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FILLMORE PLACE HISTORIC DISTRICT

Designation Report

New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission

May 12, 2009

Cover: 28-10 Fillmore Place (left) and 15-23 Fillmore Place (right).

(Christopher D. Brazee, 2008)

Fillmore Place Historic District

Designation Report

Prepared by Christopher D. Brazee

Edited by Mary Beth Betts, Director of Research

Photographs by Christopher D. Brazee

Map by Jennifer L. Most

Commissioners

Robert B. Tierney, Chair

Pablo Vengoechea, Vice-Chair

Frederick Bland Christopher Moore

Stephen F. Byrns Margery Perlmutter

Diana Chapin Elizabeth Ryan

Joan Gerner Roberta Washionton

Roberta Brandes Gratz

Kate Daly, Executive Director

Mark Silberman, Counsel

Sarah Carroll, Director of Preservation

TABLE OF CONTENTS

FILLMORE PLACE HISTORIC DISTRICT MAP............................................FACING PAGE 1

TESTIMONY AT THE PUBLIC HEARING................................................................................ 1

FILLMORE PLACE HISTORIC DISTRICT BOUNDARIES...................................................... 1

Early History and Development of Williamsburg ...................................................................... 4

Clock & Miller and the Development of Fillmore Place............................................................ 7

Architecture of the Fillmore Place Historic District................................................................. 10

Subsequent History................................................................................................................... 12

FINDINGS AND DESIGNATION.............................................................................................. 15

BUILDING PROFILES................................................................................................................ 17

Driggs Ave, Nos. 662-676 (West Side, Between North 1

St and Metropolitan Ave) ............ 17

Driggs Ave, No. 667 (East Side, Between Fillmore Pl and Metropolitan Ave)....................... 24

Driggs Ave, Nos. 673-675 (East Side, Between Grand St and Fillmore Pl) ............................ 26

Fillmore Pl, Nos. 1-23 (North Side, Between Driggs Ave and Roebling St)........................... 29

Fillmore Pl, Nos. 2-32 (South Side, Between Driggs Ave and Roebling St)........................... 40

North 1

St, No. 187 (North Side, between Bedford Ave and Driggs Ave)............................. 55

Roebling St, No. 168 (West Side, Between Grand St and Fillmore Pl) ................................... 56

168

187

676

662

667

675

Driggs Av

N 1 St

Grand St

Metropolitan Av

Fillmore Pl

Grand St

Roebling St

Fillmore Place Historic District

Brooklyn

Queens

Manhattan

Graphic Source: MapPLUTO, Edition 06C, 2006. May 12, 2009. JM.

100

Feet

Boundary of Historic District

Tax Map Lots in Historic District

Fillmore Place Historic District

Borough of Brooklyn, NY

Landmarks Preservation Commission

Calendared: January 13, 2009

Public Hearing: March 24, 2009

Designated: May 12, 2009

Existing Historic Districts

Fillmore Place Historic District

Landmarks Preservation Commission

May 12, 2009, Designation List 414

LP-2333

TESTIMONY AT THE PUBLIC HEARING

On March 24, 2009, the Landmarks Preservation Commission held a public hearing on

the proposed designation of the Fillmore Place Historic District (Public Hearing Item No. 8). The

hearing had been duly advertised in accordance with the provisions of law. Ten witnesses spoke

in favor of designation, including a representative for Councilmember Diana Reyna, four

property owners, and representatives of the Society for the Architecture of the City, the

Municipal Art Society of New York, the New York Landmarks Conservancy, the Williamsburg

Greenpoint Preservation Alliance (formerly known as the Waterfront Preservation Alliance of

Greenpoint and Williamsburg), and the Historic Districts Council. A letter in support of the

designation from the Metropolitan Chapter of the Victorian Society in America was also

presented to the Commission at the hearing. No one spoke in opposition to designation. The

Commission has received several letters—including a number from property owners—and other

statements in support of designation.

FILLMORE PLACE HISTORIC DISTRICT BOUNDARIES

The Fillmore Place Historic District consists of the property bounded by a line beginning

at the intersection of the northern curbline of Fillmore Place and the western curbline of

Roebling Street, continuing southerly across the roadbed of Fillmore Place and along the western

curbline of Roebling Street to a point formed by its intersection with a line extending easterly

from the southern property line of 168 Roebling Street, westerly along said line and the southern

property line of 168 Roebling Street, southerly along a portion of the eastern property line of 30

Fillmore Place, westerly along the southern property lines of 30 through 18 Fillmore Place,

southerly along a portion of the eastern property line of 16 Fillmore Place, westerly along the

southern property lines of 16 through 10 Fillmore Place, northerly along a portion of the western

property line of 10 Fillmore Place, westerly along the southern property line of 675 Driggs

Avenue to the eastern curbline of Driggs Avenue, northerly along said curbline to a point formed

by its intersection with a line extending easterly from the northern curbline of North 1

Street,

westerly across the roadbed of Driggs Avenue and along the northern curbline of North 1

Street

to a point formed by its intersection with a line extending southerly from the western property

line of 676 Driggs Avenue, northerly along the western property lines of 676 through 662 Driggs

Avenue, easterly along the northern property line of 662 Driggs Avenue to the western curbline

of Driggs Avenue, southerly along said curbline to a point formed by its intersection with a line

extending westerly from the northern property line of 667 Driggs Avenue, easterly along said

line across the roadbed of Driggs Avenue and along the northern property lines of 667 Driggs

Avenue and 7 Fillmore Place, northerly along a portion of the western property line of 9 Fillmore

Place, easterly along the northern property lines of 9 through 21 Fillmore Place, southerly along

a portion of the eastern property line of 21 Fillmore Place, easterly along the northern property

line of 23 Fillmore Place, southerly along the eastern property line of 23 Fillmore Place to the

northern curbline of Fillmore Place, easterly along said curbline to the point of the beginning.

SUMMARY

The Fillmore Place Historic District—located in the Williamsburg neighborhood of

Brooklyn—is a small and intact enclave of 29 properties, mostly multi-family flats buildings

erected in the mid-nineteenth century during a period of rapid urbanization in the area.

