings must be seized, paid into escrow, until the DOB and FDNY certify that life-threatening conditions have been resolved.

Links:

Hero boy dies trying to save 2 from fire (NY Daily News, September 25)
Boy, 12, dies in fire trying to save grandmother (Newsday, September 25)
Fire Kills 3, From 3 Generations, in a Crowded House in Brooklyn (New York Times, September 25)
Man Rescues Teenager From Blazing Brooklyn Rooftop (New York Sun, September 25)
Deadly fire rips through a home in Brooklyn (7Online, ABC local affiliate)
FDNY Says Electrical Wiring To Blame For Deadly Brooklyn Fire (NY1 News)
Google News

Tornado Damage in Prospect Park South, Caton Park and Beverley Square West

Posted on by
8

Update 2007.08.09: The National Weather Service says that this was the strongest tornado on record to hit New York City.

Evening update: By the afternoon, the National Weather Service (NWS) confirmed that there had been an EF2 tornado, but only in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn. They also reported that it traveled northeast, which would have placed it in the path of Sunset Park, Kensington, and Flatbush.

Update 16:30 EDT: I’ve got the Flickr set up, and I’m uploading the remainder of the photos as I type.

Totalled. This was on Rugby Road, north of Church Avenue in Caton Park.
Totalled

I just got back a half-hour ago from my tornado walking tour of my neighborhood, Beverley Square West, the adjoining Prospect Park South Historic District, and Caton Park. I’m home today because none of the subways were running this morning, and our local line, the B/Q train, is down due to trees on the tracks near the Church Avenue station, around the corner from Prospect Park South, which sustained heavy damage.

Cortelyou Road Station (Q Line), closed
Cortelyou Road Station, Closed

Chainsaws will be serenading us for the next several days. I have lots of photos to upload, once I can clear enough space on my hard drive to accommodate them. I should have plenty by the end of the day, so check back later.

The National Weather Service hasn’t made the determination, but from the reports, and from the damage I saw, I think it must have been a tornado that tore through Brooklyn this morning. When I went out this morning, the local news channels were only covering the neighborhood of Bay Ridge. But later reports include Sunset Park and Kensington. There’s still been no mention of Flatbush on the news, but these neighborhoods form a rough path through central Brooklyn. There’s a track of damage through Brooklyn, not just localized damage, which is just what one would expect to see from a tornado.

Marlborough Road, south of Albemarle Road. Note the two trunks left standing in front of the house on the right; they were both snapped off.
Marlborough Road, south of Albemarle Road

The damage I saw, especially in Prospect Park South, just looked odd. It wasn’t any one thing. There were trees, such as the one at the top of this post, which clearly had problems before they were blown down. Those we would expect to be fall in heavy winds. But there were many trees with clear, clean wood, with no signs of disease or other problems.

Twisted and split limb of Norway maple, 125 Argyle Road
Twisted and split limb of Norway maple, 125 Argyle Road

Every kind of tree was affected. Most of the smaller trees were simply blown over, snapped at the root flare, separated from the roots. Some of the larger trees were also toppled, their roots pushing up sidewalks. But many were snapped off at the trunk, or their upper limbs and branches seemed to have been shredded off. I saw large limbs whose damage could only have been caused by twisting. Upper limbs of trees didn’t just fall onto rooftops, they were blown up onto them.

Parks Department beginning to remove a toppled street tree in Beverley Square West.


Parks Department beginning to remove a toppled street tree.


[bit.ly]

Links

An EF-2 Tornado Strikes Brooklyn on the Central New York Weather Blog of WKTV in upstate New York has some great radar images and the complete text of the National Weather Service’s statement confirming the tornado.
August 16, Brooklyn Eagle: While Bay Ridge Captured Attention, Flatbush Areas Also Suffered from Brooklyn Tornado
August 10, Brooklyn Eagle: The Path of The Brooklyn Twister; Heroic Efforts Help Affected Brooklyn Areas Recover from Tornado Damage includes an excellent map of the path of the tornado

A Tree Blows Down in Brooklyn, photos of damage in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn Row House blog

NYC Hazards: Tornadoes, NYC Office of Emergency Management (OEM)

News: Creating Wildlife Habitat in Windsor Terrace

Posted on by
1

In the New York Daily News today:

In the densely populated strip of land between Prospect Park and Green-Wood Cemetery, [Jennifer] Hopkins and fellow gardeners are creating oases of green for butterflies and birds.

