City Holds Public Hearing Tuesday On Historic PLG Status

PROSPECT-LEFFERTS GARDENS, BROOKLYN — A city hearing tomorrow invites the public to voice their opinions on a proposed historic districts in Prospect-Lefferts Gardens.

On Tuesday at 9:30 a.m., the city's Landmarks and Preservation Commission will hold a public hearing on the proposed Melrose Parkside Historic District, located on Parkside Avenue between Bedford and Flatbush Avenues.

Currently the proposal identifies the district as a "remarkably cohesive and intact group of 38 single- and two-family row houses," located in the middle of the block.

The buildings were built between 1909 and 1915 by two of Brooklyn's superstar architects of the era, Benjamin Driesler and Axel S. Hedman for developers William A. A. Brown and Eli H. Bishop & Son, according to the LPC proposal.

"The distinctive appearance and sense of place of the proposed historic district derives from its two architects’ use of the then popular Neoclassical vocabulary in their designs to harmonize three disparate types of residences," the proposal says.

Delving more into the history, the commission's proposal explains how this area of Brooklyn was still largely farmland until the completion of Prospect Park in 1873. In 1883, a local physician attempted to speculate and develop land on which an 18th century manor house, called Melrose Hall, sat, the proposal said, with plans to call the development Melrose Park.

That failed, and the land was then sold to an even wealthier man, the brewer and land speculator William Brown, who then passed the land to his son, William A. A. Brown, after is 1905 parting from our earthen world, the LPC wrote.

And so these 38 buildings were built.

At the time, the buildings were described as “the most perfect houses ever built for two families," according to the LPC proposal.

If you agree, or disagree, you can sign up to testify at the hearing here.

Just curious and don't care to speak? You can watch the hearing on the LPC YouTube page here.