Williamsburg had remained rural farmland into the early nineteenth century. Real estate

speculators, lead by Richard Woodhull and Thomas Morrell, began in 1802 to acquire large

tracts of land that they divided up into urban building lots. While their efforts were largely

unsuccessful, a second generation of developers did succeed in attracting new residents and the

population of the area began to grow rapidly by the late 1820s. The Village of Williamsburgh

was chartered in 1827; its boundaries were greatly expanded in 1835; and in 1840 it became the

Town of Williamsburgh, politically independent from Bushwick. The area’s population

continued to increase at an astounding pace, doubling between 1840-45 and at an even faster rate

in the late 1840s and 1850s as a large number of German immigrants began to settle in the area.

Williamsburgh officially became a city in 1852—just 25 years after it had been recognized as a

village—and was the twentieth largest urban area in the country. It soon consolidated with

Brooklyn in 1855, at which time it lost the “h” at the end of its name, becoming the

neighborhood of Williamsburg.

It was during this period of rapid urban growth that Ephraim Miller and Alfred Clock

began to invest in real estate in Williamsburg. In the late 1840s and early 1850s they acquired

several contiguous parcels of land on a large block in the center of town and hired a surveyor to

map out 37 individual building lots facing onto a new street they created in the middle of the

property. Fillmore Place, as the street came to be named, was soon built up with a number of

three-story multi-family flats buildings. Those on the north side of the street were likely erected

for individual property owners, perhaps with Clock and Miller’s assistance. The south side of

Fillmore Place, however, was developed as a contiguous row by the pair. They commissioned

masons Jacob Sheppard and John Rourke to construct the nine houses now known as 12 to 28

Fillmore Place. Clock and Miller also sold a number of lots facing onto the busier thoroughfares

of Roebling Street and Driggs Avenue. These parcels were developed with structures similar in

many ways to those on Fillmore Place but incorporating ground floor storefronts. A few of the

lots on Fillmore Place that had not been improved during the 1850s were developed in

subsequent decades. 10 and 30 Fillmore Place were constructed in the early 1870s and serve as

effective bookends to the earlier row of nine houses, while 11 Fillmore Place was erected in

1881 for owner Samuel W. Woolsey. The Fillmore Place Historic District also includes several

properties—notably the short row at 672 to 676 Driggs Avenue and the individual structure at

no. 662—that were not part of Clock and Miller’s plan of 37 lots but that were built at about the

same time and are similar architecturally to the structures on Fillmore Place.

Most of the buildings within the Fillmore Place Historic District were designed in a

restrained Italianate style. The austere planar brick façades are ornamented primarily by

projecting stone door hoods, molded stone lintels and projecting sills, and bracketed wood

cornices. Several retain their original iron areaway fences and stoop railings. While the buildings

were erected as multi-family dwellings for working class tenants, their architecture has more in

common with fashionable middle- and upper-class single-family row houses than substandard

tenements. The exterior design of the structures on Fillmore Place is in fact quite similar to that

of buildings erected in elegant neighborhoods such as Chelsea in Manhattan.

The buildings within the Fillmore Place Historic District have a history of long-term

ownership and occupancy. It was not unusual for families to retain possession of their buildings

for several decades, and many of the houses were owner-occupied. This stability in ownership

and occupancy patterns on Fillmore Place meant that the street saw few significant changes in

later decades, even as the neighborhood around it was undergoing major transformations. Even

the opening of the Williamsburg Bridge in 1903, which brought a huge influx of new residents to

the area, had little impact on the physical fabric of the street and it remains perhaps the most

intact enclave of buildings erected during Williamsburg’s initial period of urban development.

The most famous resident to have lived within the Fillmore Place Historic District—author

Henry Miller—moved into the house at 662 Driggs Avenue in 1891, just before the opening of

the Williamsburg Bridge. His description of Fillmore Place in his novel The Tropic of Capricorn

continues to reflect many people’s sentiment of the little block: “[it was] the most enchanting

street I have ever seen in all my life. It was the ideal street—for a boy, a lover, a maniac, a

drunkard, a crook, a lecher, a thug, an astronomer, a musician, a poet, a tailor, a shoemaker, a

politician.”

THE HISTORICAL AND ARCHITECTURAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE FILLMORE

PLACE HISTORIC DISTRICT

Early History and Development of Williamsburg

The first inhabitants of western Long Island were the Canarsee, the indigenous people of

Brooklyn who were members of the Algonquin linguistic group that occupied the Atlantic

seaboard from Canada to North Carolina.

The Canarsees were an autonomous band of Delaware

(Leni Lenape) Native Americans. They lived communally in several settlements in west

Brooklyn, hunting and fishing in the low-lying marshes of Wallabout Bay (now the site of the

Brooklyn Navy Yard). Europeans—at first primarily fur traders from England, the Netherlands,

and Sweden—arrived in the early seventeenth century and began conducting business with the

region’s indigenous population. By the 1630s, Dutch settlers began taking control of the western

end of Long Island from the Canarsee.

In 1638, West India Company Director-General Willem

Kieft “purchased” the large tract of land between Wallabout Bay and Newtown Creek for the

sum of “eight fathoms of duffels, eight fathoms of wampum, twelve kettles, eight adzes…and

eight axes, with some knives, beads, [and] awl-blades.”

Troubled relations between Dutch

colonists and Native Americans, however, prevented organized settlement of the area for several

decades.

Even after the village of Boswijck (later anglicized to Bushwick) was established in

1660, the land that now comprises the neighborhood of Williamsburg remained sparsely

Portions of this section are adapted from: Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC), Brooklyn Public Library,

Williamsburgh Branch Designation Report (LP-1995) (New York: City of New York, 1999), prepared by Virginia

Kurshan. Information in this section is based on the following sources: Ancestry.com, 1790 United States Federal

Census [database online] (Provo, UT: Generations Network, 2000); Ancestry.com, 1800 United States Federal

Census [database online] (Provo, UT: Generations Network, 2004); Eugene L. Armbruster, The Eastern District of

Brooklyn (New York, 1912); Armbruster, Brooklyn’s Eastern District (Brooklyn, NY, 1942); Reginald Pelham

Bolton, New York City in Indian Possession, 2d ed. (New York: Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation,

1920; reprint 1975); Edwin F. Burrows and Mike Wallace, Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 (New

York: Oxford University Press, 1999); Harry W. Havermeyer, Merchants of Williamsburgh, Frederick C.