The goal of the Greenway Project is to link two of Brooklyn’s largest habitats – at least for airborne species.
– Oases of green for butterflies and birds, New York Daily News, June 12

For the birds, Hopkins plants berry bushes, has a cherry tree and keeps her birdbath full. One neighbor has followed in her footsteps and put up a humming bird feeder. Another has a bush where a family of cardinals is nesting. The nearby Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church is also on board and is set to plant a garden this summer, she said.

The article never mentions the name of the neighborhood “between Prospect Park and Green-Wood Cemetery.” It’s Windsor Terrace.

I know of a “Greenway Project” in Brooklyn, but the one mentioned in the article seems to be a different effort. Jennifer, if you read this, please let us know more.

Whatever the name, it’s important to educate and engage private landowners in maintaining and developing wildlife habitat by preserving and planting trees and other non-lawn plants on their properties.

I’ve shown this map on this blog before. It shows the landcover classification for central Brooklyn.
Brooklyn City Council District 40: Classified Landcover

Windsor Terrace forms a corridor between two refuges: Greenwood Cemetery and Prospect Park. Victorian Flatbush forms a corridor extending south from Prospect Park, pointing toward the bays, beaches, and Atlantic Ocean. I recently saw an ovenbird in my backyard, “rare in the city” according to Hopkins as cited in the article.

Most of the tree canopy in Brooklyn is in private hands. It’s unprotected and vulnerable. If New York City is going to have a million more trees in the next ten years, we need to value and find ways to preserve and protect the ones we already have, including those on private property.

2007 Victorian Flatbush House Tour

Posted on by
5

317 Rugby Road, Beverley Square West
DSC_1754

This was the third year in a row I’ve gone on the house tour. This year was actually one of the best overall. There was variety in the houses shown, largely because nearly every neighborhood of Victorian Flatbush was represented on the tour. I was surprised, pleased and proud to see that three of my neighbors in Beverley Square West were showing their houses this year.

This year I felt bold enough to ask at each stop whether or not interior photos were permitted. At most of the houses this was allowed. In many cases the volunteers directed me to ask the owners themselves, and so I got to meet more of my neighbors than I would have otherwise.

So I have many more photos than if I had only been allowed to shoot exteriors. Still, there are only 182 photos from this trip. The battery on my camera gave out about 2/3 of the way through. There would have been 100 more. This is not the first time my battery has died in the middle of a shoot. I’ve learned my lesson. I’m going to buy a backup battery, and an AA battery adapter so I can use regular NiMH rechargables.

In the interest of time and timeliness, I’m just including highlights in this post. You can see all 182 photos in the Flickr set from my trip. Not all the photos are of houses on the tour. Many are of other houses, gardens and other sights along the way.

Midwood Park and Fiske Terrace, both of which had a house on the tour this year, are calendared to be landmarked as a single area by the Landmarks Preservation Commission. Even with that, only five of the 11 neighborhoods of Victorian Flatbush will have been landmarked. 7 of the 12 houses on this year’s tour are in neighborhoods with no protection: Beverley Square West, Beverley Square East, Ditmas Park West, and South Midwood. Two of the four neighborhoods which did not show houses this year are also unprotected: Caton Park and West Midwood. Many of the houses in Victorian Flatbush are also at risk from inappropriate zoning: blocks with detached, single-family Victorian homes Zoned R6 for dense, townhouse development.

