Building Condition and District Integrity
by Andrés Julian Alvarez Davila (September 2019)
Prospect Heights Apartment House District
The proposed Prospect Heights Apartment House District (PHAHD) is located south of the Prospect Heights Historic District and directly across from Prospect Park, comprising 106 properties along Eastern Parkway, Lincoln Place, St. John’s Place, Butler Place and Plaza Street. (footnote 1) The properties in the proposed district give witness to the area’s rapid transformation from an undeveloped swath of land across from Prospect Park into a densely populated neighborhood, defined by the emergence of apartment dwellings for Brooklyn’s ascendant middle class. Built primarily between 1909 and 1929, the district’s apartmenthouses were built in the range of revival styles popular at the time and in a palette defined by masonry and limestone along with red and cream-colored brick, giving the district a high degree of design coherence and a distinct sense of place. Since their construction, the buildings of the Prospect Heights Apartment House District have remained largely intact, giving ongoing witness to changes in urban dwelling at the beginning of the last century.
A survey of the 106 properties that comprise the Prospect Heights Apartment House District shows that the proposed district displays levels of integrity that are comparable to those found in apartment house districts that have been designated by the Landmarks Preservation Commission in recent years. We identified six features that can affect the integrity of a district and compared the level of changes in those features in the Prospect Heights Apartment House District with the levels in two similar districts recently designated: the Morningside Heights Historic District, designated February 21, 2017 and modified May 24, 2017, and the Grand Concourse Historic District, designated October 25, 2011. The decision to use Morningside Heights Historic District and Grand Concourse Historic District was based on similarities in the development history, architectural and urban character and scope of the districts in relation to the proposed Prospect Heights Apartment House District.
We have broken down the largely qualitative concept of integrity into categories representing distinct forms of alteration or loss of historic fabric. We felt that quantifying these forms of alterations or loss would allow us to make a reliable, data-driven comparison of the proposed Prospect Heights Apartment House District with the Morningside Heights Historic District and Grand Concourse Historic District. The categories were chosen based on two main criteria: first, the categories had to represent forms of alteration or loss that would be common within and across all districts, to make comparisons tenable; and second, the categories had to represent forms of alteration or loss that significantly impact the visual character and pedestrian experience of individual buildings and of the districts as a whole. As a result, we have limited the survey to registering significant forms of loss or alteration on the principal or designed facades of individual buildings, since these have a disproportionate effect on the overall aesthetics and experience of the districts vis-à-vis secondary or undesigned facades.
The main categories we settled on were (1) alterations to primary entrances on the principal facade, including the addition, removal or reconfiguration of stoops, ramps and steps; (2) the replacement or alteration of historic doors on the primary facade; (3) the replacement or alteration of historic windows; (4) the parging of facades or of portions of facades; (5) the painting or coating of facades, portions thereof, or of architectural details; and (6) the alteration, removal or replacement of cornices. Apart from these categories we also included an additional category, rooftop additions, that accounts for other significant alterations on a case-by-case basis, and have additionally recorded significant forms of alteration that are particularly significant to the Prospect Heights Apartment House District.
Guided by these categories, we undertook a survey of the 106 properties comprising the proposed Prospect Heights Apartment House District. Following the survey, we tallied the forms of alteration in the designation reports for Morningside Heights Historic District, with 114 properties total, (footnote 2) and Grand Concourse Historic District, with 78. (Footnote 3) What follows are discussions of those findings, broken down by category.
Alterations to Primary Entrances
The significant alteration of entrances is relatively rare across all three districts, where such alterations occur in less than 20% of historic buildings. These alterations include loss of detail on historic entry surrounds or porticoes, resurfacing, partial or wholesale infill of entrances, and other reconfigurations, either of the entryway itself or of steps, stoops or ramps leading up to it.
Although this form of alteration is uncommon, there is a small minority of buildings that has undergone significant alterations of this kind. Perhaps the most radical alteration to an entrance in the Prospect Heights Historic District is at 375 Lincoln Place, where a large brick addition was built at the entrance, including a tower to accommodate an elevator. There are also 4 historic entrances that have been infilled (less than 5%): 298 and 310 St John’s Place were de-stooped and had the entrances infilled and converted to windows; 338 Lincoln Place also had its entrance infilled and converted into a window; and 230 Underhill Avenue had its storefront infilled with non-historic door and window configuration added. In total, there are five instances of alterations to or replacement of stoops, steps and ramps, including the removal of stoops on 298 and 310 St Johns Place, accounting for less than 5% of the proposed district’s buildings. In comparison, Grand Concourse had 6 altered or non-historic stoops, steps or ramps at the time of designation, roughly 8% of the District’s buildings.
