323 prospect place

Last fall, I was walking through Prospect Heights when a residence caught my eye. The building was a fairly standard one -- a classic 3-story Brooklyn brownstone built, in this case, from brick. Rather, what caught my eye was its position: it was rotated about 60 degrees from the rest of the street grid.

323 Prospect Place

Buildings don't build themselves, and whoever built this one located it the way they did for a reason. Especially in brownstone Brooklyn, where rowhouses are the dominant architectural feature, buildings usually face the street. In this case, either someone decided to build it differently or the street it once faced no longer existed.

Corner of Prospect Place and Underhill Avenue

Stepping back, I noticed that the building next door, which appeared to have been built more recently, was angled like its neighbor despite a corner that fit the existing street layout. Moreover, a new building under construction was also similarly rotated -- clearly the plots of land in this area were oriented towards some feature of the urban landscape that's no longer there.

323 Prospect Place in the red box. Viewed from above, it seems that a whole block has been dropped from a different street grid into that of Prospect Heights. Why?

My initial hypothesis involved Brooklyn's longest and oldest street: Flatbush Avenue. The road that is now Flatbush Avenue was originally the southernmost section of an ancient Native American path. Broadway, in Manhattan, also follows part of this path, which reached as far north as Albany.

I thought that before Brooklyn evolved into its present layout, maybe Flatbush Avenue had been further north -- perhaps this block was oriented to face the old right-of-way. Yet as I examined old maps like the one below, I found that the road had changed remarkably little over time.

Brooklyn, 1766, 'Road to Flatbush' in red. This map is from the outstanding collection assembled by the Brooklyn Genealogy Information Page. Note the intersection of the 'Road to Flatbush' and 'Road to Jamaica' in the southeastern quadrant of this map -- the intersection basically survives today where Atlantic Avenue meets Flatbush Avenue.

My next theory was influenced by the High Line, an abandoned freight line on Manhattan's West Side. At the turn of the century, the Vanderbilt railyard (now better known as the Atlantic Yards) was ringed by Brooklyn's meatpacking industry. To facilitate the movement and loading of freight, the Armour Packing company built an elevated freight line to cross Atlantic Avenue.



Atlantic Avenue looking west towards 5th Avenue, circa 1908. (You can just see the since-demolished 5th Avenue elevated line.) From Arrt's Arrchives.

Unfortunately, I could not find any information on where the freight line went after it crossed Atlantic Avenue. Perhaps, I imagined, the freight line cut through what is now the residential neighborhood of Prospect Heights. Perhaps there was a turning loop at the corner of Prospect and Underhill -- this would explain both the park at the corner and 323 Prospect Place! Sadly, there is no evidence of this whatsoever -- my best guess now is that the elevated line ended not far from where it started: near the yards.

For several months, I gave up on explaining the unusual placement of the 323 Prospect Place. Then several weeks ago, a reader wrote me asking about the original shoreline of Manhattan. (I love reader e-mails, by the way.) I e-mailed her the link for the Brooklyn Genealogy Information Page, which also has maps of the other boroughs. I found myself poking around old maps again, but this time I saw something I hadn't noticed before.

Left: 1866 Johnson's Map. Right: 2007 Google Map.

On an 1866 map, there was a street that doesn't exist today. Most likely, the street didn't exist yet in 1866 either, but the fact that it was mapped gave me an idea. I realized that the area was probably redesigned by Olmstead and Vaux as they planned Prospect Park and Grand Army Plaza -- perhaps this would explain 323 Prospect Place.

Unfortunately, the 'mini-plaza' mapped to the north of Grand Army Plaza is still a block from where the rotated building sits. Indeed, even if the buildings were built according to the abandoned Olmstead and Vaux plan, there's no explanation as to why they'd be at such an angle.

Maps from before the planning of Prospect Park show a grid of streets continuing east -- later maps show the same. Yet in the 1860s and 1870s, the plan for the area underwent several changes. An early plan for Prospect Park by Egbert Viele, chief engineer of Central Park, called for the park to extend as far north as Warren Street. (Prospect Street today.) According to this plan, 323 Prospect could have had faced Prospect Park. (Yet it wasn't built that way...)


Egbert Viele's plan for Prospect Park, 1861. From NYC-Architecture.com.

After the Civil War, Olmstead and Vaux were commissioned to redesign the park -- it is their initial design on the 1866 Johnson Map. Yet theirs was not the final plan. The reservoir was replaced by the Brooklyn Museum and Eastern Parkway was cut through though area.

I have yet to find a concrete explanation of why 323 Prospect Place is oriented the way it is. Part of me, I think, hopes I never figure it out. Just the same, I'll keep trying.