Stop : 1306 Albemarle Road, Prospect Park South

DSC_1683
DSC_1684
DSC_1687
DSC_1689
DSC_1691

Stop : 85 Westminster Road, Prospect Park South

DSC_1706
DSC_1716
DSC_1723

Stop #4: 209 Westminster Road, Beverley Square West

DSC_1731
DSC_1735
DSC_1742

Stop #5: 317 Rugby Road, Beverley Square West

DSC_1753
DSC_1756
DSC_1766
DSC_1769
DSC_1773
DSC_1774

Stop #6: 352 Marlborough Road, Beverley Square West

DSC_1781
DSC_1788
DSC_1794
DSC_1795
DSC_1799

Stop #8: 498 Rugby Road, Ditmas Park West

DSC_1805

I have no interior shots of 498 Rugby. The owner wanted to show everyone through the house. This made it impossible to get any photographs of the interior, since it was always crowded with people. I could have gotten some shots if I had lagged behind the tour crowd, but I hate crowds so I was feeling a bit cranky.

Stop #9: 500 Marlborough Road, Ditmas Park West

DSC_1806
DSC_1808
DSC_1813
DSC_1816
DSC_1819
DSC_1820
DSC_1821

Stop #10: 654 East 17th Street, Midwood Park

DSC_1864

Interior photography was not allowed in this house.

The tour book incorrectly places 654 East 17th in Fiske Terrace. It’s in Midwood Park.

Event, Sunday July 1 and 8: Grand Opening for the Cortelyou Greenmarket

Posted on by
1

Updated 2007.06.15 with hours of operation and dates of the Grand Opening.

Apples from Red Jacket Orchards at the Cortelyou Greenmarket, June 2006
Apples, Red Jacket Orchards, Cortelyou Greenmarket

On Sunday, July 1, the Greenmarket resumes operation for 2007 on Cortelyou Road. This year, the Greenmarket will be located on the north side of Cortelyou Road between Argyle and Rugby Roads (in front of the library) [Google Map]. July 1 and 8, will be Grand Opening celebrations, with lots of activities including cooking demonstrations, musical performances, children’s events, and more.

The Cortelyou Greenmarket and those in Sunset Park and Borough Park are the three Greenmarkets furthest out in Brooklyn.

The Greenmarket will operate every Sunday, 8am to 4pm, from July through November; in recent years it operated on Saturdays. It’s hoped that this year’s location on Cortelyou will be more visible – resulting in more business for the vendors – than recent years’ location in the P.S. 139 schoolyard on Argyle Road.

Note: As of today, June 6, the official Greenmarket map (PDF) still lists last year’s location.

As of June 5, the following vendors are confirmed:

  • Meredith’s Bakery
  • Amantai Farm, vegetables
  • Bread Alone (Note: Lousy Web design, forces Shockwave/Flashpage on you.)
  • Red Jacket Orchards
  • El Mirador Farm, vegetables
  • Muddy River Farm, vegetables
  • Butternut Valley Organics, organic vegetables, fruits, baked goods, dairy, eggs, and meat

Pies from Meredith’s Bakery at the Cortelyou Greenmarket, June 2006
Pies, Meredith's Bakery, Cortelyou Greenmarket

Business owners on Cortelyou Road have expressed concern about the impact this will have on their businesses. In particular, the Flatbush Food Coop has reported that their sales dropped when the Greenmarket was open. In addition, the location on Cortelyou Road will take up some potential parking spaces for folks who drive into the neighborhood to do their food shopping.

I’m not a business owner, but I don’t buy into this scarcity model: that more business for some means less for others. I’m looking forward to the opportunity to buy fresh, locally and organically grown produce, and not have to choose between local or organic. The past two years, when the Greenmarket was in operation, we ate out less and cooked at home more. We went to the Greenmarket to see what’s fresh, and planned our meals around that. That meant more local shopping for us, not less.

The new Cortelyou streetscape is coming along beautifully; people are already using the new benches. By the end of the summer, in addition to the existing restaurants, coffee shops, food stores and supermarkets, there will be another coffee shop and a gourmet food shop. All of this will make Cortelyou a mecca for Brooklyn foodies; the Greenmarket will be one more reason to “Shop Cortelyou,” as the banners implore. It’s my hope that there will be more business than ever and Cortelyou will thrive as a commercial strip.

PS: I hate the CENYC Web design. There’s no need for frames. All the Greenmarket information is only available as a PDF. They make it impossible to link to specific topics within their site. That’s why there are no useful links to them from this post.