Additionally, the loss of historic glass-and-metal canopies over entryways has been recorded in this category. In Prospect Heights the 1940s tax photos show 4 buildings had canopies that have since been removed. In comparison, in Morningside Heights, 7 buildings lost their canopies. Although all of these changes to entryways in Prospect Heights are significant, they represent a small percentage of the buildings in the proposed historic district (approximately 19%), as is likewise the case in the Morningside Heights (approximately 15%) and Grand Concourse Historic Districts (approximately 17%).
Principal Doors
Many of the buildings in the Prospect Heights Apartment House District have retained historic doors on their principal entrance, but many have also lost this feature. Approximately 60% of the doors in the district have clearly been replaced, matching very closely the rate of door replacement in Grand Concourse. In Morningside Heights a bit fewer than 40% of the doors have been replaced.
Of the remaining doors in the Prospect Heights Apartment House District, about half match the appearance of the doors visible in the 1940s tax photos. The remaining doors are very likely historic, but the available tax photos do not show clear enough views of the entrance doors to say with certainty whether they are in fact original or historic. Additionally, about half a dozen doors in Prospect Heights that are or appear to be historic have suffered visible alterations. Despite these changes, the number of original and possibly historic doors in the Prospect Heights Apartment House District, at approximately 35%, is comparable to that of the Grand Concourse Historic District, at approximately 38%, and, to a lesser extent, to the Morningside Heights Historic District, at approximately 60%.
Windows
Photo/CuRBA
The replacement of windows is perhaps the most wide-spread form of alteration sustained by the historic properties comprising the three historic districts. The fact that over a dozen historic properties in the Prospect Heights Apartment House District lack tax photos from 1940 and the fact that many of the available pictures are blurry made assessing the replacement or alteration of windows difficult to do with precision. Still, 1940s tax photos reveal that a very significant percentage of windows in the district were historically multi-paned, in keeping with the revival styles that defined the overall character of the apartment house district. The vast majority of these windows, over 90%, have since been replaced with metal one-over-one double hung windows, resulting in a loss of texture on many facades. However, approximately five buildings, including the Union Temple of Brooklyn on Eastern Parkway, retain a mix of non-historic and potentially historic windows; this accounts for about 5% of buildings.
Replacement of windows is quite common and is likewise prevalent in Grand Concourse and Morningside Heights. In Grand Concourse 61 out of a total of 69 contributing buildings in the district had their windows replaced—roughly 87%—according to the designation report, with 4 that have a mix of historic and non-historic windows (approximately 5%). In Morningside Heights, 75 out of a total of 110 contributing buildings had their windows replaced—roughly 70%—and 18 contain a mix of historic and non-historic windows (approximately 16%).
Parging or Coating of the Facade
In the Prospect Heights Apartment House District, as in the Morningside Heights and Grand Concourse Historic Districts, parging has minimally affected the historic character of its buildings, with very little loss of detail resulting from parging registered in the districts. The wholesale parging of primary facade is a rare form of alteration across all the districts, with the only example of a primary facade being entirely parged located in Morningside Heights. Partial parging is more common, but remains a rare form of alteration, with only 2 examples in Grand Concourse (roughly 3%), and 4 in Morningside Heights (roughly 4%). In Prospect Heights there are 6 buildings (roughly 5.8%) with some kind of partial parging of the facade. But only one of these represents a large area of the facade--369 Lincoln Place, whose top story seems to have been thinly coated. Additionally, at 380, 384 and 388 Saint John’s Place stone detail may have been coated; in these buildings, the keystone over the middle window on the second story seems to merge with the sill on the third story window directly above it, while in 376, which is virtually identical and part of the same row, the keystone and sill are sharply defined. There are a small number of buildings that visibly display areas that suffered from coating or repair at the level of the stone base or water-table, but this is minor and limited to small areas, minimally affecting the overall appearance of the facade. These small repairs and local coating account for 5 out of the 6 examples of partial parging in the district, in total 4.9% of buildings.
In Prospect Heights, the most significant form of partial parging is parging at the parapet, exclusively where cornices once stood. This occurs in 20, out of a total of 22, buildings that lost their cornices, excluding 296 Sterling Place, which had its original cornice removed and now features a non-historic cornice. Although Morningside Heights lost a comparable number of cornices, this form of parging is not found in Morningside Heights, where cornices were often replaced with brick parapet walls.
Painting of the Facade
Across all three districts, the painting and coating of facades is a fairly common form of alteration that often does significantly alter the appearance of historic properties. The wholesale painting of facades is rare in all three districts, with only a handful of buildings that have been entirely painted. In most cases, the painting or coating of facades is limited to portions of the facades, primarily the basement, sub- basement and first stories. Painting at the base of buildings is especially common, across all three districts, on buildings with a stone—in the case of Prospect Heights primarily limestone—base.