Hevemeyer, Jr., William Dick, John Mollenhauer, Henry O. Havemeyer (New York, 1989); LPC, Vinegar Hill

Historic District Designation Report (LP-1952) (New York: City of New York, 1997), prepared by Donald Presa;

LPC, Williamsburgh Savings Bank Interior Designation Report (LP-1910) (New York: City of New York, 1996),

prepared by Gale Harris; Nathaniel S. Prime, A History of Long Island From its First Settlement by Europeans to the

Year 1845 (New York: Robert Carter, 1845); Samuel Reynolds, A History of Williamsburgh (Williamsburgh, NY:

Joseph C. Gandor, 1852); Henry R. Stiles, ed. History of the County of Kings and the City of Brooklyn (New York:

W.W. Munsell & Co., 1884).

This section on the Native American occupants of Brooklyn was adapted from LPC, Vinegar Hill Historic District

Designation Report.

The Dutch West India Company’s Charter of Freedoms and Exemptions of 1629 (also known as the Charter of

Liberties) gave official sanction to the colonization of New Netherland; previously the Company had limited

wholesale settlement of the area in favor of maintaining a few minimally populated trading posts. The first three

large tracts of land on Long Island were acquired between 1636 and 1638 by William Adriaense Bennett and

Jacques Bentyn in the Gowanus area, Joris Jansen Rapalje around Wallabout Bay, and Wouter van Twiller, Jacob

van Corlear, Andries Hudde, and Wolphert Gerritsen near Jamaica Bay. Burrow and Wallace, 2829.

The full deed is transcribed in Armbruster (1912), 129-30. The Native American “system of land tenure was that of

occupancy for the needs of a group” and those sales that the Europeans deemed outright transfers of property were

to the Native Americans closer to leases or joint tenancy contracts where they still had rights to the property. Bolton,

A number of individuals had established homesteads on western Long Island even before Kieft’s purchase, but

they were widely spaced across the region and had no official government of any sort (see Ambruster [1912], 18-19

for a list of these early residents).

inhabited by only a handful of individual farmsteads throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth

centuries.

One of these homesteads was what came to be known as the Meserole or Keikout Farm.

Initially patented by the West India Company to Reyer Lambertsen in 1646, the plot

encompassed the land now roughly bounded by South Sixth Street and North First Street from

the East River to Roebling Street—including most of property within the boundaries of the

Fillmore Place Historic District.

The parcel was eventually acquired by Jean Mesurolle (Jan

Meserole), a French immigrant who arrived in New York in 1663. Meserole’s decedents

continued to occupy the farm through the first half of the seventeenth century. Following the

death of Jan Meserole III in 1756, portions of the farm were partitioned and sold off. Twelve

acres near the foot of Grand Street were purchased by Francis Titus, who accumulated

substantial land holdings in area during his life.

Much of this property was later conveyed to his

son, Charles Titus, who continued to maintain a farm there into the early nineteenth century.

Census records from the period indicate that many of the families living in what is now

Williamsburg—including both the Meserole and Titus households—owned slaves.

At the turn of the century, business people from around the metropolitan region began to

take notice of the Williamsburg area.

The location offered a number of enticements for real

estate developers—most notably its proximity to Manhattan, whose urban boundary had by this

point extended northwards and now lay directly across the East River from the old Meserole

Farm. One of the first speculators was Richard M. Woodhull, a prosperous Manhattan merchant

who purchased a thirteen-acre tract at the foot of present-day North 2

Street (Metropolitan

Avenue) from Charles Titus in 1802.

After having it surveyed by his friend Colonel Jonathan

Williams, Woodhull named the area Williamsburgh in his honor and began to sell lots there. He

also started a ferry service to Rivington Street in New York from the foot of North 2

Street,

which he called the Williamsburgh Ferry. A rival development was soon established just to the

south by Thomas Morrell, who acquired 23 acres at the foot of Grand Street from Folkert Titus

(Charles Titus’s son). Morrell and his partner James Hazard mapped out their own set of city lots

and named the settlement Yorktown. They also opened a ferry running from Grand Street in

Yorktown to Grand Street, Manhattan. Neither development, however, met with much initial

success. Woodhull’s operation failed around 1812; his real estate venture was taken over by his

father-in-law James H. Maxwell, while his ferry was subsumed by his rival Morrell. Maxwell

was later able to sell off some of the Williamsburgh settlement, but mostly to other speculators

rather than individual property owners. James Conklin, for example, purchased a substantial

number of parcels in 1815, including much of land within the boundaries of the Fillmore Place

Historic District. The slow market for urban building lots in the area eventually caused Maxwell

to fail as well and his stake in the remainder of the Williamsburgh development was sold at a

Boswijck—chartered and named by Director-General Peter Stuyvesant—originally consisted of 22 house lots

surrounded by a protective palisade stockade.

Stiles, 308.

Stiles, 314.

1790 United States Federal Census, New York State, Kings County, Bushwick, 18; 1800 United States Federal

Census, New York State, Kings County, Bushwick, 19.

The area was at this time known as the Bushwick Shore or the Strand.

Not wanting to alert the local residents of his real estate aspirations, Woodhull apparently employed Samuel Titus

as an intermediary in the purchase of the land. Stiles, 379. Woodhull later acquired an additional five acres from

Francis Titus in 1805.

Sheriff’s auction in 1818.

The name Williamsburgh, however, remained in popular use and

eventually came to denote the entire area between Wallabout Bay and the Bushwick Creek.

The urban development of Williamsburgh, while initially slow, proved to be inexorable.

General Jeremiah Johnson helped the process along when he opened the first public road from

Brooklyn to Bushwick through Williamsburgh.

A second generation of speculators benefitted

from the renewed interest in the area and additional farmsteads were acquired and mapped into

city lots by people such as Noah Waturbury (often called the “Father of Williamsburgh”), David

Dunham, and Garret and Grover C. Furman

By 1827 development of the area had progressed

sufficiently that local residents successfully petitioned the state legislature for village status. The

Village of Williamsburgh was then incorporated on April 14, 1827 with a population of 1,007.

The original limits encompassed the area now bound roughly by Division Avenue on the south,

Keap Street and Union Avenue on the west, and Bushwick Creek (approximately North 13

Street) on the north. Growth was steady in the following years and in 1835 the village again

petitioned the state legislature, this time to extend the boundaries of the village eastward to

Bushwick Avenue.

The Panic of 1837 slowed Williamsburgh’s growth, but only briefly. In 1840 the village

was set off from Bushwick as its own township. At this time it could claim six churches, several

schools, two shipyards, and numerous factories. It supported by a population of 5,094 people and

several ferry lines ran between this part of Kings County and Manhattan, providing convenient

connections for workers and commercial opportunities for small businesses—and helping the

industries that by the 1850s were being established along the East River waterfront.

