MAP: Park Slope Historic District Expands to Include St. Augustine's Church

The new historic district extension, outlined in red. Image courtesy of the Landmarks Preservation Commission

PARK SLOPE, BROOKLYN — The NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) voted Tuesday to significantly expand the borders of the existing Park Slope Historic District.

The district, detailed here, now includes the neighborhood's ancient and regal St. Augustine's Roman Catholic Church at the corner of Sterling Place and 6th Avenue (pictured below), as well as more than 100 lots on 6th Avenue, St Mark's Avenue, Prospect Place, Park Place, Sterling Place, Berkeley Place and Union Street.

Home- and business owners within the district will now be required to seek city approval before altering their buildings' exteriors in any way.

Church officials from St. Augustine's are reportedly not happy about their building's new status as a landmark. Patch has reached out to the church — as well as the Diocese of Brooklyn — for comment. Check back for updates.

This newly landmarked chunk of Park Slope "remains one of Brooklyn’s most architecturally distinguished areas," the LPC wrote in its proposal.

Buildings within the new district include "row houses, carriage houses or garages, a clubhouse, several apartment houses, and three churches, one of which includes a school, convent, parish hall, and rectory," the LPC wrote. And architecture styles reportedly include Italianate, Gothic Revival, neo-Grec, Second Empire, Romanesque Revival, Queen Anne, Renaissance Revival and Medieval Revival.

In particular, the LPC hailed St. Augustine's Church as an example of the "restrained, classically-inspired Renaissance Revival style" popular in Park Slope from the late 1880s to the early 1910s.

More from the LPC:

The oldest buildings in the Park Slope Historic District Extension II appear to be the altered, wood-frame house at 22 Berkeley Place and the unusual masonry, Gothic Revival style row house at 7 St. Mark’s Avenue, which features an elaborate pointed-arch portico supported by paired columns, pointed arch windows with continuous label moldings, and a wood cornice decorated with blind arches, brackets, and a bead molding.

District lines approved Tuesday still need a final OK from the City Planning Commission and the City Council. However, the new landmark designation will go into effect immediately — and it would be highly unusual for councilmembers to overturn the LPC's decision.

An interactive (and endlessly entertaining) map of Park Slope's historic district, as well as other historic districts across New York City, is available on the LPC's website.

Also designated as city landmarks Tuesday: Two old buildings in Green-Wood Cemetery and that retro Pepsi-Cola sign along the East River.