Next Up at the LPC: Fiske Terrace/Midwood Park!
From the New York Times
Aging Beauties, Factory-Made
By JENNIFER BLEYER
September 30, 2007
Fiske Terrace and Midwood Park look and feel much as they did a century ago, when the conjoined neighborhoods were built on razed farmland in central Brooklyn.
Their grand wood frame houses in the Queen Anne and Colonial Revival styles, with broad front porches, peaked roofs and lush gardens, evoke gracious country living within the city. It is not hard to picture women in high-necked gowns and men in silk waistcoats gently swaying on porch swings at twilight.
For nearly a decade, residents eager to protect the area from overdevelopment, and its houses from inappropriate alteration, have sought to have the neighborhoods designated as a historic district. Now they are preparing for a long-awaited public hearing, on Oct. 16, at which the Landmarks Preservation Commission will decide on the designation for 12 blocks bounded by Foster and Ocean Avenues, Avenue H and the subway tracks of the B and Q trains.
“People come here and can’t believe they’re in the center of Brooklyn,” said Fred Baer, a former president of the Fiske Terrace Association, who bought his 1908 Mission-style house on the block 27 years ago. “We just want the character of the neighborhoods to be preserved.”
To Andrew Dolkart, a professor of historic preservation at Columbia University, one important but often overlooked aspect of the neighborhoods’ significance is how they fit into the history of middle-class housing in the city.
“These were neighborhoods of speculative development built for the middle class in the early decades of the 20th century,” Professor Dolkart said. “They were the next generation of the row house development that we love. In fact, you can trace families moving from the row house neighborhoods of Brooklyn to these suburban neighborhoods.”
Unlike custom-designed houses in nearby Ditmas Park and Prospect Park South, the houses of Midwood Park and Fiske Terrace were essentially mass produced, beginning in 1905.
Fiske Terrace, which was developed by Theodore Ackerson, featured blocks of houses built from set patterns with external variations that made them appear distinctive. The houses of Midwood Park, developed by John Corbin, were built of prefabricated frames, beams and interior trim cut at a factory on Jamaica Bay that was equipped to churn out a thousand homes a year. The materials were shipped to the construction site, there to be assembled, with variations specified by the owner. The landmarks agency is completing a detailed study of the approximately 250 houses in the area, but a commission spokeswoman said the designation as a historic district was likely to be approved.
Supporters of the plan express optimism. “Landmarks supports this, and most of the neighbors do too,” Mr. Baer said. “So we’re very excited.”
Copyright 2007
For more info, see HDC’s Neighborhoods At Risk: Fiske Terrace/Midwood Park