The

population of Williamsburgh more than doubled between 1840 and 1845, and grew at an even

greater rate during the late 1840s and early 1850s when an influx of German immigrants arrived

in the area. When Williamsburgh became a city on January 1, 1852, its population was 35,000

and it was the twentieth largest urban area in America. It remained an independent municipality

for only a few years, however, before consolidating with the City of Brooklyn on January 1,

1855. After this, the area lost the “h” at the end of its name and it—along with the adjacent

Bushwick and Greenpoint neighborhoods—came to be known as Brooklyn’s Eastern District.

David Dunham, Moses Judah, and Samuel Osborn acquired the property following a judgment in favor of James

J. Roosevelt.

Stiles notes that Johnson’s efforts to open the road “contributed more, perhaps, than any other similar

improvement, to the ultimate growth and prosperity” of Williamsburgh. Stiles, 382.

The Furmans acquired 25 acres of land in Williamsburgh in 1825. Even at this date they were unsure if there was

sufficient demand for urban building lots and the pair “hesitated how to commence; whether to continue it awhile

for farming purposes, or [survey it into city lots].” They chose the latter and eventually made a brisk business of it.

Stiles, 386, quoting Garret Furman in Gent. Rusticus, Long Island Miscellanies, 182.

Among the earliest industries in Williamsburgh were distilleries, hat and glue factories, and a carpet factory. By

the mid 1850s the sugar industry was beginning to establish itself along the waterfront in Williamsburgh,

particularly with the 1856 opening of Havemeyer, Townsend & Company—ultimately the largest sugar refinery in

the United States (portions of which have been designated a New York City Landmark). By 1887 seven modern

sugar refineries had been established along the Williamsburg waterfront, producing more than half of the sugar

consumed in the country.

Clock & Miller and the Development of Fillmore Place

It was during this period of rapid urban growth that a pair of merchant tailors from New

York City decided to enter the Williamsburgh real estate business. In 1846, Alfred Clock and

Ephraim Miller began acquiring parcels of land on the block bounded by Grand Street, Sixth

(Roebling) Street, North Second Street (Metropolitan Avenue), and Fifth Street (Driggs

Avenue).

They purchased twelve lots from James Conklin, the speculator who bought into the

original Williamsburgh development in 1815 and who had been holding onto the land ever since.

Clock and Miller also acquired three lots from John Casilear in 1847 and a small strip of the

David Van Cott farmstead in 1848. Soon thereafter Josiah Blackwell released to the pair the

rights to “part of a certain formerly contemplated street” called James Street that would have run

north-south down the middle of the block.

Having assembled a contiguous parcel of

developable land, Clock and Miller then hired a surveyor in 1850 to lay out a new, more

regularized set of city lots on the property. The cumbersome dimensions of the block—each

frontage was over 300 feet in length—also lead the pair to cut a narrow road through the middle

of their development, which they named Fillmore Street (soon renamed Fillmore Place).

Information in this section is based on the following sources: Ancestry.com, 1840 United States Federal Census

[database online] (Provo, UT: Generations Network, 2004); Ancestry.com, 1850 United States Federal Census

[database online] (Provo, UT: Generations Network, 2005); Ancestry.com, 1860 United States Federal Census

[database online] (Provo, UT: Generations Network, 2004); Ancestry.com, 1870 United States Federal Census

[database online] (Provo, UT: Generations Network, 2003; Ancestry.com, 1880 United States Federal Census

[database online] (Provo, UT: Generations Network, 2005); G.W. Bromley & Co., “Atlas of the Entire City of

Brooklyn” (New York: G.W. Bromley & E. Robinson, 1880); Joseph H. Colton, “Map of the City of Brooklyn…”

(Brooklyn, 1849); Matthew Dripps, “Map of the Village of Williamsburgh” (New York: Mattew Dripps, 1850);

Dripps, “Map of the City of Brooklyn; Being the Former Cities of Brooklyn & Williamsburgh and the Town of

Bushwick” (New York: Mattew Dripps, 1869); Daneil Ewen, “Map of 37 Lots Situated in the 2

Ward of the City of

Williamsburgh Belonging to Alfred Clock and Ephraim Miller, Surveyed by Daneil Ewen 1850, Filed April 12

1853,” reprint (Brooklyn: Kings County Clerk’s Office, 1899); G.M. Hopkins, “Farm Line Atlas of Brooklyn”

(Brooklyn, 1880); Kings County, Office of the Register, Liber Deeds and Conveyances; New York City, Record of

Tax Assessments, Brooklyn Ward 14, 1868-1898; United States Coast Survey, Map of New-York Bay and Harbor

and the Environs (Washington D.C.: United States of America, 1844); United States Coast Survey, Map of New-

York Bay and Harbor and Environs (Washington D.C.: United States of America, 1866); Isaac Vieth, “A Map of the

Village of Williamsburgh, Kings County, N.Y.” (Williamsburgh, NY, 1845).

Little is known about either Ephraim Miller or Alfred Clock. Census records indicate that both were born in

Connecticut around the turn of the century and that both had the occupation of tailor. Their relationship was clearly

more than mere business partners, as they remained neighbors throughout the mid nineteenth century, and it is

possible that there was a familial connection. Miller died around 1868, leaving most of his Fillmore Place holdings

to his son Theodore J. Miller. Clock died in 1887. His obituary confirms that he was born in 1802 in Darien,

Connecticut. It also states that Clock, “coming to this city when a young man…soon perceived the growth to which

it and Brooklyn were destined, and he invested largely in real estate in both cities.” His estate went to his daughter

Evelina Meserole, who had married prominent Williamsburg resident Jeremiah V. Meserole. 1840 United States

Census, New York State, New York County, Ward 7, 75; 1850 United States Census, New York State, Kings

County, Williamsburgh, 979; 1860 United States Census, New York State, Kings County, Brooklyn Ward 13

District 2, 163-164; Obituary, New York Times (May 2, 1887), 5.

It is notable that Clock and Miller chose to align their street in the opposite orientation, running Fillmore Place in

an east-west direction instead. Kings County, Office of the Register, Deed Liber 158, p. 142; Liber 163, p. 425;

Liber 174, p. 512; Liber 267, p. 232.

