Established as a Dutch farming village in 1652, Vlacke Bos, meaning “flat woodland” in Dutch, was later Anglicized to Flatbush. Around the time that it became part of the city of Brooklyn in 1894, Flatbush began its transformation into a residential suburb. Real estate development in Flatbush was spurred in large part by the arrival in 1878 of the Brooklyn, Flatbush and Coney Island Railroad (now the Brighton Beach line) and the completion of the Brooklyn Bridge in 1883. These infrastructure advances made it possible for residents to commute to downtown Brooklyn and Manhattan for work. Flatbush was subdivided into several neighborhoods with distinct names at the turn of the 20th century. These residential enclaves were developed between the 1890s and 1920, with house prices ranging from roughly $3,000 to $13,000. The most elite was Prospect Park South, which was established by developer Dean Alvord. Alvord envisioned a “garden within the city,” eschewing the rowhouse trend that was popular throughout Brooklyn. To ensure this aesthetic was achieved, the infrastructure and landscaping were laid out prior to the sale of the lots. Alvord required that fences and plantings not extend beyond the house lines in order to create a unified sweep of front yards. The streets were given British names, such as Buckingham and Westminster, to further evoke the country ideal that had its roots in the English country house and that was experiencing a surge in popularity throughout America. Instead of street signs, Alvord installed masonry gateposts engraved with the street names. Today, Victorian Flatbush is comprised of 11 neighborhoods that were all developed with the suburban country aesthetic as inspiration, which is still evident in the layout of the streetscapes with their yards, freestanding homes, and in some places planted street medians. While the houses were all constructed around the same time, their ornamental details were carefully selected to distinguish each from the other. Today this group of neighborhoods makes up one of the largest collections of Victorian-era wood-frame residential architecture in the country, though only roughly half are legally protected by the city as historic landmarks. The area’s five historic districts are Albemarle-Kenmore Terraces, Prospect Park South, Ditmas Park, Midwood Park and Fiske Terrace. Due to the neighborhoods’ common attributes and shared sense of place, local residents and advocates are keen to “complete the quilt” of historic district designation and include Caton Park, Beverley Square West, Beverley Square East, Ditmas Park West, West Midwood and South Midwood. Hidden within this tapestry of grand turn-of-the-century homes are glimpses of Flatbush’s more distant past. At the northern end is the Flatbush Dutch Reformed Church, which has its roots in the earliest settlement of the area, and at the southern end stands a farmhouse dating to before the Civil War, when Flatbush was still farmland. These reminders of 18th- and 19th-century Flatbush lend the neighborhood a rich and multi-dimensional context to an otherwise largely monochrome landscape.

Rustic Shelter, Prospect Park, unknown date.

Colony Inn, ca.1910. The buildings that housed the Colony Inn during the first few decades of the 20th century were originally constructed in the early 19th century as farm houses when the area was still rural. After the Civil War, Flatbush Avenue became a commercial thoroughfare, as well as a fashionable location for new large homes, interspersed with the older wood-frame structures. The Colony Inn was opened in 1910 by Charles F. Heineman. Heineman was a dry goods dealer and an investor in many ventures including horse racing, car racing, and real estate. The popular Colony Inn was a hotel and restaurant. Heineman was very involved in fundraising efforts during and after World War I, hosting events that generated money for the war relief, the Salvation Army, and veteran's services. The end of the Colony Inn is shrouded in some mystery. References to the place end in 1924. (Most of these newspaper references are advertisements for African American service workers; the Colony only hired African American maids, porters, cooks, and waiters.) During the 1920s this stretch of Flatbush Avenue was lined with the construction of five and six-story apartment houses with ground floor retail spaces. The Colony Inn was likely closed and demolished to make way for one of these buildings.

582-590 Flatbush Avenue, 1922. No. 582, at right, was a late 19th century two and a half-story wood-frame home. According to the photograph notes, the home was demolished in 1928 for the construction of the Patio Theatre. The theatre was the grandest of the Century Theaters circuit. Designed by the architect-designer team of R.Thomas Short and William Rau, the auditorium was ornately designed with gilding and chandeliers. The style was "Old World Spanish." The theatre opened in 1928 and had early competition from the nearby Flatbush Theatre, Kenmore Theatre and Albemarle Theatre. The opening of the King's Theatre in 1929 put the Patio at a serious disadvantage. Despite the movie house surge after World War II and a renovation in 1948, the Patio was sold and demolished by the early 1960s.

