Kent Avenue, west side, between Myrtle and Park Avenues, showing Public School No. 157, 1929. Constructed in 1906, P.S. 157 is elaborate Gothic Revival-style building designed by C.B. J. Snyder. The school suffered neglect, water damage, and misguided alterations throughout the 20th century. The original structure included an ornate parapet with 40 terra cotta “learned” owls attached. In the early 21st century, an architectural firm undertook an extensive renovation that recreated more than 5,000 units of terra cotta, including the parapet and owls.

“Vanderbilt Avenue, at the southeast corner of Willoughby Avenue, showing the Chas. E. Pratt Mansion and stables. October 12, 1940.” Charles Pratt, an oil magnate and philanthropist, founded and endowed the Pratt Institute in Clinton Hill in 1887. The stable has since been demolished, but the main house has remained largely unaltered under the stewardship of the sisters of St. Joseph’s College, where it is now known as Founders Hall.

In 1874, Charles Pratt’s Astral Oil Works was acquired by John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil, making Pratt a very rich man. That same year, he broke ground on a trendsetting mansion on Clinton Avenue, soon to be the most sought-after address for Brooklyn’s burgeoning industrialist class. The first of the Clinton Avenue mansions, Pratt’s home was designed by architect Ebenezer Roberts in a transitional Italianate/Neo-Grec style. The home originally included gardens, stables, and a greenhouse on the property’s Vanderbilt Avenue frontage, but these outbuildings have been lost. Today, the mansion is part of St. Joseph’s College, under whose care many original features have been preserved.

“143-145 Vanderbilt Ave., east side, north of and near Myrtle Ave. July 22, 1934." Semi-attached wooden frame houses built in 1850 as rental properties for the Brooklyn merchant Henry Rider. Today, these houses are part of the Wallabout Historic District.

Simpson Methodist Episcopal Church, 1934. The Romanesque Revival church was designed by William A. Mundell in 1869. Mundell was a prolific New York architect, responsible for the design of Brooklyn landmarks including the Long Island Safe Deposit Building near Fulton Ferry and armories in Williamsburg, Park Slope, and on Clermont Avenue. Today, his red-brick church is home to the Eglise Baptiste D’Expression Française, a Francophone Baptist congregation.

283 DeKalb Avenue, March 17, 1957.

Crossing guard outside Ack’s Bar and Luncheonette at the corner of Classon and DeKalb Avenues, October 25, 1957.

Clinton Avenue contains some of Brooklyn’s finest 19th century architecture, including the Gilded Age mansions that made it the borough’s most fashionable address. A walk down the length of the avenue tells the story of this transformation: from the provincial farming community shaped by a handful of prominent landowners to a “Gold Coast” boulevard of grand Renaissance Revival buildings, and later to the tension between wartime housing needs, development, and the nascent historic preservation movement.

128 Clinton Avenue ARCHITECT: Unknown DATE: 1853-54 STYLE: Greek Revival This unusually well-preserved and rare free-standing Italianate style frame house with Greek Revival style elements was erected for Henry and Susan McDonald in 1853-54. The house’s cubic form, low-hipped roof, strongly projected bracketed eaves, molded window surrounds, wood-and-glass double doors with segmental-arched transom and wood reveal, and columned portico enriched with dentils and paired brackets are characteristic of the Italianate style. Greek Revival style elements include the fluted porch columns with Tower of the Winds Corinthian capitals and first-story windows with eared surrounds.

The Mergenthaler Linotype Company set the standard for printing companies in the late 19th century and early 20th century with a design so robust it remained unchanged for almost a century. Ottmar Mergenthaler, a German-born clock designer, invented the linotype machine to replace the arduous process of hand-setting individual characters lines for printing newspapers, books, magazines, and posters. Linotype, or "line-o-type," cast a line, or "slug," of characters which were entered by a typist on a 90-character keyboard. The line, or "matrix," would serve as the mold for a molten metal alloy to be cast into it. The final result of the process was a metal slug, ready print on a letterpress. Mergenthaler built his company's factory in the neighborhood of Wallabout, in proximity to both the Brooklyn Harbor and the newly minted Myrtle Avenue El. The original factory building, on Ryerson Street between Flushing Avenue and Park Avenue, was updated in 1906 for an Albert Kahn design reinforced-concrete structure. By 1916, Mergenthaler's factories grew to take over the blocks spanning Hall and Grand Streets to the east and west and Vanderbilt and Park Avenue to the north and south. The Mergenthaler Linotype Company's buildings still exist, though the linotype company was pushed into oblivion by the invention of phototypesetting, and later, computerized typesetting programs.