The irregularity of the original lots and the cumbersome dimensions of the block were a consequence of the

piecemeal development of Williamsburgh by competing real estate speculators and the lack of a comprehensive

master plan such as was adopted in Manhattan under the Commissioner’s Plan of 1811. It was only in 1827—when

the Village of Williamsburgh was incorporated—that a complete survey of the area was finally conducted and a

“Map of 37 Lots Situated in the 2

Ward of the City of Williamsburgh Belonging to Alfred Clock and Ephraim

Miller, Surveyed by Daniel Ewen 1850, Filed April 12

1853.” (Courtesy Kings County Clerk’s Office)

Daniel Ewen, a surveyor from New York, filed a “Map of 37 Lots Situated in the 2

Ward of the City of Williamsburgh Belonging to Alfred Clock and Ephraim Miller” with the

Kings County Register’s Office.

In 1852 an advertisement in the New York Times proclaimed,

“Messers. Clock and Miller have commenced opening, at their own expense, a new street, from

South [Sixth] and Fifth-Street, between Grand and North First. It will be built up with

magnificent dwellings.”

Within a couple years, many of the lots on the north side of Fillmore

Place had been sold to individual property owners. Samuel G. Baxter, for example, purchased lot

10 (later known by the street address of 21 Fillmore Place) on September 30, 1853 for the sum of

$725. Five years later he sold the same property for $4,000. These prices indicate that—at least

for the parcels on the north side of the street—Clock and Miller were selling unimproved lots.

The relative variety in the design of the buildings erected on these properties also seems to

reflect a history of owner-built structures. The north side of Fillmore Place initially had several

street pattern canonized. Even then, the plan for Williamsburgh was not the strictly rectilinear gridiron that

Manhattan had adopted sixteen years earlier. Instead, many of the existing streets were allowed to remain, with the

consequence that several of the blocks—including that of Clock and Miller—were erratically shaped. An early

historian of the area lamented, “although there is a great deal of regularity in the plat, it will be a matter of lasting

regret, that the streets were not laid out in exact parallels and perpendiculars; and it is difficult to imagine, on what

principle, so many veering and converging streets could have been laid down, on a tract of land, that presented no

obstacles to a perfectly regular plan.” Prime, 349.

Ewen was also responsible for creating the first map of the Village of Williamsburgh in 1827.

“Williamsburg City,” New York Times (June 25, 1852), 2.

distinct models of three-story brick residences (small groups at nos. 15-17 and 19-23 Fillmore

Place), a two-story wood-framed house (no. 13), and a couple of vacant lots (nos. 9 and 11).

The south side of Fillmore Place, on the other hand, was speculatively built for Clock and Miller

as a cohesive development. Conveyance records show that the pair retained possession of most

of the lots on that part of the street into the late 1850s and early 1860s, several years after they

had sold off the properties on the north side. It appears that by 1854 they had hired mason Jacob

Sheppard to erect eight houses on the property, while Sheppard’s associate John Rourke likely

constructed a ninth.

The finished row, comprising the buildings at 12-28 Fillmore Place, was

almost perfectly uniform and continues to display the cohesion of a group built for a single

owner by an individual builder.

While the residential buildings along Fillmore Place comprised the heart of Clock and

Miller’s development, a number of their lots fronted on Fifth and Sixth Streets and were

developed at the same time with mixed-use buildings that incorporated ground-floor storefronts.

Like the north side of Fillmore Place, it appears that these structures were erected for individual

owners rather than as a coordinated development by Clock and Miller. Typical of these

properties is the one now known by the street address of 667 Driggs Avenue. The lot was sold by

Clock and Miller to Charles M. Briggs in 1854 for $1,300; Briggs subsequently took out a

mortgage with Clock and Miller the same day. A year later, Briggs sold the property to the

Kipling family for $6,500. The sale prices and the mortgage both indicate that the building was

erected for Briggs while he was the owner.

Other mixed-use buildings erected during the same

period within the boundaries of the district included 673 and 675 Driggs Avenue (the former

subsequently demolished) and 168 Roebling Street.

By the early 1860s, the urban development of Fillmore Place had largely been completed.

Notices posted in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle record that gas lights were ordered for the street in

1854, that sewers were installed and sidewalks flagged in 1859, and that the roadway itself was

paved in 1861.

A few of the original Clock and Miller parcels, however, remained undeveloped

for a number of years. The lot at 30 Fillmore Place, for example, passed through several hands

during the 1850s and 1860s before being acquired in 1867 by Jacob Sheppard and John Rourke.

The masons had apparently kept an eye on Fillmore Place and—seeing an opportunity to add to

the row they had built for Clock and Miller in the 1850s—erected a new three-story residence on

25 and 27 Fillmore Place were also built up with brick houses at this time but were demolished c. 1930.

Several parcels were conveyed back and forth between Clock and Miller and Rebecca Sheppard (Jacob’s wife)

during the second half of the 1850s, possibly as part of the financing for the construction of the houses. Rourke also

owned one of the lots for a brief period. A notice of unpaid taxes for the year 1854 appeared in the Brooklyn Daily

Eagle confirming that Jacob Sheppard controlled eight lots and houses on the south side of Fillmore Place, while

another lot without house was owned by John Rourke. “Corporation Notice,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle (June 26, 1856),

8-9.

Little is know about the builders. An obituary for Jacob Sheppard’s daughter in the New York Times calls

Sheppard a “well-known builder in Brooklyn.” Obituary, New York Times (April 3, 1930), 25. Census records from

1860 indicate that the two lived in the same building—either on Fillmore Place or in the immediate vicinity—and it

is clear that they maintained at least a professional relationship if not a familial one. 1860 United States Census,

New York State, Kings County, Ward 14, District 1, 156.

Kings County, Office of the Register, Deed Liber 402, p. 224; Liber 401, p. 393. Clock and Miller’s involvement

as mortgage holders—as well as the similarities in appearance with the houses erected for the pair on the south side

of Fillmore Place—may suggest that they had some influence in the design of the structures on lots they had already

sold.

“Williamsburgh News,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle (October 3, 1854), 2; “Corporation Notices,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle

(April 12, 1859), 2; “Sewerage,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle (September 9, 1859), 3; “Corporation Notice Assessments,”

Brooklyn Daily Eagle (March 25, 1861), 4.

the property in 1870.

A similar building went up at 10 Fillmore Place a few years later in 1873.

