The civil, political, professional and ecclesiastical history, and commercial and industrial record of the county of Kings and the city of Brooklyn, N. Y., from 1683 to 1884, Volume II, Part 48

Author: Stiles, Henry Reed, 1832-1909, ed
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: New York, W. W. Munsell & Co
Number of Pages: 1345

USA > New York > Kings County > Brooklyn > The civil, political, professional and ecclesiastical history, and commercial and industrial record of the county of Kings and the city of Brooklyn, N. Y., from 1683 to 1884, Volume II > Part 48

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Our own architects, builders and real estate dealers have been the prime factors in effecting this immense accession to the city's wealth. A portion of the capital which has formed the basis of it has come from other cities and states, but the greater part has been from the accumulations of the toil of our own citizens. The demand for building materials has led to the establish- ment of many manufactures connected with building, and now every item required in the construction and finishing of the most costly and elegant dwelling, or public or private building, is, or can be, produced in Brooklyn, and of a quality unsurpassed anywhere.

We might, indeed, come somewhat nearer to our own time, and review, with somewhat fuller and more defi- nite information, the condition of the city in 1854, after its consolidation with Williamsburg, when its popula- tion had reached about 150,000, and its geographical extent was the same as it is to-day. Nearly thirty years have passed since then, and its population, if a census were to be taken in this autumn of 1883, would not fall short of 700,000 souls. Its material advancement has

been even more rapid than its growth in population. At that time the assessed valuation of real estate in the consolidated city was $69,014,645. Then, as now, the rate at which real estate was appraised for taxation was supposed to be about 70 per cent. Add- ing the other 30 per cent .- $20,704,393-we have $89,- 719,038 as the market value, or value at forced sale. The additional $10,281,962 required to make up the $100,- 000,000 would probably have fully covered the value of the city buildings, churches and schools then exist- ing in the consolidated city.

We have, then, as we have already shown, an in- crease in the value of real estate alone, in this city, in thirty years, of more than $400,000,000-a rate of in. crease which not even the most enterprising of western cities has equalled.

There was then, it is true, the City Hall, but no Court-House, only a beer garden where it now stands ; no Municipal Building; no Academy of Music, or other music hall of sufficient dimensions to permit the pre- sentation of opera, oratorio, or grand concert ; no Academy of Design; no theatres for our amusement- loving citizens, who must for music or the drama go to the great city across the river, to which they then fur- nished only lodging room. There was no Brooklyn Library; no Historical Society, with its rich collections of antiquities, and its ample supply of historical works. There was, indeed, the Graham Institute, with its small but useful library, a solitary hospital, a dispensary, a single orphan asylum, the Graham Institute for aged and indigent women, the church charity foundation, then just organized; these were the charitahle institu- tions of the time, and only one of these was as well housed as now.

There were, at that time, according to Mayor George Hall, whose inaugural address as Mayor of the con- solidated city is still preserved, 113 churches in the city, of all denominations, the greater part having either church edifices or chapels, though a few wor- shipped in temporary buildings afterwards sold or abandoned.

Some of the church edifices were stately and beauti- ful buildings; most of these were then recently erected. The Church of the Holy Trinity, Grace Church, the Church of St. Charles Borromeo, the Church of the Pilgrims, Strong Place Baptist Church, the First Pres- byterian Church, in Henry street, the First Presby- terian Church, in Clinton street, and the Pacific street Methodist, being the most conspicuous examples ; but the greater part were plain but generally substantial buildings, of brick or wood. In the thirty years which have passed, not less than 200 church edifices have been erected, including those which were then unfin- ished, and the very considerable number which have been rebuilt, either on the old sites or on others. The quality of the new buildings has been as remarkable as their number, Very few of them have been frame

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buildings; the greater part were of stone, or of brick, with stone trimmings. A considerable number are among the most beautiful church edifices in the United States. Among these we may name the Church of the Holy Trinity, now completed by the addition of a beautiful and graceful spire of great height ; the new St. Ann's ; St. Peter's (Episcopal) ; the chapel of the Roman Catholic Cathedral; the renovated and enlarged Church of the Pilgrims ; the Central Congregational Church; the Tabernacle (Presbyterian); the Lafayette avenue and the Classon avenue Presbyterian Churches; the Reformed (Dutch) Church, in Bedford avenue, E. D .; the Summerfield, First Place, Simpson, and Seventh avenue Methodist churches, and St. Paul's Methodist, E. D. ; the Washington avenue, Strong Place, and Pierrepont street Baptist churches; and the Emmanuel Baptist chapel. The valuation of these churches, which, in 1854, was not quite a million dol- lars, now exceeds twelve millions.

