Meet the Fiske Terrace-Midwood Park Landmark District

Among the many actions taken by the Landmarks Preservation Commission yesterday was a vote to create a Fiske Terrace-Midwood Park Historic District. The new district will be bounded by Foster Avenue on the north, Avenue H on the south, Ocean Avenue on the east and the subway line carrying the Q and other trains on the west. There are more than 250 homes in the district. Per the LPC, in a document prepared for the session:

The proposed Fiske Terrace – Midwood Park Historic District is a planned development consisting of approximately 250 predominantly free-standing single-family residences constructed during the first two decades of the twentieth century. The predominantly Colonial Revival and Shingle Style houses are largely intact, asymmetrically massed and feature spacious porches, elaborate projecting towers, oriels and bays, Palladian windows and deep eaves. The neighborhood also has an unusual street plan that includes landscaped malls and short streets that dead-end at the BMT subway cut.

Fiske Terrace – Midwood Park occupies land that was originally part of the Lott farm, and is now considered to be part of the larger neighborhood of Flatbush. The initial impetus for development of Flatbush occurred with the completion of the Brooklyn Bridge in 1883 and followed with the construction of the Brooklyn, Flatbush and Coney Island railroad in 1895. The first development in the area was Tennis Court in 1886. The construction of park-like suburbs such as Prospect Park South (1899) provided a model for the developments of Fiske Terrace and Midwood Park.

Despite their visual similarity Fiske Terrace and Midwood Park developed independently. Theodore B. Ackerson, one of Brooklyn’s most important contractors and real estate developers purchased the 30-acre estate of George P. Fiske in 1905. Ackerson constructed residences in series of tens from stock plans. The houses had uniform features and standards of quality but with some exterior variety suited to the buyers’ tastes. The construction of Fiske Terrace was virtually completed by 1920. Midwood Park was developed by contractor and architect John R. Corbin also starting around 1905. Corbin used innovative prefabrication techniques. He built a factory on Jamaica Bay at East 56th Street that was capable of turning out 1,000 homes a year. All frames, beams, and interior trim were cut at the factory and then shipped to the construction site for assembly. Corbin’s clients could hire their own architects, or they could employ one of Corbin’s designers. Midwood Park was nearly completed by 1910.

There is an item on all of the landmark action yesterday at the CityRoom on the landmarking and a lot of material at the LPC’s website, if one scrolls down to the section on the new district.

Bklink: Victorian Flatbush Landmarking

The decision on whether to landmark Victorian Flatbush’s Midwood Park and Fiske Terrace is slated to be announced this week. The outlook is pretty good.–NYT

Hope for Loew’s Kings in Flatbush

The status of the rehab of the Loew’s Kings Theater in Flatbush has been a mystery for a while, but today’s Post seems to confirm a report that appeared on Brooklyn Junction back in January that there is significant progress in finding a developer. In January, Brooklyn Junction noted that a “major” operator was interested in theater. Today, the Post notes that the city “has begun soliciting bids” for the theater, although efforts have actually been underway since 2006 to find a developer. The 79-year-old theater closed in 1978 and has been deteriorating ever since. The bigger project would involve air rights, a big parking lot, “a boutique hotel” and retail. The Post puts the cost of rehabbing the theater at $70 million, which is double figures that have been previously noted.

Bklink: Target!

The “Brooklyn College Target” is open at Flatbush and Nostrand Avenues. “The store first welcomed customers on Tuesday, March 4th. Though the signs on the door have said ‘Opens March 9th’ for about two weeks, it turns out that date is the official ‘Grand Opening’. The store opened with a ‘soft opening’ five days early.” There are many, many photos of the new Tar-zhay.–Brooklyn Junction

Bklink: Greening Flatbush

A nice group showed up for the Greening Flatbush event yesterday. “It was the inaugural event for the Gardening Committee of Sustainable Flatbush, and we’re all pretty pleased with ourselves.” There was News 12 coverage and a full photoset is here.–Flatbush Gardener