While it is unclear if Sheppard and Rourke were involved in its construction, its design was

almost identical to 30 Fillmore Place and the two structures serve as effective book ends to the

nine earlier houses. On the north side of the street, the vacant lot at 11 Fillmore Place was finally

built upon in 1881 when Samuel W. Woolsey commissioned a three-story brick residence of his

own. The remaining structures on Fillmore Place, the garages at nos. 7 and 9, were both built in

the twentieth century well after the period of major development in the area.

The Fillmore Place Historic District also includes several properties that were not part of

Clock and Miller’s plan of 37 lots. Their holdings extended only to the east side of Driggs

Avenue and the lots on the west side of that street were therefore developed separately (and

slightly later) than those on Fillmore Place. Contractor Edward A. Wooley constructed a row of

three mixed-use building at 672-676 Driggs Avenue around 1868. They were likely a built as a

speculative venture—the Wooley family retained possession of the properties for several decades

but do not appear to have ever occupied them. A similar building was constructed at 662 Driggs

Avenue at about the same time for local shoemaker Joesph A. Goller.

Architecture of the Fillmore Place Historic District

Most of the buildings within the Fillmore Place Historic District were designed in a

restrained Italianate style, with symmetrical three-bay wide brick façades ornamented primarily

with projecting stone door hoods, molded stone lintels and projecting sills, and bracketed wood

cornices. In many ways the houses erected along Fillmore Place represent a transition from the

Greek Revival style that had prevailed in the 1830s into the 1840s, and the high-style Italianate

that would become ubiquitous throughout Brooklyn and New York City during the 1860s.

The

most obvious influence from the earlier mode of architecture is the austere planar brick façade,

laid in English bond and interrupted only with rhythmically placed rectangular window and

entrance openings. Elements of the latter style consist primarily of the applied ornament,

particularly the more deeply projecting window lintels and sills, the bracketed cornice, the

projecting door hoods (some pedimented), and the use of dark brownstone for these decorative

components. The ironwork along the stoops and areaways, characterized by oblong patterns and

round-arched shapes, is also typical of the Italianate style and was an integral part of the design

of the buildings.

They soon lost the house in a foreclosure suit.

A three-story brick structure and a pair of two-story wood-framed buildings were also erected at about the same

time on the parcels between 662 and 672 Driggs Avenue. They were subsequently demolished and the property

remains a vacant lot known by the street address of 664 Driggs Avenue.

Information in this section is based of the following sources: Charles Lockwood, Bricks and Brownstone: The

New York Row House 1783-1929, 2

ed. (New York: Rizzoli International Publications, 2003); LPC, Rowhouse

Manual (New York: City of New York); New York City Department of Housing and Buildings, Historical

Occupancy Records, Initial Inspection Cards (“I-Cards”).

In his history of the New York row house, Lockwood notes, “no New York row house style had a precise

beginning or end, and the row houses of the late 1840s and early 1850s reflected a transition between the Greek

Revival and Italianate styles…by the mid-1840s the influence of the Romantic movement, which led to the Italianate

style, appeared in a preference for dark brownstone over the customary limestone or marble in doorway

enframements and window details and in a breaking of the façade’s planar unity with somewhat heavier sills and

lintels.” Lockwood, 128. The chapter also contains a full discussion of the origins of the Italianate style in New

York City.

While the buildings within the Fillmore Place Historic District were erected as multi-

family dwellings and were occupied by working-class tenants, their architecture has more in

common with the fashionable middle- and upper-class single-family row houses of the period

than with the substandard tenements that were becoming more common in the poorer sections of

the city. The residences at 465-473 West 21

Street in Manhattan (designated New York City

Landmarks within the Chelsea Historic District), for example, are very nearly identical in

exterior appearance to the buildings on Fillmore Place but were erected for wealthy owners in a

neighborhood known for its elegant houses.

On the interior, the buildings erected in Clock and

Miller’s developer were certainly less ostentatious than their single-family counterparts but were

still quite comfortable. It appears that each floor originally contained just a single apartment and

the relatively shallow depth of the buildings—most extend just 30 feet deep—meant that each

room had at least one proper window facing either the street or a generously-sized rear yard.

The domestic character of the houses along Fillmore Place is underscored by the presence

of mid-height stoops leading to deeply recessed entrances embellished with stone door hoods and

ornamental wood door frames. Some have rusticated brownstone bases while others have plain

brownstone beltcourses separating the basement level from the upper floors. All of these

buildings originally had elaborate wrought- and cast-iron fences enclosing sunken areaways,

some of which remain intact. Many retain their original decorative iron stoop railings, newels,

and newel posts. The nine houses erected by Jacob Sheppard and John Rourke for Clock and

Miller along the south side of Fillmore Place in the 1850s are nearly identical in design, although

there are a number of subtle variations that distinguish two basic models. The most notable

differences are seen in the treatment of the entrances. Nos. 12-16 and 28 all have elaborate

pedimented stone door hoods and wood door frames with heavy dentiled transom bars below

full-width transom lights. Each of these houses also likely had double-leaf doors (preserved at

nos. 14 and 28). The buildings at 18-26 Fillmore Place, on the other hand, have simpler molded

stone door hoods and wood door frames with pilasters flanking single-leaf doors, plain molded

transom bars, and narrower transom lights. There are also very slight differences in the wood

cornices—mostly in the weight of the brackets—although the basic form is the same, with five

regularly spaced scrolled brackets with foliate pendants separating simple molded frieze panels.

The buildings dating from the 1850s on the north side of Fillmore Place, erected for

individual owners after Clock and Miller had sold the lots, show greater variety in design but are

still very similar to those across the street. No. 17 in particular is nearly identical to the houses on

the south side of Fillmore Place, most notably in the treatment of the wood cornice and other

applied ornament.

The general composition of the short row at 19-23 Fillmore Place is

basically the same as the other buildings on the block, but they have a number of distinctive

decorative touches. The cornices, for example, have four pairs of delicately scroll-sawn brackets

and employ a dentil course instead of molded frieze panels. The wood door frames of these

buildings are also more ornate, with flanking pilasters supporting heavy molded transom bars

and full-width transom lights. 21 Fillmore Place is especially distinctive, having received new

The houses in Chelsea were built in 1853, approximately the same time as those on Fillmore Place.

The upper floors each had a parlor and bedroom towards the front of the house and a kitchen and second bedroom

at the rear, while the ground floor had an entrance vestibule and parlor at the front, two bedrooms at the rear, and

kitchen, dining, and sitting rooms in the basement. New York City Department of Housing and Buildings, Historical

Occupancy Records.

