The Girl's High School 475 Nostrand Avenue Designed by James W. Naughton, 1885–86 James W. Naughton immigrated with his family from Ireland to Brooklyn when he was eight years old. Naughton became a trained architect and was closely involved in Brooklyn politics, which led him to the position of Superintendent of Buildings for the Board of Education from 1879–1898. As superintendent, Naughton designed all schools constructed in Brooklyn. The Girls’ School is the oldest surviving structure built as a high school in New York, and it served as the prototype for later high schools constructed in the city. A combination of Victorian Gothic and French Second Empire styles, the school is faced in red brick, terra cotta and contrasting stone. It is symmetrically massed, with a central towered entrance and three pavilions, each of which project and are connected by recessed sections. At the rear of the building is a large Collegiate-Gothic style addition designed in 1912 by long-time New York City Superintendent of School Buildings C.B.J. Snyder

1200 Dean Street (Arthur Bates Jennings, c. 1897; expansion: Dodge & Morrison with Kenneth M. Murchison, 1906) – NYC HD, NR-D This Romanesque Revival style church was completed in two phases about 10 years apart by different architects. The northern section facing Dean Street is the original building, while that facing Nostrand Avenue was added later. The church dominates the intersection with its romantic massing, including gables, conical and pyramidal turrets, and a campanile bell tower, as well as decorative features like round arches with rough-faced stone lintels, leaded glass windows, and slate tile roof. The church retains the neighborhood’s original name, Bedford.

First African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, ca. !!!!. The denomination known as the A.M.E. Zion Church traces the origins of its congregation to the John Street Methodist Church in Lower Manhattan. The John Street Methodist Church was a mixed-race congregation, which welcomed Black worshippers as many Methodist churches did following the Great Awakening. Though allowed to worship freely, Black members of the church still experienced overt discrimination, leading them to eventually break off into and form another church. The smaller churches that separated from the John Street Methodist Church were attended by only Black congregants, though the ministers were still exclusively white, causing tension among those who attended and those who led the church. The church separated for a second time, following Minister James Varick, an early attendant of the John Street Methodist Church. Varick, a Black man, became the first bishop of the newly-formed and independent African Methodist Episcopal Zion denomination. By 1866, the A.M.E. Zion denomination had 42,000 members and, by 1868, its size had quadrupled. At the end of the Civil War, the church was sending missionaries to the South to educate newly emancipated freed men. A.M.E. Zion is sometimes referred to as "Freedom Church" for its connection to Abolitionism. The First A.M.E. Zion Church in Bedford-Stuyvesant was originally part of what was known as the Fleet Street Church, which was organized in 1885 by a small group of 15 people who applied to join the A.M.E. Zion denomination. Like many other historic Black churches in the borough, the group had separated from the Bridge Street A.M.E. in Downtown Brooklyn. The church's first building was the largest of the A.M.E. Zion denomination. By 1942, they purchased the building seen here at Tompkins and MacDonough Street, which seats about 6,000 people and is even today one of the largest A.M.E. Zion buildings.

P.S. 93 is an elementary school located in Crown Heights, Brooklyn at the corner of Atlantic Avenue and New York Avenue. The school was built in 1907 in the "Collegiate Gothic" style. It was designed by the "school builder" of New York City, C.B.J. Snyder, who designed hundreds of school buildings in New York over his lifetime. In fact, he was appointed the Superintendent of School Building in the borough of Manhattan in 1891. Like many buildings in the Collegiate Gothic style, Snyder's P.S. 93 is meant to invoke feelings of academic prestige. The plan of the building is an L-shape, a departure from the architect's signature H-shaped school buildings, though a reflection of the corner lot it occupied. The building's structure is a steel skeleton frame to allow for large windows to let light and fresh air into classrooms. The bricks used in the building are fire-proof terracotta. Decorating the facade, the faces of medieval scholars and various owls of wisdom adorn the structure. This building still operates as an elementary school to this date.

Hebron French Speaking Seventh Day Adventist Church 100 New York Avenue (Henry Ives Cobb, 1909-10) This striking church is the area’s only example of neo-Byzantine style architecture. It features unusual massing, an octagonal sanctuary, a pyramidal roof, round arch openings, identical entrance pavilions on New York Avenue connected by a curving, blind arcade, and intricate stained glass with floral and figural motifs. Originally constructed for the First Church of Christ Scientist, it was designed by noted Chicago architect Henry Ives Cobb, who was famous for his design of the Fisheries Building at the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893.