In public buildings, the increase and the costliness and beauty has been equally manifested ; the Court House, the Municipal Building, the Raymond street Jail, the Penitentiary and Alms-house, the Insane Hos- pital, and the City Hospital, are all buildings worthy of a great city ; while the Academy of Music, the Academy of Design, the Brooklyn Library, the His- torical Society building, Music Hall, and the five or six theatres, are all buildings which are not surpassed for their several purposes. The stately buildings for banking and insurance houses, and offices, which sur- round the City Hall, like the Garfield, the Dime Sav- ings Bank, now in process of erection, the Phoenix Insurance and the Continental Insurance building, are worthy examples of the combination of beauty and utility. Not less remarkable are our great collegiate schools, the Packer Institute, the Polytechnic and the Adelphi Academy.

Of Hospitals and Asylums, we have now more than a score, and near lyas many Dispensaries. Most of these are in their own buildings, and some of them, build- ings in which architectural beauty is allied with the most complete arrangements for comfort, convenience and restoration to health.

The building of the great warehouses along the river and water front has been almost wholly the work of the last thirty years. In solidity and strength, as well as in capacity, they surpass the far-famed London Docks. One of them (Dows' stores), at the foot of Pacific street, is said to have no equal in extent, ca- pacity, and all the appliances for the rapid transfer- ence of grain to and from the vessels which lie at its docks, in the world. The bricks and mortar put into these 250 great warehouses, are sufficient to build an ordinary city.

The great manufactories are also, for the most part, the work of the last thirty years. The vast sugar re- fineries, ten and twelve stories in height, with walls

which would withstand the bombardment of even modern ordnance, covering many acres of ground and turning out a hundred million dollars worth of sugar and syrups annually; the immense petroleum refineries, the monster foundries and machine shops, and the great rope-walks, wall paper factories, the extensive paint works, white lead works, glass factories, porcelain works, and factories of all sorts, have taxed the builders' resources to the utmost. Not less than 180 million dollars has been put into these buildings during the past thirty years, an average of $6,000,000 a year.

We have purposely left to the last the dwelling houses, of which about 60,000 have been erected since 1854, and the number is constantly increasing. While wealthy citizens have erected many beautiful and costly residences for their own use, the habit has pre- vailed, ever since Brooklyn began to grow, of erecting houses " on speculation," as it was called. A builder, an architect, or a real estate dealer, obtained a tract of land consisting of from two to a hundred lots-25x100 feet-often paying only a small percentage of the value of the land, and having made his plans for a block of buildings, ranging from 12 to 20 feet in width, applied to banks, savings banks, insurance companies, or private capitalists, for a builder's loan sufficient or nearly suf- ficient to enable him to build houses of the style he in- tended. The security for this loan was a first mortgage on the buildings to be erected. The temptation was, to build these houses for the smallest possible sum con- sistent with an appearance sufficiently attractive to in- sure their sale. The buildings might be frame, brick, brown stone, or marble, according to the supposed wants of the vicinity, and the probable means of the pur- chasers. At first, these houses, especially in the out- lying wards,-which then included, in the Western District, much of the territory east and south of the City Hall ; and in the Eastern District, most of the region east, and part of that west of Bedford avenue, and most of Greenpoint, and the region north of Broad- way-were mostly frame, and oftener than otherwise of two stories and basement, with balloon frames and flat roofs. The modern improvements were, very few of them, introduced, the present sewerage system not hav- ing been perfected, and sewers only built on the great thoroughfare, and the Ridgewood water not being in- troduced. These houses were generally well built for the time, but the profit was sufficient to induce many who had had no experience or practical knowledge to engage in it, and some of them disastrously. In some instances, capitalists furnished the money, employing builders to do the work, and when the houses were fin- ished, holding, and selling or renting them. The compe- tition soon led to the erection of better houses, of brick, brown stone or marble. Some of these were three stories in height, though the majority were still but two stories and basement. As the sewers were constructed, and the Ridgewood water introduced into the streets,

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HISTORY OF KINGS COUNTY.

the inevitable plumber began to introduce his pipes and fixtures, and decay and disease soon visited the new houses. But the constantly increasing competition led to new improvements, and swell or angle fronts of brown stone, often only a veneer of stone, three stories and a mansard roof, elegant fixtures for the wash-basins, stationary tubs, finely furnished kitchens and dining rooms, hard-wood doors, stairs and floors, elaborately carved stairways and newel posts, bronze door-knobs, hinges, locks, etc., etc., took place of the earlier and plainer finishing. There was, in most cases, consider- able slighting of the work which was not intended to be seen. The prices of these showy dwellings went constantly higher and higher, till the classes who had hitherto purchased them, mainly young and enterpris- ing business men, who had but little ready money, but good prospects ahead,-found themselves unable to purchase these expensive houses, even though the first payments were but small. There was a demand for a cheaper class of houses which should yet be sufficiently tasteful and elegant to satisfy the cultivated tastes of the purchasers.