It also once had the same plain molded stone door hood (now shaved off) as it counterparts at nos. 18-26. 15

Fillmore Place was originally identical to no. 17 but has been heavily altered.

cast-iron ornament—including bracketed window lintels, sills, and door hood, and a prominent

fronticepiece above the cornice—sometime after its construction.

The mixed-use buildings on the busier thoroughfares of Driggs Avenue and Roebling

Street share many of the same building elements as those on residential Fillmore Place, but were

erected with ground-floor storefronts at street level instead of with raised basements and high

stoops. A mid-building cornice usually separated the residential upper stories and is preserved on

a couple of the structures. 168 Roebling Street and 667 and 675 Driggs Avenue were all

constructed on lots within Clock and Miller’s development, although they appear to have been

built for individual owners after the lots had been sold off. The latter two buildings show clear

similarities in detailing with the Sheppard- and Rourke-erected houses on Fillmore Place. They

retain historic wood cornices typical of the Clock and Miller buildings—with scrolled brackets,

foliate pendants, and molded frieze panels—and have similar window treatments with

rectangular openings, straight molded lintels, and projecting stone sills. 168 Roebling Street,

however, introduces a number of new elements more typical of high-style Italianate design,

particularly the segmental-arched window openings and lintels. The buildings on the west side of

Driggs Avenue, outside of the boundaries of the land once owned by Clock and Miller and

erected more than a decade after those on Fillmore Place, share this last architectural detail and

evidence the development of the Italianate style within the historic district.

A few of the buildings within the boundaries of the Fillmore Place Historic District were

constructed well after the initial wave of development in the 1850s. Two of these—the houses at

10 and 30 Fillmore Place, erected in 1873 and 1870, respectively—show the continuing

influence of the Italianate style. The latter was likely built by the same masons who constructed

the nine neighboring buildings for Clock and Miller, and it is possible that it was specifically

designed to compliment the existing structures.

Both buildings employ ornament similar to the

earlier houses, with rhythmically placed rectangular window openings, projecting stone lintels

and sills, and bracketed wood cornices with foliate pendants and molded frieze panels. While

neither building had a raised basement or an entrance stoop, each originally had an iron fence

around the areaway with the rounded oblong ornament typical of the Italianate style (preserved at

no. 10). The final house built on Fillmore Place was no. 11, erected in 1881. While the general

plan of the building is similar to those built in prior decades on the street, its decorative detailing

is in the newer neo-Grec style that had come to replace the Italianate as the favored mode of

architecture by the late 1870s. The weighty cornice is particularly distinctive, with its heavy

paired console brackets with incised decoration, dentil course, and block modillions.

Subsequent History

Clock and Miller had sold off most of the properties on the north side of Fillmore Place

and along Driggs Avenue and Roebling Street by the mid 1850s. They retained possession of

The similarities between 10 and 30 Fillmore Place may indicate that Jacob Sheppard and John Rourke built both

structures, but no evidence has been found to confirm this.

Portions of this section are adapted from: LPC, Austin, Nichols & Co. Warehouse Designation Report (LP-2163)

(New York: City of New York, 2005), prepared by Matthew A. Postal. Information in this section is based on the

following sources: Kings County, Office of the Register, Liber Deeds and Conveyances; Henry Miller, “A Boyhood

View of the Nineties,” New York Times (October 17, 1971), A1; Miller, Black Spring (Frogmore, Great Britain:

Panther Books Ltd, 1974); Miller, Tropic of Capricorn (New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1961); New York City,

Record of Tax Assements; Waterfront Preservation Alliance of Greenpoint and Williamsburgh, “Proposal for a

Fillmore Place Historic District Designation” (New York, 2007).

several of the buildings on the south side of Fillmore Place for a number of years, apparently

renting out apartments as a business venture. After Ephraim Miller’s death around 1868, a couple

of these houses were inherited by his son, Theodore J. Miller, who promptly sold them off to

individual owners. Alfred Clock also divested himself of some of the properties at this time, and

by the end of the 1860s all but one of the buildings on Fillmore Place had passed from the hands

of Clock and Miller.

Many of the people who bought property in the district retained

possession of their buildings for at least a decade, several for significantly longer—Solomon

Thomas and his family owned 26 Fillmore Place for nearly a half century from 1857-1904;

Charlotte Letscher and her family occupied no. 12 from 1865-1912; Thomas Coger was in

possession of 19 Fillmore Place from 1852-1888; and the Kipling family owned 667 Driggs

Avenue from 1855-1906.

Some of the buildings were owned by people who did not live on the premises and were

rented out as investments. Aside from Clock and Miller, notable Fillmore Place landlords

included Enos J. Baker and his wife Mary, who acquired at least four properties on the street

during the 1850s and 1860s; William J. Dailey, who purchased 18 Fillmore Place in 1877 and

eventually accumulated at least two neighboring houses in the late nineteenth century; and

Herman A. Wagner, who owned three buildings on the street in late nineteenth and early

twentieth centuries.

Census records, however, indicate that most of the houses on Fillmore

Place were owner-occupied, often with the owners living in the larger ground floor apartment

and renting out the upper floor apartments to tenants.

The stable ownership and occupancy patterns on Fillmore Place meant that the street saw

few significant changes in later decades, even as the neighborhood around it was undergoing

major transformations. Most dramatic was the surge in population that accompanied the planning

and construction of the Williamsburg Bridge.

Proposed in 1883, the bridge was opened in 1903

serving all forms of transportation. Many immigrants moved from the Lower East Side to

tenements in the area, making Williamsburg, especially the blocks immediately north of the

bridge, some of the most crowded in the nation. On many streets, new six-story tenement

buildings—and later six-story apartment complexes—replaced existing row houses. Around

1913, Roebling Street was widened in order to accommodate the increase in traffic flowing

across the bridge. The lots of the west side of the street were reduced 20 feet in depth and several

of the buildings at the northwest corner of the Roebling Street and Fillmore Place were torn

down. 168 Roebling Street was spared the wrecking ball, its owners opting instead to move the

entire structure 20 feet west onto what had been its rear yard. The houses along Fillmore Place

itself, however, were not directly affected by the opening of the bridge and remain perhaps the

Clock owned 20 Fillmore Place until 1883, when he conveyed it to his daughter Evelina A. Meserole. She in turn

maintained it as a rental property for several decades before selling it in 1905.