Union United Methodist Church, School and Parsonage 121 New York Avenue Designed by Josiah C. Cady & Co., 1889-91 This monumental building was originally constructed for the New York Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church. Its Romanesque Revival style design was the work of Josiah Cady, who was known for his use of the style, especially for churches, but which he also famously employed for the south wing of the American Museum of Natural History. The red brick and sandstone church does not feature a lot of ornament, but its solid and complex massing, arched openings, and detailed brickwork are masterfully arranged. Its tower was intended to have a pyramidal roof, but was never completed. The tower was designed with an elaborate air ventilation system, whereby fresh air was drawn through pipes and ducts to cool the building in the summer and warm air from the furnace was funneled upward to warm the building in the winter. The basement once contained a bowling alley. The Union United Methodist Church, School and Parsonage are located in the Crown Heights North Historic District and the State and National Register of Historic Places Crown Heights North Historic District.

Brooklyn Orphan Asylum, ca. 1905. In 1833 a group of local progressive (and wealthy) reformers established the Orphan Asylum of the city of Brooklyn. The orphanage was originally located on Cumberland Street, but by the 1860s the building was running out of space. Fundraising by the wealthy Brooklynites who founded the organization allowed them to buy land in Bedford Stuyvesant and erect a new structure in 1870. The new orphanage, “Modern English Gothic” in style and massive in size, housed both boys and girls for the next seven decades. By the 1940s both the cost of building upkeep in the face of WWII and the declining population of orphans prompted the organization to relocate to Long Island. After the asylum vacated the space in 1942, the building was commandeered by the War Department to house troops before they shipped out. Following the close of the war, the city purchased the land and demolished the building for the full-block St. Andrew’s Playground.

In October of 1971, a group of protesters effectively closed J.H.S. 263. The action was inspired by the ousting of Principal Ozelius Clement. For the week leading up to the occupation, parents boycotted the school by barring their children from attendance. On October 13th, they locked arms to block entry into the building. According to the New York Times: "Parents and other community residents who have been supporting the two principals have charged that the district board, headed by Assemblyman Samuel D. Wright, is attempting to purge school personnel who will not support its efforts to use the district as a power base to enhance Mr. Wright's political ambitions. Mr. Wright has denied the charge."

Enoch Grand Lodge 423 Nostrand Avenue Designed by Heins & LaFarge, 1890 This exuberant building features a dominant corner tower, contrasting brick and terra cotta, finials, stylized capitals and stained glass from its days as the Reformed Episcopal Church of the Reconciliation. The building is notable for its architects. George Lewis Heins and Christopher Grant LaFarge met while studying at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and both trained under the renowned architect H.H. Richardson. A year after this church was completed, they won the design contest for the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Manhattan. They later became the designers of stations and buildings for the city’s first subway system, the IRT, in 1901.

Nostrand Avenue at Fulton Street, August 11, 1950. The Nostrand Avenue Line trolley tracks are visible at center on Nostrand. Traveling along Fulton Street is a bus manufactured by the General Motors Corporation. This was a GM "old-look" bus (compared to the “new-look” or “fishbowl” buses that were introduced in 1959). These vehicles, produced mostly between 1940 and 1959, were created with a monocoque (or structural skin) design, rather than a body-on-frame design, were diesel-powered, and had smaller windows than many of the buses produced after 1950. Some have compared the shape of this bus to a loaf of sandwich bread.

Row of shops on Fulton Street, west of Tompkins Avenue, May 14, 1942. P.L. Sperr’s photo was taken almost two years after the Fulton Street elevated line was dismantled, and four years after the IND Fulton Street subway opened. The shops — grocery stores, lunch counters, and meat markets — occupy a row of wood-framed structures dating to at least 1880. Today, those buildings appear intact, though cornices have been stripped and upper story clapboards have been replaced with synthetic siding.

This villa-style home is one of the oldest surviving structures in the neighborhood and a vestige of Bedford-Stuyvesant’s bucolic days. It was constructed for William A. Parker in 1863, who was a local hops and malt merchant. The house was later occupied by James McMahon, the founder and president of the Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank. Since 1945, this structure has been occupied by the United Order of the Tents. The United Order of the Tents was founded as part of the underground railroad, and after the Civil War, was officially organized as a charity and lodge. It is one of the oldest lodges for African-American women in the nation.

