Bedford Stuyvesant today is a living museum, with roughly 8,800 Brownstones built before 1900, it is the largest neighborhood of intact Victorian Brownstone architecture in America. It has been preserved thanks to the Bedford–Stuyvesant Historic District and The Stuyvesant Heights Historic District Extension which comprise 825 contributing buildings built between about 1870 and 1900. The district encompasses 17 individual blocks. The buildings within the district primarily comprise of two and three story row-houses. Bed-Stuy, as it is commonly called, is bordered by Williamsburg on the north, Clinton Hill on the west by, Bushwick to the east, and Crown Heights to the south.
Bedford Stuyvesant began in the 17th century as the Dutch hamlet of Bedford in the town of Breuckelen. During the colonial period, Stuyvesant Heights was farmland and part of Bedford that became a residential community after the Revolutionary war. The present day neighborhood combines the names of these original settlements. It was incorporated into Kings County, named after King Charles II in 1683, after the British seized New Netherlands in 1664 and established the original 12 counties of New York. In the 19th century after the American Revolution, Bedford became part of the Town of Brooklyn, which became the City of Brooklyn in 1834. The adjacent Weeksville section was founded in 1838 and recognized as one of the first free African-American communities in the country. New York State abolished slavery in 1827.
The construction of row houses in the 1870s began to transform rural Bedford Stuyvesant into an urban area. The first row of masonry houses in Stuyvesant Heights was built in 1872 on McDonough Street for developer Curtis L. North. From the 1880s to 1900, development accelerated, and more townhouses were added. Most of the Stuyvesant Heights north of Decatur Street looked much as it does today. In the 1930s Bedford Stuyvesant grew as a center of the African American community seeking greater affordability, and migrating from then overcrowded Harlem. Since the turn of the new Millennium, it has welcomed a diverse new generation of young professionals out priced of Williamsburg, Brooklyn Heights, and Park Slope, drawn to its quiet, tree lined streets and proximity to Manhattan.
Read more ▾
Crown Heights is just to the south of Bed-Stuy and offers townhouse buyers some of the most exquisite row-houses in Brooklyn. The Crown Heights building boom came shortly after the IRT Eastern Parkway subway line was constructed in 1908. The area became a premier New York City neighborhood, and then a center of Jewish life in the 1920s to the 1960s. Parts of it were designated as the Crown Heights Historic District in 2014. It’s housing stock consists of fine townhouses and grandly proportioned pre-war apartment buildings lining its main drag, Eastern Parkway. Franklin Avenue is its upcoming retail strip of trendy restaurants, cafes, and retail. Many of the apartment buildings have converted to coop or condo ownership. They have easy access to Prospect Park and the area’s many amenities. Eastern Parkway begins at Grand Army Plaza, and counts among its cultural institutions The Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, and the main branch of the Brooklyn Public Library. Crown Heights is bounded by Washington Avenue to the west, Atlantic Avenue to the north, Ralph Avenue to the east, and Clarkson Avenue/East New York Avenue to the south.
Read less ▴