Of the three districts, Morningside Heights has the lowest incidence of painting of this kind, with only 25 out of 110 contributing properties, less than a quarter of the properties, being thus altered. In absolute terms, Prospect Heights has more partially painted facades than Morningside Heights or Grand Concourse, but the percentage of partially painted buildings in Prospect Heights (approximately 39%) is slightly less than the percentage of buildings thus altered in Grand Concourse (approximately 42%).
Characteristic of Prospect Heights, however, is the painting of details, such as stone entry surrounds or lintels, on the district’s primarily brick facades, with an incidence roughly equivalent to that of painting across large portions of facades. This kind of alteration is uncommon in Grand Concourse or Morningside Heights. Despite the prevalence of this kind of alteration, because in such cases painting is limited to details, oftentimes only on limited portions of the facade, this kind of painting does not generally detract significantly from the overall appearance of the buildings.
Removal or Alteration of Cornices
The passage in 1979 of Local Law 10 requiring quadrennial facade inspections has led owners of some of the buildings in the proposed Prospect Heights Historic District, Morningside Heights Historic District and Grand Concourse Historic District, as well as the city at large, to remove cornices and other ornament. The removal, alteration and, more infrequently, replacement of cornices constitutes a major form of loss to historic fabric and significantly impinges on the overall appearance of historic buildings and districts.
As in Morningside Heights, roughly a quarter of the contributing buildings in the proposed Prospect Heights Apartment House District—23 in total—suffered from alteration, removal or replacement of cornices. According to the Morningside Heights Historic District designation report, this is relatively modest compared to other parts of the city. Additionally, in the Prospect Heights Apartment House District, of the 23 buildings that had their cornices removed, 296 Sterling Place lost its original cornice, as can be seen clearly in the 1980 tax photo, but a non-historic cornice has since been installed.
Of the three districts, Grand Concourse has the lowest incidence of cornice removal alteration or replacement. It is worth noting that more than half of the district’s buildings were originally designed without cornices, in large part due, no doubt, to the prevalence of Art Deco and Moderne influences in the district’s second major wave of development. Even then, only about 7% of buildings designed with cornices have since had their cornices removed, altered or replaced. However, of the buildings in Grand Concourse that were designed without cornices, nearly 20% have seen their parapets altered, with alterations ranging from the installation of non-historic metal copings to the removal of decorative brickwork. Thus, the rate of alterations at the parapet and cornice level in Grand Concourse is roughly equivalent to the rate of alteration of cornice in Morningside Heights and Prospect Heights.
Rooftop Additions and other Alterations
Unsympathetic rooftop additions that are clearly visible from the street have become a matter of concern in Prospect Heights, as excess development rights, combined with a growing real estate market, have recently made properties within the Prospect Heights Apartment House susceptible to uncharacteristic additions. These additions primarily consist of an architecturally undistinguished top story added at the roof, often flush with or set back only slightly from the facade. Nevertheless, only a small minority of buildings—nine in total, less than 10%—have undergone this form of alteration.
Although there are alterations and accretions to rooftops recorded in the designation reports for the other two districts, the alterations to rooftops in Grand Concourse and Morningside Heights are not exactly comparable to this kind of addition, often consisting of bulkheads and water towers that do not greatly affect the pedestrian experience of the districts. Among the alterations recorded in the Morningside Heights designation report there were two penthouses built atop historic buildings; however, in both cases, this additional story is set back from the facade and not immediately visible from the street.
The fact that rooftop additions of this kind are not present in Morningside Heights or Grand Concourse presents a challenge to comparing the relative integrity of the proposed Prospect Heights Apartment House District to that of the Morningside Heights Historic District and the Grand Concourse Historic District.
However, it is worth noting that the Grand Concourse also has a significant form of alteration--non- historic storefronts--that is by far less common both in the Morningside Heights Historic District and the proposed Prospect Heights Apartment House District. Despite the fact that the buildings that comprise the Grand Concourse Historic District remain highly intact, many have been retrofitted to include non- historic storefronts or have sustained other forms of alteration at their storefronts, causing visual disruption in the streetscape. In total, at the time of designation, 24--about a third of the properties--suffered some kind of alteration to their storefronts, in comparison to five in the proposed Prospect Heights Apartment House District (roughly 5%) and seven in the Morningside Heights Historic District (roughly 6%).
