June 20, 2007

Digging up Brooklyn Heights' preservationist roots

NewYorkology last week got a walk-through of a new exhibition at the Brooklyn Historical Society chronicling the hard-fought creation of Brooklyn Heights as first historic district in New York City. The exhibition was curated by Francis Morrone a lecturer and architectural biographer of Manhattan and Brooklyn -- and a NewYorkology contributor.

Until 1964, the grand old Brooklyn Savings Bank sat at the intersection of Clinton and Pierrepont Streets. Immortalized in watercolor around 1900 by Francis Hopkinson Smith, the building was destroyed to make way for ... a parking lot.

Not coincidentally, New York City's first Landmark Preservation Law was already in the works, and by the time it passed in 1965, the building's destruction would have been thwarted. "There was a real wave of demolitions just before the landmarks law was passed," Morrone said.

Although the building is gone, the painting is hanging across the street at the Brooklyn Historical Society, which recently opened "Landmark and Legacy: Brooklyn Heights and the Preservation Movement in America."

As gentrification continues to reshape the face of the city, much is being lost. "Landmarking has become unfashionable," Morrone said. Yet at the same time, it's the landmarked districts, with all its preserved character and architecture, where people want to live. "They wouldn't be moving to these areas if they weren't landmarked. Maggie Gyllenhaal wouldn't be moving to Park Slope if it wasn't a historic district, even though she might not know that," he said.

The small exhibition is filled with old maps and paintings of old Brooklyn Heights. There are hand-colored maps of all the area's pre-Civil War buildings, coded by date and architectural style (with some of the oldest grouped along Middagh and Cranberry west of Hicks,) items salvaged from the site of Cadman Plaza before it was built, (including a bottle of "Dr. McMunn's Elixir of Opium" and "Genuine Russian Bear Grease - for increasing the growth of hair,") along with a number of long-forgotten paintings in the BHS collection.

Brooklyn Heights was the first neighborhood in New York City to get landmark protection, later followed by Greenwich Village. (The first in the country was Charleston, S.C., in 1931.) In all, there are now 87 historic districts in New York City. But since the exhibit's at the Brooklyn Historic Society, you can guess which borough it focuses on. Brooklyn now has 18 historic districts. Cobble Hill was its second (landmarked in 1969,) followed by Stuyvesant Heights, (1971;) Park Slope, Carroll Gardens and Boerum Hill (all in 1973;) Fulton Ferry (1978;) Albermarle-Kenmore Terraces, Fort Greene and Brooklyn Academy of Music (all in 1978;) Prospect Park South and Prospect Lefferts Garden (both in 1979;) Ditmas Park and Clinton Hill (both in 1981;) Greenpoint (1991;) Vinegar Hill (1997) and most recently Crown Heights North in April of this year.

The Brooklyn neighborhoods under consideration are Dumbo, Fiske Terrace/Midwood Park, (link in pdf format,) Wallabout and Williamsburg.

The exhibit continues at the Brooklyn Historical Society through Sept. 9. The BHS is located at 128 Pierrepont St., map.

Related: Historic Districts Council
Brooklyn Heights Blog - tourist information
Forgotten NY
Lost City blog

Earlier: Industrial Brooklyn waterfront on most endangered list

June 20, 2007 12:14 PM in Architecture, Cheap Stuff, History, Out of Manhattan, Sightsology

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