St. Mary’s Episcopal Church ARCHITECT: Richard T. Auchmuty DATE: 1858-59 STYLE: Gothic Revival St. Mary’s Church is a beautiful Gothic Revival structure reminiscent of an English rural parish church. Built in 1858, it was designed by a relatively unknown architect, Richard T. Auchmuty, in accordance with the religious philosophy of ecclesiology. This movement laid out a strict set of rules for the design of Episcopal churches, which required the honest use of the best materials, the orientation of the church on an east-west axis, and the exterior design to reflect the plan and construction of the interior. In addition to its handsome form, St. Mary’s has beautiful ornamentation and attractive pointed-arched and rose windows.

Some might say that the name, The Graham Home for Old Ladies, is an improvement on its predecessor, the Brooklyn Society for the Relief of Respectable Aged Indigent Females. It’s certainly more to the point. When the building at 320 Washington opened in 1851, it housed 90 women from Brooklyn who were over 60 and could “bring satisfactory testimonials of the propriety of her conduct and the respectability of her character.” Eventually, the home ran out of money and sat vacant until it was turned into the Bull Shippers Plaza Motor Inn, an establishment where conduct and respectability, not to mention AARP membership, were no longer a prerequisite. The Inn operated as a brothel by "ladies by the hour who brought only scanty-panty testimonials of propriety.”\* In 2001, the building was bought and turned into condos. The scanty panty line comes courtesy of the now defunct Fort Greene Newsletter.

The two-story light-colored stone building is 183 Vanderbilt Avenue, a stable built between 1886-1908 and marked by the stone bust of a horse’s head above its entrance. Vanderbilt Avenue was home to several turn-of-the-century service buildings, including the row of three carriage houses to the right of the stable. To the left, the shop at 177 Vanderbilt is advertised as Paul F. Bird Machines and Hauling.

“Clinton Avenue, Brooklyn’s Show Street,” from a Brooklyn Eagle postcard series 1905-07. From right to left are: no. 245, the George Dupont Pratt mansion, now Burns hall of St. Joseph’s College; no. 241, the Charles Millard Pratt house, now the residence of the Roman Catholic Bishop of Brooklyn; and no. 229, the Frederic B. Pratt House. The latter, today known as the Catherine Ladd Pratt House, is a gray brick Georgian/Renaissance Revival mansion designed by Babb, Cook & Willard. Built in 1895, the house is notable for its inventive solution to the adjacent rowhouses at the property’s northern edge: a two-story portico entranceway with a second-level colonnade with pillars carved to look like female figures.

In 1844, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle printed the following prediction “THE CITY OF CHURCHES — such, in time, will be the distinctive appellation of Brooklyn.” In the ensuing decades, the incorporation of new houses of worship matched the pace of residential development and reflected the diverse ancestry of the immigrant communities who settled there. The buildings of the 19th and 20th centuries express the evolution of American church architecture, as dictated by the pride and prosperity of worshippers from Bushwick to Bay Ridge.

P.S. 157, The Benjamin Franklin 850 Kent Avenue, Clinton Hill, Brooklyn 1909 Shortly after the turn of the 20th century, architect C.B.J. Snyder’s goal was to build a world-class public school system for New York City. Constructed in 1909, P.S. 157, an “H” design pioneered by Snyder, is a fine example of the Colligate Gothic style of architecture reminiscent of the classical architecture of Oxford, Bryn Mawr, and Princeton. The building’s parapets are accentuated with 40 terracotta owls, representing “wisdom.”

Pratt Institute, general view, ca. 1917

Clermont Avenue, east side, between Myrtle and Willoughby Avenues, viewing south from the former and showing the 52nd Field Artillery Armory, also known as the 105th Regiment Field Armory, 1925. Built in 1873, the William Mundell-designed Clermont Armory was, at the time, the largest hall without pillars or obstructions in the United States. Mundell’s ornate Second Empire facade was rebuilt in comparatively bland "Neo-Medieval" style in 1911, the 23rd regiment having relocated to a new and larger armory at Bedford and Atlantic Avenues in 1895. When the National Guard left in 1964, the Clermont Armory became a storage facility for the Department of Sanitation, falling out of use after 1989. The building has since been redeveloped for residential use.