Bklink: Flatbush Veggies

Community Supported Agriculture, or CSA, is coming to Flatbush. “Shayna Lewis, last year’s market manager at the Cortelyou Rd. farmers’ market, is working with one of the farmers from that market, Jorge Carmona from Amantai Farm, to start a CSA in the neighborhood. They’ve already got 20 members signed up and their goal is 40. ” There are many details.–Sustainable Flatbush

Upcoming: Greening Flatbush

Sustainable Flatbush is sponsoring a “Greening Flatbush” event on Sunday, February 24. Here’s something from the release we got about it from Chris Kreussling, who is also the person behind the Flatbush Gardener blog:

On Sunday, February 24, residents and other members of the greater Flatbush community can learn what they can do to beautify and improve the environment of their neighborhood.

“Greening Flatbush: Garden Where You Are” is an afternoon of short lectures, demonstrations, and workshops on topics ranging from planting and caring for street trees to composting with worms in your kitchen…Greening Flatbush is Sunday, February 24, from 1:30 to 4:30pm at the
Flatbush Branch of the Brooklyn Public Library at 22 Linden Boulevard. The event is free, but space is limited. To register, or if you have questions about this event, please email greeningflatbush@gmail.com.

You can check out Flatbush Gardener’s post about the event here. Making things green is a nice thing to think about around this time of year.

Bklink: Flatbush Target

How one feels about the way the Target on Flatbush Avenue looks probably depends on how one feels about Atlantic Center-type buildings versus wanting to have a Target nearby. In any case there are many photos which one can use to draw conclusions in case one hasn’t seen it.–Fading Ad Blog

Imagining Flatbush 2030

There was another meeting in Flatbush last night as part of the Imagining Flatbush 2030 effort to create a neighborhood-based framework for future planning. The Municipal Art Society has produced this video from an earlier session. It starts out with Mayor Bloomberg talking about the PlaNYC 2030 effort and moves on to discussions in Flatbush, all with a music soundtrack. MAS calls it an attempt “to incorporate more Jacobsonian ideals of livability” in the city’s PlaNYC 2030.

New Neighborhood Blog: The Real Flatbush

We’re looking forward to interesting things from The Real Flatbush, a new blog that bills itself as being for “non-pretentious people who live in Flatbush.” There’s this post, for intance, on hook up spots in the neighborhood:

This being a neighborhood blog, I’ve decided to chronicle the best pick up spots on Flatbush. My favorites are Stop N Shop and Staples, on Regent, C-Town on Church and Argyl and C-Town off New Kirk Plaza. These are great places to meet new people. After 5:30 to 7 on weekdays are the best. This is the after work crowd. Most of the women and men are single professionals. Also on Saturday and Sunday Mid Mourning till 2 PM. I also like the Variety store on the corner of Parkside and Flatbush next to the Duane Reade. I’ve found that places that are not too pretentious or overdone are great to meet down to earth people.

Or check out this Christmas Day post on “Best Date Spots on Flatbush.” In a much more serious vein, have a look at yesterday’s post on “Microaggression in Flatbush,” which raises some important questions:

I like to park my car near those free standing houses near and around Ditmas Park and Prospect Park South. It seems that the home owners are very stand offish to such things. A while back I parked my car on one of those streets in the morning. On my way back from work I picked up my car. It had been awhile since I checked my oil. I looked under the hood. As I was working on my car a white family that was in a conversation was walking down the street. As soon as they saw me the conversation stopped and there was this silence. The mom hurried her kids into the house. Another white neighbor guy from across the street looked around and went back to his house. Less than a minute later the security patrol car came and decided to park his car right near where I was checking my oil…I then realized that this might have been a microaggresive behavior. Has this ever happen to other Black men living in the area? Part of the reason that I loved Flatbush when I was growing up was that I did not have to deal with that kind of subtle racism from my neighbors.

We look forward to a lot more from The Real Flatbush.