This demand has been partially met in several ways. The greater part of these houses had been 20 feet in width and of varying depth from 30 to 50 feet. Some builders resorted to the plan of making them narrower -three honses, 163 feet each in width, on two city lots, or fifty feet-some even narrowed them to 12 or 14 feet, with the miminum depth. Others built brown stone houses of the regulation width, 20 feet, but only two stories and basement, sagely remarking to the pur- chasers that it would be very easy for them, by and by, when they wished, to put on a third story, not mention- ing the fact that the walls were too thin to make this possible, under the existing building laws. Others, desirous of furnishing more room, made their houses two stories in front and three stories in the rear.

None of these plans proved perfectly satisfactory; there was a great rage for brown-stone veneers on the front, though the best brick is in all respects a better, safer and more durable material. Within the past three or four years a great demand has sprung up for apartment houses, or, as they are less euphoniously called, flats. In the eastern wards of the Western Dis- trict, as well as in the region west of the Park, these buildings have gone up by hundreds. They are of all grades-good, bad and indifferent; a few with elevators and skylights, interior courts, and all the latest im- provements, including that very doubtful improvement, the tyrant janitor-but the rent of these was as much, or more, than that of a neat and comfortable house. Others had dumb waiters, narrow and stuffy dark rooms in the centre, and comparatively few conveniences. Some, even poorer than these, very soon degenerated into tenement houses. The imposing exterior of these flats had much to do with their temporary popularity, but the business has been overdone. The Eastern Dis-

trict-Williamsburg-has not been so extensively " flat- tened " as the Western District, but its immense fac- tory population has required a much larger number of tenement houses, and these are of all kinds except the best.

While the great enterprise in the erection of dwell- ings, manufactories, warehouses, school edifices, churches, halls, theatres and public buildings, has called in a vast addition to our population, and has increased, and will still increase, our wealth and prosperity as a city, its first effect was to greatly increase our taxation. The territory of our city was so large, and the building up of the streets with outlying wards so rapid, that it necessitated enormous expenditure in the construction of sewers, the laying of water pipes, and the grading and paving of the new streets. Prospect Park and the other parks, as well as the Sackett street or Eastern Parkway and the Ocean Parkway, and the Bridge, have also come into these thirty years, and have, with the other outlays, made the taxation in some of the past years very heavy. These extraordinary expenses are now among the reminiscences of the period of our city's adolescence, and the taxation is not now as heavy as in many other cities. The present year it is about 2.58 per cent. on the assessed valuation.

It remains for us now to speak of the architects, builders and dealers in real estate, to whom we are in- debted for this extraordinary growth and development of our material resources.

The rapid development, whose history we have sketched, has of necessity brought to the surface great numbers of persons and firms, who have found in it the opportunity for profitable employment, and, in many cases, for the acquisition of wealth. The directory for the year 1883-84 gives the names and addresses of 41 architects whose business is mostly in Kings county; of 325 real estate agents; of 21 dealers in builders' materials, besides 28 proprietors of stone yards, and a

very considerable number of marble workers, who con- fine themselves to marble and tiling for public and private buildings; of 334 carpenters and builders and building firms; of 100 masons, who were also general builders; of 18 master plasterers and decorative plas- terers; of 264 master house painters, and of 212 mas- ter plumbers and gas-fitters. In all, there were 1,343 firms or persons who carried on business on their own account, who were engaged in pursuits connected with the erection and sale of public and private buildings.

If we take into the account the employees of these 1,343 firms, we shall have an aggregate of not less than 15,000 persons connected with the house building trades and professions. And to this number should also be added the manufacturers and dealers in paper-hangings, 30 in number; the manufacturers of iron work for houses, of whom, in all branches, there are about 75; and the brass founders who make a specialty of house furnishings, of whom there are 24, and, with their em-

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ployees, we shall have to add at least another thousand to the number. All this is irrespective of the furnish- ing of the houses and public buildings, as well as of the lumber trade and the work in hard woods, which is a distinct branch of the business. It would undoubtedly be a fair estimate to say, that, including the furnishing, at least 25,000 persons were directly connected with the building interests of this city, and that 100,000 more were dependent upon these.