275 Park Avenue, ca. 1918. This building was erected in 1890 as home to The Van Glahn Brothers, one of several large wholesale grocery supply businesses located in Brooklyn that developed at the end of the 19th century. In 1907, the brothers sold the property to their growing neighbor, Rockwood & Co. Chocolate Company, whose factories were located just behind this building on Waverly and Park. The company produced Tootsie Rolls, among other candies, in this plant until 1967. Like many properties located along Brookyn's waterfront between 1960 and 2000, this building sat empty for more than 20 years before converted into a rental property in 2002.

315 Washington Street, 1957. In the years after the Civil War, the streets of Clinton Hill, particularly Washington Avenue and Clinton Street, saw a construction boom of new, lovely, and large brick and brownstone mansions. This brick home at 315 Washington Avenue was likely completed in the late 1860s. In the 1890s, well-known Brooklyn architects Parfitt Brothers designed an additional story and classic French style mansard roof. At some point in the early 20th century the building's use changed from private residence to a clubhouse (it was the Rankin Post No. 10 of the Grand Army of the Republic) before switching back. Today the home is a multi-unit residence.

The Vanderbilt Avenue Station on the Myrtle Avenue El, 1942. The Vanderbilt Paint Co. is at the northwest corner of Myrtle avenue.

“The rear of the \[Clermont Avenue] armory on the west side of Vanderbilt Avenue, looking toward Myrtle Avenue, 1925.”

Lefferts-Laidlaw House, July 22, 1934. The temple-fronted Greek Revival house was built in stages, with the main portion completed between 1836-1840, and remained in the Lefferts family until 1854.The Leffertses were prominent Brooklyn landowners whose holdings included much of present day Bedford-Stuyvesant and Crown Heights, to the east. In late December 1878 the residents of this Brooklyn home began experiencing mysterious happenings: door bells ringing, violently rattling doors and a broken window. According to NY Times reporting the police even got involved and droves of gawkers and spiritualists showed up. After two weeks of the strangeness, the Times notes that the resident, Edward Smith, banished the spirits with "a long and honest prayer." The house was subject to a number of unfortunate “updates” — faux-brick siding, asphalt shingles — during the early 1940s and 1950s, but was later restored to its original appearance. The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.

George Dupont Pratt House, ca. 1905. The Georgian Revival mansion was designed by the firm Babb, Cook & Willard and completed in 1901. In 1918, the Sisters of St. Joseph bought the building, and today it is Burns Hall of St. Joseph’s College.

Willoughby Avenue, looking east from Vanderbilt Avenue. The white wall at left surrounds the site of 210 Clinton Ave, part of the “North Campus” of the Clinton Hill Co-ops. Designed by architect Wallace K. Harrison, the 13-story tower is part of a six-building complex built between 1941-1943 as housing for wartime workers at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

Maybe the nicest of the Pratt family houses, this Romanesque Revival home at 241 Clinton was built for Pratt’s oldest son, Charles Millard Pratt, who became President of the Pratt Institute when his father died in 1891. Today, it is the residence of the Catholic Bishop of Brooklyn.

Walt Whitman circa 1890. Whitman lived at 99 Ryerson Street in 1855, the year he published Leaves of Grass. It was here that he received a letter from Ralph Waldo Emerson, calling Leaves of Grass the “most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet contributed.” “I greet you at the beginning of a great career,” he wrote. Whitman lived in several buildings in Fort Greene and Clinton Hill for over 28 years, but this is the only home of his still standing. He longed for a more permanent home: “My good daddy used to say: ‘Oh! what a comfort it is to lie down on your own floor, a floor laid with your own hands, in a house which represents your own handiwork—cellar and walls and roof!’”

Edward T. Bedford Mansion, ca. 1905. Bedford was a board member of Standard Oil and a colleague of Charles Pratt, whose family had several mansions on the next block south. Bedford’s stately Renaissance Revival home was designed by Montrose Morris and built around 1900. A 1902 New York Times report of a fire at Bedford’s home begins: “There was much excitement yesterday afternoon in the aristocratic neighborhood of Clinton and Willoughby Avenues, Brooklyn." Like many in the surrounding area, Bedford’s mansion was torn down during World War II, making room for the construction of housing for Navy personnel and families at the Clinton Hill Apartments (built 1941-1943, today the Clinton Hill Co-Ops).