Girls High School, May 1, 1942. Built 1885 to 1886, Girls High School is the oldest extant (surviving) public high school building in New York City. The school is described in its landmark designation report as "a striking combination of Victorian Gothic and French Second Empire styles." The architect was James Naughton, the Superintendent of Buildings for the Board of Education of the City of Brooklyn. He also created a 1891 rear extension, which has since been demolished. A 1912 Collegiate Gothic addition was designed by C.B.J Snyder, who later held the same position as Naughton, though his purview was all five boroughs. According to an 1895 article in the New York Times, it was "the ambition of every Brooklyn girl... to enter the Girls' High School where she may enjoy the advantages of an advanced education and be prepared for college." Famous alumni of the school include singer Lena Horne, politician Shirley Chisholm, and Jean Nidetch, who found Weight Watchers.

The Bedford-Stuyvesant community in northwest Brooklyn is a residential area, home to ornate rows of brownstones, early middle-class apartment buildings and several institutional structures. Bedford-Stuyvesant is characterized by its wide, tree-covered avenues and low-scale residences; generally only church spires and school towers rise taller than four stories. The majority of the buildings were constructed on speculation to house New York’s growing middle class, generally between 1870 and 1920. As late as 1869, Bedford-Stuyvesant was largely rural, with only some country houses and frame dwellings. In 1872 masonry rowhouses appeared when developer Curtis L. North commissioned 23 Italianate style rowhouses. From this point until the 1890s, development proceeded with many speculative builders and investors employing local architects to build residences; schools, churches and other institutions also appeared to serve the growing community. The Brooklyn Bridge opened in 1883, followed by the elevated line along Bedford-Stuyvesant’s commercial artery, Fulton Street, in 1888. Easier access to downtown Brooklyn and Manhattan greatly increased real estate values in the neighborhood. By the 1890s, speculative apartment houses debuted in Bedford-Stuyvesant, officially marking the change from a suburban to an urban area. The opening of the Williamsburg Bridge in 1903 bolstered this urbanization, and Bedford-Stuyvesant was densely built up by the end of the 1920s. The 1930s marked a population shift for Bedford-Stuyvesant as it became an increasingly African-American neighborhood. When the IND transit lines connecting the area to Harlem opened in 1936, Harlem residents were eager to leave cramped quarters for newer, more spacious options in Bedford-Stuyvesant. By 1950 the area was 90% black, and it remains a thriving African- and Caribbean-American neighborhood today. Bedford-Stuyvesant is an aesthetic gem of elegant residences. Many houses have yards with plantings surrounded by original cast-iron fences. Rowhouses are set back from the street and possess their original stoops and railings. The architectural style of buildings followed the trends popular during the area’s development, including Italianate, Neo-Grec, Romanesque Revival, Queen Anne, and, at the turn of the 20th century, Neo-Renaissance and Neo-Georgian appeared. The materials of the buildings also give an idea of their age; older buildings were constructed of brick and brownstone, while light-colored brick, terra-cotta and limestone became increasingly popular toward the turn of the 20th century. Stuyvesant Heights in Bedford-Stuyvesant was designated a New York City historic district in 1975, and a large extension of its boundaries had a public hearing in 2011. Residents in other areas of Bedford-Stuyvesant, including Bedford Corners, Stuyvesant North and Stuyvesant East, are also advocating for the landmarking of their neighborhoods. The low-scale buildings on tree-lined streets share architects, styles and details, together making Bedford-Stuyvesant a distinctive piece of New York City.

St. Matthew’s Protestant Episcopal Church (formerly Tompkins Avenue Presbyterian Church), ca. 1905. This red brick Victorian Gothic church was built in the early 1870s, by Massachusetts-born architect George Hathorne. However, by July, 1875, the church had been foreclosed on, and was rented to the Tompkins Avenue Congregational Church. In 1889, the Congregational Church moved into a brand-new structure directly across MacDonough Street, and the original Tompkins Avenue Presbyterian Church was sold to St. Matthew’s Protestant Episcopal. Since 1944, the Stuyvesant Heights Christian Church has worshipped there.

(church and rectory: George P. Chappell, 1886-90 parish house: Montrose Morris Sons, 1921) – church: NYC IL church and rectory: Set back from Pacific Street by a low fence, wrought iron gate a front yard, St. Bartholomew’s Church was designed in the Arts and Crafts style and features a roundarched stained glass window designed by Tiffany Studios in 1930, making it one of the studio’s last commissions, and a large square tower and belfry. The church played a significant role as one of the venerable institutions near Grant Square catering to the area’s Episcopal population. While the church itself is an individual landmark, neither the rectory to the east nor the parish house to the west are designated. The rectory is believed to have been constructed at the same time by the same architect, while the neo-Gothic parish house was added in 1921.