Although the alteration of storefronts and the construction of uncharacteristic rooftop additions are quite different and cannot be directly compared, both are significant alterations that can greatly impact the pedestrian experience of the districts. As we have seen, the proposed Prospect Heights and Grand Concourse Historic District otherwise display similar levels of integrity, as represented by the categories above, and the incidence of rooftop additions in the proposed district remains low.
Turner Towers
Photo/CuRBA
Another noteworthy rooftop alteration in the Prospect Heights Apartment House District is the loss of a tower on the roof of Turner Towers, a large, prominently located apartment building on Eastern Parkway. The 1940 tax photo clearly shows that the building once had a tower rising over the central bay of the building, which has since been removed, along with balconies in the 4th and 14th floors. This is not unlike alterations to similar buildings in the Morningside Heights Historic District and the Grand Concourse Historic District. The alteration is comparable to changes made to the Hendrick Hudson at 380 Riverside Drive in the Morningside Heights Historic District, which had its northernmost belvedere, the roof from the remaining southern belvedere, and the parapet between the belvederes removed. In Grand Concourse, 975 Walton Avenue underwent similar changes, with its pyramidal roofs being removed from the outer-bay towers.
Conclusion
The categories that we have used to compare the integrity of the Prospect Heights Apartment House District with the Morningside Heights Historic District and Grand Concourse Historic District do not exhaustively cover all forms of alterations in any of the districts. Because the districts have their distinct histories, they have sometimes proven prone to certain kinds of alteration that are more or less idiosyncratic to each district and are not necessarily easily comparable, either in kind or scope, to the most similar alterations sustained in the other two, as is the case of rooftop additions in Prospect Heights. In part because of the many factors involved, the concept of integrity is difficult to quantify and much of it remains largely qualitative. But the survey of the Prospect Heights Apartment House District shows that the district performed similarly to the Grand Concourse or Morningside Heights Historic Districts across the different categories. This indicates the district displays levels of integrity that are at the very least comparable to those of the Grand Concourse or Morningside Heights Historic Districts. The Prospect Heights Apartment House District remains largely intact, retaining its distinct character as an apartment house district and its remarkably cohesive streetscape.
Footnotes
Footnote 1 - The total number of properties in the district is 106, but this includes one vacant lot at 224 Underhill Avenue as well as 306 Lincoln Place, a building of no determinable style, 268 Lincoln Place, a utilitarian garage, and 856 Washington Avenue, a new building currently under construction. Additionally, 338 Saint John’s Place is included in our tables, because it is technically a separate address, but there is no building on Saint John’s Place visibly numbered 338 on the street; rather, a single building--326 Saint John’s Place--has two addresses, 326 and 336 incised on the entryway surround. The information associated with 326 applies likewise to 336, as the building presents a single, continuous facade.
Footnote 2 - The designation report describes the Morningside Heights Historic District as including approximately 115 properties; there are 114 in total. Of these 114 properties, 2929 Broadway, 542 Cathedral Parkway, 619 West 114th Street and 618 West 114th Street (a vacant lot) are listed as non-contributing.
Footnote 3 - The 78 properties in the Grand Concourse Historic District include Joyce Kilmer Park, two tax blocks occupied by Franz Sigel Park, and unimproved lots at 700 Gerard Avenue, 1050 Grand Concourse, as well as two unimproved lots on Walton Avenue that have no street number. We have limited our comparison with the Prospect Heights Apartment House District and Morningside Heights Historic District to the 71 buildings in the Grand Concourse Historic District. Of these 71, two--1072 Grand Concourse and 1040 Grand Concourse--are listed as having no style.
The campaign to designate the Prospect Heights Apartment House District as a New York City historic district is sponsored by:
CuRBA: The Cultural Row Block Association on Eastern Parkway
CuRBA was created in 2016 to organize and serve tenants and homeowners living between Plaza Street and Washington Avenue. CuRBA members share a concern for development with the potential to change the character of the neighborhood. The creation of a historic district has been one of CuRBA’s key initiatives. CuRBA also works on the beautification of Brooklyn’s cultural row, and addresses quality of life issues affecting residents. For more information on CuRBA, visit curbaonep.org.
The Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council
Since its founding in 2004, the Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council (PHNDC) has been the leading non-profit civic organization providing advocacy for neighborhood-wide issues on behalf of the residents and businesses of Prospect Heights in areas such as housing, transportation and preservation. Its successful campaigns have included the designation of a New York City landmark district in Prospect Heights and improved public accountability at the Atlantic Yards project. Through these and other initiatives, PHNDC has engaged and received the support of thousands of community members in Prospect Heights and its environs.
For more information, visit www.phndc.org.
To learn more about the Prospect Heights Apartment House District, please visit www.PreserveProspectHeights.com.