The Architects of Brooklyn .- Let us take up some of these classes somewhat in detail, and thus gain a better idea of the growth of this interest within the past forty or fifty years. We will begin with the architects. The number of these was, in May, 1883, forty-one, and perhaps we should add to them the seventy-one surveyors, whose office is to lay out the city lots, the streets, etc., and to make plans for the sewers, water mains, etc., all adjuncts of building in the city. The number of these classes is not so large as it would be, if many of the master builders were not, or did not believe themselves to be, competent to make out complete plans for dwelling-houses. Gener- ally, it is only the larger and more costly dwellings- the banking and insurance houses, the finest buildings for offices, and the public or semi-public buildings, like churches, theatres, opera houses, hospitals, asy- lums, etc., and the city or county buildings, together with the finest of the great warehouses and manufac- tories-for which the services of an architect are re- quired. It is safe to say that there was not, fifty years ago, sufficient business in the then village of Brooklyn to give full employment to even one architect; in the rare instances in which architectural drawings were re- quired, the services of a New York architect were sought for. Even thirty years ago, the consolidated city (Brooklyn and Williamsburg) only supplied busi- ness for three or four, and even these supplemented their Brooklyn business by what they could obtain in New York city. They had, for the most part, offices in New York, and much of the drafting was done there. We have been unable to obtain the names of all those early architects, among them was Keller, whose plans possessed great merit; Field, who also maintained a very high position; both of these are now deceased; E. L. Roberts, who, though having an office in New York, and doing a large business there, was also the designer and architect of many of our finest churches. Other eminent New York architects came to Brooklyn, and made the designs for some of our finest buildings.

At the present time, the Brooklyn architects have a very high reputation. Some of them are officers of the American Institute of Architects, and nearly all take rank with architects of New York and other cities. The names of ROBERTS, who, though not now a resi- dent of Brooklyn, is still reckoned one of its most skill- ful and successful architects; of the late RICHARD S.

HATFIELD, Vice-President of the Institute of Archi- tects, and of his son, one of the ablest of our younger architects; of the two GLOVERS, of Montague street ; of WM. A. MUNDELL; of WILLIAM H. GAYLOR, who is a successful builder, as well as a fine architect (see Biography, page 580); of AMZI HILL, SAMUEL CURTISS, THOMAS MERCEIN, JOHN MUMFORD, architect of the new Seney Hospital; FREDERICK WEBER, and DUD- LEY BLANCHARD, of the East District; THOS. F. HOUGH- TON; J. H. DOHERTY, office 280 Flatbush avenue, corner Prospect Place ; real estate ; established ten years ago above address; actively engaged in building, in neighborhood of Prospect Park ; of firm of J. Doherty & Son ; THEOBALD ENGELHARDT, 14 Fayette street, architect ; established 1877, in Brooklyn ; for- merly with father in the carpenter business ; had charge of the building of the school and gymnasium of the Williamsburgh Turn Verein; among promi- nent buildings, erected the new malt house of S. Lieb- mann's Sons, the dry goods store of H. Battermann, Broadway, Flushing and Graham avenue, Hebrew Orphan Asylum, 384 and 386 McDonough street, M. May's Sanitary Abbatoir, Johnson avenue plank-road, etc. ; and a score of others of less note, though not, perhaps, of less ability, will occur to the minds of our readers.

The Dealers in Builders' Materials come next in logical order. Of these, including the proprietors of stone yards, there are forty-nine in all. There were a few brick houses and possibly three or four stone ones in 1834, but the number then building was not sufficient to make it profitable for one man to give his whole time and capital to dealing in building mate- rials. In 1854, the amount of building was larger, and three or four dealers along the water front were receiving the brick from the Hudson River brick yards, the Philadelphia brick brought through the Morris Canal and by coasting vessels, the Westchester mar- ble, the Connecticut River brown stone, the Quincy granite and lumber from Maine, from Williamsport, Penn., from Albany and the north woods, and perhaps a little, also, from Michigan and Canada. The lumber dealers, it should be noticed, number now thirty-eight firms, in addition to the forty-nine already enumerated. But the building increased very rapidly from that time forward. The number of new buildings erected annu- ally rose from 300 in 1855 to 3,539 in 1867, and 3,307 in 1868. In 1869 and 1870 the number exceeded 4,000, and continued very large till 1873. After this there was a lull, but in 1880 the number began to rise again, reached 1,989 in 1881, 2,376 in 1882, and will probably exceed 4,000 in 1884. These are all new buildings, aside from repairs and building additional stories upon dwellings, of which a great deal is done every year. In 1868, of the 3,307 buildings erected, 375 were brown stone fronts, 775 brick (the two making only one-third of the whole); 1,915 were frame dwellings;

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HISTORY OF KINGS COUNTY.

