Woodrow Wilson Apartments, ca. 1925. Named for the 28th President and completed in 1924, this apartment building was designed by brothers Joseph and Louis Shampan, who constructed many other similarly sized residential buildings in the surrounding Brooklyn neighborhoods. At six-stories the Early Art Deco building with Gothic details was the new standard for fashionable living on Eastern Parkway. It offered a varied of apartment sizes, ranging from $75 to $210 a month in rent. Conveniently located near subway lines, the nature of Prospect Park and the cultural institution therein, the building also offered its middle class tenants all the best modern amenities, including a 24 hour doorman and apartments with two (!) bathrooms.

Crown Heights has a rich and diverse history. Though it began as farmland, it developed as a fashionable locale for the second homes of bourgeois Manhattanites. Eastern Parkway soon was studded with cultural institutions and mansions. Furthermore, the 20th century marked an influx of Jewish and later Caribbean immigration, with both communities infusing Crown Heights with new cultures and making their mark on the neighborhood.