In 1890, the Pratt Institute opened one of the country's first library schools, with the Pratt Free Library as its laboratory. The Daily Eagle reported on January 20, 1895: "Pratt Institute's new library building is gradually nearing completion. When ready for occupancy it will be one of the most imposing structures in this big city." The Pratt library had been earlier located in the main building and opened to the public in 1888 as the first free public library in Brooklyn- not limited to Pratt Students. Excessive demand for it services- it was, said the Daily Eagle in 1895, "thronged with students, literary workers, and bibliomaniacs every afternoon"- lead to the construction of a separate library building, dedicated on May 26, 1896. At the dedication, Pratt President Frederic Bayley Pratt presided; the Reverend John Humpstone, pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church, said a prayer; and the famous Dannreuther Quarter performed Mendelssohn's overtire to Athalie, Anton Rubinstein's Music of the Spheres, and "Walther's Prize Song" From Wagner's Die Meistersinger. And then New York State Librarian Melvil Dewey (of decimal system fame) addressed the assembly, followed by a prayer from the Reverend Samuel McConnel, pastor of the Church of the Holy Trinity on Montague Street. It was a grand event. Architect William B. Tubby's Romanesque Revival building housed reference and circulating collections, including a children's collection, as well as an exhibition room, and classrooms for the library school. (In 1982 architect Giorgio Cavaglieri added the south terrace with views down onto new stacks. After 1940, with the opening of the new central library at Grand Army Plaza, Pratt's library was no longer the much-needed municipal resource it had been for 52 years and was restricted to institute students.

Pratt Institute Library ARCHITECT: William B. Tubby DATE: 1896 STYLE: Renaissance Revival The Pratt Institute Library was the first free public library in the City of Brooklyn. Pratt’s belief in self-help led him to an interest in the public library movement. The free-standing Renaissance Revival structure has slightly projecting end pavilions and a two-story stacks wing at the western end.

Engine #209 Taaffe Place, 1957. The Brooklyn Fire Department Engine 9 was organized in 1869 at 159 Taaffe Place (formerly Graham Street) in a building that had formerly housed the volunteer Engine 12. In 1892, Engine 9 was called to a massive fire at a series of buildings on Nostrand Avenue, and its firefighters performed a number of daring rescues. The engine company moved into a different building in 1966, and was eventually disbanded in 2003. The building at 159 Taaffe Place still stands and has a faded sign "American Refractories" above the large rolling metal gate. The top floor looks to be a residence.

Drake's Cake Building, ca. 1915. Constructed in 1913 for the Drake Bakeries, this factory structure with an Arts and Craft style facade was designed by the firm of Dodge & Morrison. One of the largest commercial cake bakeries in the region, Drake was producing 15 tons of pound cake a day by 1914 and was becoming well known for their ring dings, yodels, devil-dogs and coffee cakes. The business was so successful that they expanded this factory building all the way to Waverly Avenue in 1925. In 1960 the company was sold to a large food conglomerate. Today it is part of Hostess, who still make some of the Drake favorites and the building on Clinton Avenue is a charter school.

Former Graham Home for Old Ladies. Established in 1851. This brownstone had two lives before it was turned into a condo. It began as the "Brooklyn Society for the Relief of Respectable Aged Indigent Females," for "gentlewomen...unfitted to accept willingly the public asylum provided by the state" by John B. Graham. Supposedly, admissions were overseen by women representing twenty six Brooklyn churches across many denominations. Women had to be at least 60 years old to take residence, and brought their own furniture. The home was funded by individual donors. The old ladies home was shuttered sometime in the 70's, and was turned over to the Bull Shippers Motor Inn. A Fort Greene Newsletter characterized the new dormers as "ladies by the hour who brought only scanty-panty testimonials of propriety." The brothel was closed, and the building became a cheapo single-room occupancy hotel, a "magnet for crime" in the changing Clinton Hill area. The building was gutted and cleaned up in 2000, when BRP Development Corporation purchased the brownstone. The sign, which reads "The Graham Home for Old Ladies" was added during the renovation to hark back to its less rowdy days.