Invincible Club, ca. 1915. Constructed sometime before 1880, this building served as a private home for its first decade or so. In the mid 1890s its was sold to a private club called the the Irving Club, before being sold to the (hopefully) named Invincible Club, a local Republican political group. The political club added an addition to the house and hosted political speeches and rallies over the first three decades of the 20th century. At some point in the mid century the building was divided up and occupied as an SRO. It underwent a large-scale renovation in 2011 and is now a rental unit.

Sometimes creating affordable housing and preserving historical architecture goes hand-in-hand, like at Alhambra Apartments in Bed-Stuy. The block-long apartment building is located on Nostrand Avenue between Halsey and Macon Streets and dates back to 1889. It was designed by prominent NYC architect Montrose W. Morris, and features a unique blend of the Romanesque Revival and Queen Anne styles. The New York Times has even described this building as Morris’ “masterpiece”! Although designated as an official NYC historic landmark in 1986, Alhambra Apartments remained vacant and severely dilapidated until 1995 when HPD helped preserve its historic façade and convert its interior into low-income affordable housing with homeless set-asides. In 2010, HPD provided additional financing to secure the building’s stability and affordability, allowing it to be a pillar of the Bed-Stuy community into the future. In keeping with this work, HPD has now released a housing plan for Bed Stuy to prevent displacement, reduce housing speculation and create new affordable rental and homeownership opportunities on vacant land. Learn more at nyc.gov/bedstuy

Alhambra Apartments ARCHITECT: Montrose W. Morris DATE: 1889-90 STYLE: Romanesque Revival The Alhambra Apartments in the heart of Bedford-Stuyvesant is one of Brooklyn’s major apartment houses. Designed by Montrose W. Morris, it was built in 1889-90 by developer Louis F. Seitz and was one of a number of commissions Morris executed for Seitz, including two other exceptional apartment buildings, the Renaissance and the Imperial. Although the ground floor was converted into storefronts in 1923, the Alhambra is a distinguished design in a romantic combination of the Romanesque Revival and the Queen Anne styles.

Central Presbyterian Church, 1909. This site is now the Siloam Presbyterian Church. The structure photographed here is the Central Presbyterian Church. The church was lost in a fire in the 1930s and was rebuilt in 1936, though shortly after the congregation moved to 1200 Dean Street to merge with the Bedford Presbyterian Church. The building sat empty for some years until another congregation moved in. Siloam Presbyterian, a historically Black church, was originally looking to build a new structure in the place of their original worship hall at the intersection of Fulton and Cranberry Streets. However, the construction of the Manhattan Bridge Approach encroached on a portion of the land they were looking to develop. After years of meeting in various congregation halls and community spaces, Siloam Presbyterian Church moved to the former Central Church in 1944. At 260 Jefferson Street, Siloam Presbyterian continued its legacy as a site that pioneered activism and social reform. Its Reverend, Milton Galamison, was a member of the Brooklyn Branch of the NAACP and an outspoken community activist. He founded the Parents' Workshop for Equality in New York Schools, which strived to end racial discrimination and offer all children equal opportunities, namely Black and Puerto Rican students who had been disenfranchised by the New York Public School System. In 1959, Siloam hosted the "Moslem Dinner and Surprise Program," a program run by Malcolm X, a member of the Nation of Islam at the time. Galamison, of Siloam, was the leader of one of the largest Presbyterian congregations in the predominantly African-American neighborhood of Bed-Stuy. By opening his doors to another religious group, Rev. Galamison "situated the Muslims...in a place encoded by a tradition that shared the NOI’s commitment to anti-racist work," according to Zaheer Ali in the African American Intellectual Society's "Black Perspectives." This move united the two leaders and was exemplary of how "local conditions placed different activists and their communities into shared spaces that offered the potential for the exchange and critique of ideas." In later years, Galamison organized two school boycotts: the first in 1964, called "Freedom Day," to pressure the Board of Education to integrate schools, and the second just a month later. In 2019, Siloam Presbyterian Church celebrated its 170th year anniversary.

While not a particularly distinguished architectural contribution to the neighborhood on first glance, Stuy Park House, a senior housing complex, holds an important cultural significance to Crown Heights North. Its architect, John Louis Wilson, Jr., was the first black architect to graduate from the Columbia University School of Architecture. Throughout his 50-year career, he served as a mentor to black architects, helping many to get their start in the field. In the mid-1950s, he founded the Council for Advancement of Negroes in Architecture, which eventually merged with the American Institute of Architects (AIA). In 1984, the AIA honored Wilson with the Whitney M. Young Jr. citation. His most famous work was the Harlem River Houses at 151st Street and the Harlem River Drive in Manhattan, the first federally financed housing project, completed in 1937.