Designated April 24, 2001
Erected between c.1835 and 1847, these four houses are unusually intact survivors from the early nineteenth century residential neighborhood that once flourished on the blocks east of Brooklyn’s civic center. Moved two blocks to their present site in 1990, these houses were originally located on Johnson Street between Bridge and Lawrence Streets on one of several blocks developed by Rev. Samuel Roosevelt Johnson, who had inherited a portion of his grandfather’s colonial-era farm. Three of the houses were constructed by Johnson; No. 184 was erected in 1847 as an investment property by merchant Francis Chichester. Nos. 182, 184, and 186 display aspects of the Greek Revival style. No. 186 is especially noteworthy as one of the few surviving row houses in the city with a free-standing Greek Revival portico. No. 188, an 1830s house remodeled in the early 1880s, is ornamented with a combination of Queen Anne and Second Empire elements including an elaborate bracketed porch hood.