590 Flatbush Avenue, known as the Thatcher House; July, 1928. John Thatcher was born in northwest England and immigrated to New York in about 1863, at the age of 10. In 1875, he founded the eponymous construction firm that would go on to become John Thatcher & Son (with son Edwin H. Thatcher). Thatcher & Son won several high profile contracts in Brooklyn, including the Polhemus Memorial Clinic, Erasmus Hall High School, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music (Edwin Thatcher's obituary headline read "Edwin Thatcher Dies; Built Academy of Music). The elder Thatcher became the Superintendent of the Bureau of Buildings for Brooklyn, but met his early demise in 1912, in the line of duty: he was inspecting new buildings on New Lots Avenue with a colleague (identified as an "Italian apprentice"), when the scaffolding collapsed and he plunged 40 feet to the pavement below. He died shortly thereafter, of a spinal fracture and brain hemorrhage. Edwin Thatcher served as Commissioner of Buildings from 1934-38, and continued to oversee the family firm's operations until shortly before his death in 1953. The high-rise currently occupying this site on the west side of Flatbush Avenue was completed in 1962.

Wood-frame house at 598 Flatbush Avenue, opposite Rutland Road; 1922. In 1908, this was the residence of Charlotte Vanderbilt, daughter of John. J Vanderbilt and Margaret Stryker Vanderbilt. According to photographer Eugene L. Armbruster, the house was razed between 1922 and 1936. Charlotte Vanderbilt died in 1924, at the age of 89; she is interred at Green-Wood Cemetery. In 1882, the Charlotte Vanderbilt, a steam ferry, sank on the Hudson River, south of Kingston and Rondout. This ferry was named after a different Charlotte Vanderbilt (likely a relative), the sister of ferry and rail magnate Cornelius "Commodore" Vanderbilt.

The Old Flatbush Toll Gate, unknown date. Originally located along the old Flatbush Turnpike, this Old Flatbush Toll Gate dates to an era when travelers were obliged to pay a small fare when they passed from the Village of Flatbush into the City of Brooklyn. While the 19th century turnpike no longer exists, the route generally followed what is known as today’s Flatbush Avenue. It stood along the Turnpike until 1925, when the toll gate was relocated to Prospect Park’s Willink Entrance. Residents who sought to avoid the toll were known to reroute to Port Road, also called Shinpike Road, which was a narrow and stony street that led to Gowanus and Red Hook Lane (now Court Street).

Flatbush Avenue toll gate, ca. 1880. Before 1894, when the various towns of Kings County were consolidated into the City of Brooklyn, the Village of Flatbush (roughly coextensive with the contemporary neighborhood) and Town of Flatbush (covering a larger swath of southeastern Brooklyn) were distinct political entities. This toll booth, situated on the west side of Flatbush Avenue — long a route between Brooklyn, proper, and points south — between Fenimore and Hawthorne Streets, marked the border of the Village of Flatbush.

Rubble from the demolition of No. 816 Flatbush Avenue, at Caton Avenue; July 17, 1929.

Music school at Flatbush Avenue and Parkside Avenue (formerly Ocean Parkway, Franklin Avenue); ca. 1908. According to Gertrude Lefferts Vanderbilt's 1909 "Social History of Flabush," this house was built by Mrs. Jane Rhodes (sometimes spelled 'Rhoades'). In Eugene L. Armbruster's photo, ca. 1908, the late Mrs. Rhodes' home has been converted to the "School of Accompanying," described in a 1911 Brooklyn Daily Eagle advertisement as a resource for pianists to "largerly increase" their income.

Garret L. Martense mansion, Flatbush Avenue; 1922. This Greek Revival mansion was the home of Judge Garret L. Martense for a portion of the mid 19th century. He was an early landowner in Flatbush. According to the photographic notes the home was razed in 1923. The building which now occupies the northwest corner of Flatbush Avenue and Westbury Court looks to have been built within the decade after the home was taken down, considering its architectural style.

Shops at Nos. 805-811 Flatbush Avenue, opposite Caton Avenue; May 11, 1929. These wood-frame structures were demolished in 1930, as Caton Avenue was extended east from Flatbush Avenue, along the path of the alley at right. Prior to the extension, the alley led to stables and further storefronts.

The home of Dr. Homer L. Bartlett, No. 88 Fenimore Street; 1910. Bartlett, described in his 1904 New York Times as "one of the most prominent physicians in Brooklyn," was born in Vermont in 1830, and came to New York to complete his medical training in the 1850s. His trade brought him to Kings County in 1856, where he treated an outbreak of yellow fever in the town of New Utrecht before settling in Flatbush. In Flatbush, Bartlett was involved in a wide array of civic institutions, including the Health Board, of which he was founder and commissioner; the Police Department, where he became president of the the board; and the gas and water utilities; in addition to a stint as schools commissioner. In his medical practice, Bartlett enjoyed a long association with the Kings County Hospital and the Kings County Penitentiary, as well as affiliations with trade associations like the American Medical Association. In what spare time he had left, Bartlett was an active member of his local Masonic Lodge and wrote fiction based "on the Indian legends of Long Island." Bartlett's wife, Margaret Scott Bartlett, asserted a different sort of influence on the town's development: at her suggestion the street adjacent to her home was named for the novelist James Fenimore Cooper, a family friend.