NOTE: An newer version of this post (with new revelations) can be found at Lost Magazine.

powers of 10

I just learned that the Eames' Powers of Ten film is on YouTube. This short film provides a great sense of perspective.


Rediscovered via Cool Hunting

Apparently the original Powers of Ten film has been removed. Instead, check out the official Powers of Ten website or the Simpsons' parody of the video, itself a rather clever piece of work.

UPDATE: You can watch Powers of 10 at Google Video!

new feature

I'm trying out the google reader widget. I'll be sharing cool posts from other blogs -- you can see the links on the right. For the full reader, click here or the 'read more' link at the bottom of the list. Enjoy.

'Faultline' by Andy Goldsworthy, at San Francisco's de Young Museum.

fireproof

'Form follows function,' said Louis Sullivan. The simple phrase sums up a tenet of modern architecture, but begs an important question: what is the function of a building?

One obvious function of a building is to remain standing. In a textbook case of form following the function of support (without literally contributing to it), Mies van der Rohe added I-beam window mullions to express the underlying structure of his 860-880 North Lake Shore Drive apartment buildings in Chicago.

860-880 North Lake Shore Drive, Chicago. Photo from timkuo.

The reason that the structural I-beams needed to be expressed through ornamental mullions -- the actual beams were encased in concrete to protect them from fire -- suggests another function of a building: it shouldn't burn down.

Greenpoint Terminal Warehouse Fire, Brooklyn. May 1, 2006. Photo from sgoralnick.

Fireproof design (or, more accurately, fire-resistant design) is often overlooked as an integral element of modern architecture. In part because of its ubiquity and in part because of ever-evolving strategies to hide its appearance, fireproof design is largely transparent to the casual observer.

New York is an excellent place to study the influence of fireproof design on urban form. Much of the city was developed at the turn of the century when insurers and the government were just starting to require fireproof construction. Today, many elements of fireproof design remain visible throughout New York, instead of camouflaged or hidden as they are in more recently developed cities.

Tile vaulted roof at the Christopher Street Station, New York City.

The distinctive vaulted ceilings in many of New York's subways are a perfect example of form following fireproof function. Most of New York's subways were constructed with the cut-and-cover technique, a method that depends on strong beams to support the roadway overhead. Steel, with its high strength/weight ratio, was the ideal construction material but for one flaw: it melted quickly and lost its strength in a fire. (See this photo of steel in a fire.)

To improve the structural performance of steel in a fire, engineers developed tile vaults that would both insulate the steel from heat and brace the I-beams from flexing. Tile vaulting, originally developed for fire protection, evolved into an architectural form in its own right through the work of Spanish architect Rafael Guastavino. While the city's finest tile vaults are hidden in the 6 train's abandoned City Hall station, there are several places where beautiful fireproof tile vaults remain out in the open.

Brooklyn Bridge station entrance, lower Manhattan. Photo from NYCviaRachel.

Besides tile vaults and other 'slow-burning' techniques meant to help a structure last long enough for help to arrive, another key element of fireproof design was the introduction of sprinkler systems.

Sprinklers systems were invented in the mid-19th century for the factories of New England. Textile mills, filled with dry, flammable materials and high-speed equipment, were particularly susceptible to fire. Following documented successes of sprinklers saving industrial buildings from fire, insurers began encouraging the introduction of sprinklers in all commercial buildings at the start of the 20th century.

West 35th Street, New York City. Photo from Number Six.

Even the best sprinkler systems, however, are useless without water pressure. To augment the public water supply, which cannot reach above the 6th floor of most structures in New York, buildings pump water into a tank installed on their roofs. When heat triggers a sprinkler head, water pours from the roof onto a fire, extinguishing it before it spreads. (The tanks also provide pressure for other uses as well.)

View from the Flatiron Building looking west towards the Hudson. I count 35 water tanks.

Over time, some tank-based sprinkler systems have been replaced with pressurized 'dry pipe' sprinkler systems, discreetly located in basements. Still, most tanks have survived and their prevalence, when one looks, is astounding.

Although rooftop water tanks are a defining element of the skyline, their influence on New York City's urban character pales in comparison to another element of fireproof design: the fire escape.

Mott Street, Chinatown, New York City.

Following a series of deadly fires in the early 20th century, (notably the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire of 1911), the New York Building Code required that all buildings have redundant emergency stairways. For older buildings, this usually meant building a fire escape.

Few fire escapes have been built since 1968 when the building code was revised to encourage indoor stairwells. Nonetheless, fire escapes have become a critical element of New York's gritty aesthetic experience. Criss-crossing the city's facades, fire escapes are an iconic fixture of Manhattan's urban landscape.


