Crown Heights History: 461-479 Crown Street

by Crown Heights Historian Shmully Blesofsky VIA his Instagram account History of Crown Heights.

Crown Street Houses

461-479 Crown Street

There are many different styles of row houses in Crown Heights specifically on Union, President and  Carroll Streets.  461-479 Crown Street is the townhouses I want to look at today.

This basic style brick house was built on Crown Street between Kingston and Brooklyn, and on the corner of President and Troy. Crown Street was “improved” in 1916 with the installation of sewer and water lines. These houses were built in 1919, but it took more than a year for all of them to be sold.

The Standard Union, Saturday, August 28, 1920 advertising single family homes for sale “overlooking ALL FLATBUSH”

The builder joined the “Crown Street Developers” in order to sell the last few houses. A detached two-family across the street was going for $28,000. Note the area was being referred to as “Eastern Parkway Section” 

Usually, there was a developer and an architect, and the developer created their own unique style houses. Here, the attitude was, “I’m building smaller houses so I can sell them immediately.” It took until 1921 to sell them all. The builder’s main house and office were located at 479 Crown Street where they drew up contracts for the sales of the homes.

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Sunday, February 20, 1921. Note it says: “Restricted block no apartments” even though the apartment building at the corner was planned for October that year. 

In the ad, it says, “Overlooking all of Flatbush,” which was technically true until they continued development the next year across the street. The $5,000 tax brake sounds really high as a percentage of the sale, but it was part of the tax exemption that led to a building boom in the 1920s.

The Brooklyn Citizen, Friday, October 07, 1921

Announcing the dissolution of the company South Portland Construction Company.

Ad mentioning the $5,000 tax brake. 

The builder’s name was Isador H. Meyer, and as far we know that he lived at 1230 Dean Street until he posted that he wanted to trade his house for a farm in Connecticut during the Great Depression. He belonged to the Reform synagogue on Eastern Parkway, which would indicate he was from German Jewish descent.

The “South Portland Construction Company” name sounds like it was made up when they filled out the paperwork. The company was dissolved right after they sold the houses.

Brooklyn Daily Eagle May 1914 advertising identical homes on President and Troy built by Frederick Rowe

Duplicate houses were erected on President Street and Troy by developer Frederick Fowe in 1914, who wrote “Splendid Houses for the Family of Moderate Means.” His dream was to have the whole Heights look like a present street, so why would he put up such moderate houses? As far as design is concerned perhaps they were both using a standard design but would be nice to find out where it originated.