View west along Fenimore Street, from Bedford Avenue; 1914. The large house at center is No. 115 Fenimore Street. According to the Prospect Lefferts Gardens Historic District designation report, No. 115 was completed in 1896, and is one of the first two houses constructed in Lefferts Manor, the development established in 1893 by James Lefferts on the grounds of his family's farm. The wood-frame house is still standing today, albeit in rough shape following a 2010 fire.

Patio Theatre, 1929.

Flatbush Trust Company, undated postcard. Organized in 1899, the Flatbush Trust Company was the first bank in the neighborhood. While the largely agrarian nature of Flatbush in the 19th century hadn't required banking, the influx of people and business (particularly real estate development) to the area created a new need. The bank building seen here opened in 1903 and overall the Trust Company was a major success. They opened a second branch at Flatbush and Church Avenues in 1905 and by 1908 held $3.2 million in assets by 1908. The building here was expanded and drastically renovated in the 1920s when it became a branch of the American Exchange Irving Trust Co. Today it no longer stands, and its date of demolition is unknown.

Linden Theatre, Flatbush Avenue; June, 1928. Located at the eastern terminus of Caton Avenue, the Linden Theatre opened in 1911 had a twenty year run on Flatbush Avenue. The theatre was demolished in 1931 and replaced by a bank branch that survived until 2020 when it was cleared for a new residential building.

Farmhouse on Flatbush Avenue, opposite Fenimore Street; ca. 1920. The house is said to have been built by Samuel Gerritsen in about 1796. The Gerritsen family were early Dutch settlers of Kings County, and operated a mill on the creek separating the towns of Gravesend and Flatlands as early as the 1690s. The mill burned in 1935, and today its former site is included in Marine Park, just east of the Gerritsen Beach neighborhood. The farmhouse on Flatbush Avenue passed through many owners during the 19th century, and was at one point "famous for its ivy and garden." The house was demolished in 1926.

Greenhouse of William Brown, father-in-law of photographer Adrian Vanderveer Martense, in the aftermath of the blizzard of 1888. Brown was a player in the Brooklyn brewing business. In 1884 he led a group of investors in the purchase of the Bedford Brewery in present-day Crown Heights, and proceeded to upgrade its equipment and practices. Following a research and development trip to Europe, Brown returned to Kings County with the perfect recipe for lager beer, and the perfect name for his new brew: Budweiser. Unfortunately, the Anheuser-Busch corporation had already trademarked the name, following their own delegation's trip to the brewing city of Budweis in Bohemia. (Brown backed down, and the business was renamed Nassau Brewery.) An avid horticulturist, Brown commissioned the Lord & Burnham architectural firm to design a pair of heated greenhouses straddling the planned right of way for Robinson Road (now Parkside Avenue), east of Flatbush Avenue.

Streetcar on Flatbush Avenue, at Caton Avenue; ca. 1910. Photographer Eugene L. Armbruster's view is facing southward, from a point near Lenox Road. The spire of the Flatbush Reformed Dutch Church is visible in the distance.

Gas station at Flatbush Avenue and Chester Court; April, 1923. This 1842 farm house was the home of Cornelius Jeremiah "Corneel" Vanderbilt, son of the shipping and transportation magnate Cornelius "Commodore" Vanderbilt, during the late 19th century. Corneel, who was said to suffer from epilepsy, was held in ill-regard by his wealthy father, an opinion compounded by his repeated business errors. The junior Vanderbilt, then living in Connecticut, died by suicide in 1882. According to photographer Eugene L. Armbruster, the house was converted into a gas station with an attached storefront in 1922 and razed in 1926.

Adrian Vanderveer Martese house and front gate, after the Blizzard of 1888; March 14, 1888. Martense, the photographer of this collection, was a descendant of well-heeled Flatbush families and a prominent member of the village community. As clearly marked by the "A.V. MARTENSE, AMATEUR," photography was a leisure pursuit for Martense. A graduate of Rutgers and Columbia Law, Martense maintained a Montague Street practice throughout his professional life, while dedicating time to social pursuits, including the Knickerbocker Field Club, of which he was a founder; the Midwood and Crescent Clubs; and the Reformed Dutch Church, where he served as a deacon. Martense's photographs, which cover, roughly, the years 1872-1889, depict scenes of daily life in Flatbush, and document the residences of his contemporaries and neighbors on Diamond Street (now Lenox Road). Martense died on January 3 1898, succumbing to Bright's disease (the historical name for a variety of kidney diseases) at the young age of 45. The funeral was held at the family's Flatbush Avenue home (at the corner of, fittingly, Martense Street), where he had relocated in later years. He is today interred at Green-Wood Cemetery.