A.LITTLE

there were also 3 stone, 7 brick and 9 frame church edifices, 1 brick school-house; 41 brick and 24 frame buildings for manufacturing purposes; 7 brick and 10 frame stores, and 140 buildings of a miscellaneous char- acter. The total value of these buildings was stated at $3,315,200. In 1882, the fire limits had been ex- tended beyond Tompkins avenue on the east, and al- most to the Penny bridge on the south, and in the Eastern District to Graham avenue. We have before us the report of the Commissioner of Buildings of the buildings erected for the eleven months ending Novem- ber 30, 1881. There were 1,867 new buildings erected in these eleven months, and 1,939 in the whole twelve. Of these 1,867, 1,157 were of brick, 579 of them with brown stone fronts; 710 were frame, and of these 20 were erected in violation of the law within the fire limits. This was almost a reversal of the proportions of 1868, but the difference in cost was still more marked. The cost of the 1,867 was $9,115,232, and of the whole number of buildings in the year 1881 (1,939) was $9,498,347. This increase of value was still more remarkable in 1882. There were 2,376 buildings erected, and the estimated cost was $10,386,263. In 1881, the rage for apartment houses had but just be-

gun; there were 339 dwellings intended for from two to four families. In 1882 the number had largely in- creased, so that the 2,376 buildings of the year really represented more than 3,500 dwellings. In 1883, these buildings have been going up everywhere- On a sin- gle street (Bedford avenue) the number of apartments finished this year exceeds 500, while Nostrand avenue has nearly as many. These are all of fine brick, from fifty to eighty feet in depth and four or five stories high. The greater part have brown stone fronts. Of course, this immense impulse which the building trade has received creates a vast demand for building mate- rials. Some of the dealers are selling their fifty, eighty or a hundred million bricks, and lime and cement in proportion; the stone yards are turning out their hun- dreds of thousands of square feet of Ashlar, and their thousands of tons of foundation stones; and the lumber dealers are fast stripping the North and Northwest of their timber trees, one firm alone (CROSS, AUSTIN & Co.) having sold the last year 22,000,000 square feet of lumber. The leading houses in the line of

Builders' and Masons' Materials (aside from lumber dealers) are: H. S. CHRISTIAN, of South Brook- lyn; H. F. BURROUGHS & Co., of the Eastern District;

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ARCHITECTS, BUILDERS AND REAL ESTATE AGENTS.

BEARD & KIMPLAND, HOBBY & LEEDS and JOHN MOR- TON & SONS, all of South Brooklyn; JOSEPH H. COL- YER, of Washington and Plymouth streets; WALTER T. KLOTS & BRO. and CHARLES H. REYNOLDS, both of the Eastern District.

H. S. CHRISTIAN, the well-known dealer in builders' mate- rials (whose portrait appears on the opposite page), was born in Farsund, Norway, December 4th, 1824, and is a son of Sea- ver and Martha (Thomas) Christian. His father was a ship- builder. Mr. Christian attended the schools of his native place until he had attained the age of fifteen, when he entered upon a seafaring life, which he pursued until he was twenty- two. There seems to have been no necessity for him to under- take the toils and suffer the dangers and deprivations of the sailor, but he chose the career from an innate liking for it, and to this day states that he is not sorry that he did, though his days and nights before the mast and on the quarter-deck are of the distant past. His father and mother having died, he made New York his home after he was seventeen years old, and, upon leaving the sea, he entered as a clerk the drug store now of Messrs. Schieffelin, located in William street, but then in John street, where he remained two years.

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The civil, political, professional and ecclesiastical history, and commercial and industrial record of the county of Kings and the city of Brooklyn, N. Y., from 1683 to 1884, Volume II, Part 48

Author: Stiles, Henry Reed, 1832-1909, ed Publication date: 1884 Publisher: New York, W. W. Munsell & Co Number of Pages: 1345

Author: Stiles, Henry Reed, 1832-1909, ed
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: New York, W. W. Munsell & Co
Number of Pages: 1345