The urbanistic impact of fire escapes extends beyond aesthetics. Fire escapes are the balconies of the people -- the verandas of the working class. Before the advent of air conditioning, entire communities congregated above the street in the evening, cooling off in a sort of vertical public realm. While air conditioning has diminished the role that fire escapes play on hot summer nights, they remain an important place for many New Yorkers. (The NY Times featured an article about an Inwood community centered around its fire escapes in 2004.)

Fire Escape Garden, New York City. Photo from CoolCheech.

Fireproof design unobtrusively permeates modern architecture. Elegant tile arches are hidden underground -- ubiquitous wooden water tanks are perched inconspicuously on the roof. Even fire escapes -- often located on the very front of a building -- somehow blend into the background. To gain an extra appreciation of the subtle fireproof forms that give modern cities like New York much of their character, one need only remember their function: to save lives.

windy city

October 7, 2006

February 13, 2007

trolley dodgers

Once upon a time, Brooklyn was a city of baseball and railroads. Following the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge in 1883, the borough became home to several ballparks and a comprehensive rail network. The traffic near one stadium was so dense that the home team was nicknamed the 'Trolley Dodgers.'

Washington Park, 1898-1914. This photo is of the 'New' Washington Park at 4th Avenue and 3rd Street, which replaced an older stadium across the street. (More at mlb.com.)

Today, Brooklyn hosts only one minor league baseball team and not a single trolley line. I recently made a pilgrimage of sorts to the site of Ebbets Field, where the Brooklyn Dodgers played from 1913 to 1957. Ebbets Field was the beloved home of a renowned franchise, but it was demolished anyway in 1960.

In one sense, the Dodgers' popularity was the cause of the stadium's demise: owner Walter O'Malley realized he could fill a much larger stadium with fans -- he moved the team to L.A. when Brooklyn's government refused to build one for him.

Ebbets Field (from Project Ballpark)

Ebbets Field was a unique stadium with a rich history. A defining element was the Shaefer's beer sign in right field -- the official scorer would relay hits and errors by lighting letters in the ad: 'h' or 'e', depending on the play. Besides being the venue of the first televised baseball game, Ebbets Field was also site of the most significant moment in baseball: when Jackie Robinson took the field in the top of the 1st against the Boston Braves on April 15th, 1947, it changed the game forever.

Ebbets Field, from Lost Ballparks, by Lawrence Ritter. This is the corner of Sullivan Place and McKeever Place, near the eastern edge of Prospect Park. Here's a map.

Just one year after the Dodgers won the 1955 World Series, the last of Brooklyn's trolleys were replaced with buses. The very next year, the Dodgers played their last game in Ebbets Field. In 1960, the stadium was torn down to make way for a huge housing development. (The wrecking ball was painted white with red seams.)

Ebbets Field Apartments (from local.live.com)

The demolition of Ebbets Field came at the cusp of an era of great change for Brooklyn. Suburbanization was shrinking Brooklyn's population, and the remaining communities were growing increasingly segregated. Many banks redlined entire African-American neighborhoods, effectively killing the real estate market. Burdened by poverty and neglect, Brooklyn developed a reputation for crime and disorder by the 1970s.

Today, Brooklyn is changing again. The population is growing for the first time since the 1950s and developers are constructing new buildings in virtually every corner of the borough. While the new growth isn't without its problems -- residential displacement and traffic congestion, for instance -- it represents a truly remarkable economic recovery.

Brooklyn's Population in Millions, 1910-2000

As Brooklyn regrows, there have been calls for both new sports teams and improved transit within the borough.

Before disintegrating into a rigmarole of subsidies, superblocks and heavy-handed design, the Atlantic Yards development looked to be a great opportunity to return professional sports to Brooklyn. Partially financed by Jay-Z and built on a vacant rail yard, the Nets' basketball arena could have been an enormously popular project. Instead, disengagement from the community and a disregard for the existing built environment have made a disaster of the project. (Hopefully, Brooklyn can still save this one at the buzzer.)

Development model of Nets Arena and surrounding buildings from the Barclays Center website.

While the Nets' arena remains controversial, the movement to restore trolley service is virtually dead. Despite several efforts to bring trolleys back to the waterfront -- especially recent efforts to incorporate streetcars into the planning of Brooklyn Bridge Park -- Brooklyn's only remaining trolleys are rusting on a dock in Red Hook.

Three PCCs in front of the Red Hook Fairway.

There is greater potential for transportation improvements to emerge from a planned BRT demonstration project. While BRT may lack the romance and history of streetcars, it is a practical option to improve Brooklyn's transportation network in the short term. In fact, implementation of a BRT corridor on Nostrand Avenue is slated to begin this year.

Brooklyn, it seems, is evolving from a city of baseball and trolleys into a borough of basketball and buses.