It should be noted that each of these owners lived in one of their buildings within the historic district. It does not

appear that there were many absentee landlords.

Tenancies for renters tended to be much shorter than for those who owned the buildings. The apartments in

Solomon Thomas’s building at 26 Fillmore Place, for example, show continual turn over between each decade that

the census was taken. In 1860 the other apartments were occupied by the households of painter Thomas Floyd and

mason John Bennet; by the households of store clerk Alexander McGinley and house carpenter John Campbell in

1870; and by the households of George F. Patrick and Garret Springer in 1880. 1860 United States Census, New

York State, Kings County, Brooklyn Ward 14 District 1, 157-158; 1870 United States Census, New York State,

Kings County, Brooklyn Ward 14, 79; 1880 United States Census, New York State, Kings County, Brooklyn Ward

14, Enumeration District 119, 8-9.

This section on the Williamsburg Bridge adapted from LPC, Austin, Nichols & Co. Warehouse Designation

Report.

most intact enclave of buildings erected during Williamsburg’s initial period of urban

development.

The most famous resident to have lived within the Fillmore Place Historic District moved

into the house at 662 Driggs Avenue just before the opening of the Williamsburg Bridge. Henry

Miller—who later made a name for himself as an author with such works as Black Spring,

Tropic of Cancer, and Tropic of Capricorn—lived on Driggs Avenue for less than a decade as a

young child from 1891-99, but the time proved to be powerful memory. Reflecting on his life in

a New York Times article from 1971, Miller recalled, “I began my sojourn in Paradise in the first

year of my life at 662 Driggs Avenue, Brooklyn, and I remained there until 1899…these few

years are ineradicably engraved in my mind.”

Many of Miller’s published works contain

autobiographical elements and the Fillmore Place neighborhood is referenced in several of them.

In Black Spring, Miller writes that “there were three streets—North First, Fillmore Place and

Driggs Avenue. These marked the boundaries of the known world.”

His description of Fillmore

Place in The Tropic of Capricorn continues to reflect many people’s sentiment of the historic

little block: “[it was] the most enchanting street I have ever seen in all my life. It was the ideal

street—for a boy, a lover, a maniac, a drunkard, a crook, a lecher, a thug, an astronomer, a

musician, a poet, a tailor, a shoemaker, a politician.”

The construction of the garage at 7 Fillmore Place in 1912 is the greatest physical evidence of the rising influence

of the automobile within the limits of the historic district.

Miller (1971).

Miller (1974), 175.

Miller (1961), 215.

FINDINGS AND DESIGNATION

On the basis of careful consideration of the history, the architecture, and other features of

this area, the Landmarks Preservation Commission finds that the Fillmore Place Historic District

contains buildings and other improvements that have a special character and a special historic

and aesthetic interest and value and which represent one or more eras in the history of New York

City and which cause this area, by reason of these factors, to constitute a distinct section of the

city.

The Commission further finds that, among its important qualities, the Fillmore Place

Historic District is a small and intact enclave of 29 properties consisting mostly of multi-family

flats buildings erected in the mid-nineteenth century during a period of rapid urbanization in the

area; that the Williamsburg neighborhood remained rural farmland into the early nineteenth

century when real estate speculators began to acquire large tracts of land that they divided up

into urban building lots; that later speculators succeeded in attracting new residents to the area;

that the Village of Williamsburgh was chartered in 1827, its boundaries expanded in 1835, and it

became the independent Town of Williamsburgh in 1840; that the area’s population grew rapidly

during the 1840s and 1850s so that it became the City of Williamsburgh in 1852 and merged into

the City of Brooklyn in 1855; that Ephraim Miller and Alfred Clock began investing in real

estate in Williamsburg during this period of rapid urban growth; that they acquired most of the

land within the boundaries of the Fillmore Place Historic District in the late 1840s and early

1850s; that they hired a surveyor to lay out 37 buildings lots centered around a new street that

came to be known as Fillmore Place; that some of the lots were purchased by individual owners

who subsequently erected dwellings; that Clock and Miller were directly responsible for

developing a row of nine buildings on the south side of the street; that while most of lots had

been improved by the mid 1850s, a few of the buildings within the district were constructed in

subsequent decades; that many of the buildings were erected as three-story multi-family flats

buildings with raised basements and high stoops; that those along the busier thoroughfares of

Driggs Avenue and Roebling Street were designed with ground floor storefronts with apartments

above; that most of the buildings were designed in a restrained Italianate style with austere

planar brick façades ornamented primarily by projecting stone door hoods, molded stone lintels

and projecting sills, and bracketed wood cornices; that several retain their original iron areaway

fences and stoop railings; that while the buildings were erected as multi-family dwellings for

working class tenants, their architecture is similar to fashionable middle- and upper-class single

family row houses erected in fashionable residential neighborhoods such as Chelsea in

Manhattan; that stable ownership and occupancy patterns on Fillmore Place meant the street saw

few significant changes in later decades even as the neighborhood around it was undergoing

major transformations; that even the opening the of the Williamsburg Bridge in 1903 had little

impact on the physical fabric of Fillmore Place; and that the Fillmore Place Historic District

remains one of the most intact enclave of buildings erected during Williamsburg’s initial period

of urban development.

Accordingly, pursuant to the provisions of Chapter 74, Section 3020 (formerly Section

534 of Chapter 21) of the Charter of the City of New York and Chapter 3 of Title 25 of the

Administrative Code of the City of New York, the Landmarks Preservation Commission

designates as a Historic District the Fillmore Place Historic District, consisting of the property

bounded by a line beginning at the intersection of the northern curbline of Fillmore Place and the

western curbline of Roebling Street, continuing southerly across the roadbed of Fillmore Place

and along the western curbline of Roebling Street to a point formed by its intersection with a line

extending easterly from the southern property line of 168 Roebling Street, westerly along said

line and the southern property line of 168 Roebling Street, southerly along a portion of the

eastern property line of 30 Fillmore Place, westerly along the southern property lines of 30

through 18 Fillmore Place, southerly along a portion of the eastern property line of 16 Fillmore

Place, westerly along the southern property lines of 16 through 10 Fillmore Place, northerly

along a portion of the western property line of 10 Fillmore Place, westerly along the southern

property line of 675 Driggs Avenue to the eastern curbline of Driggs Avenue, northerly along

said curbline to a point formed by its intersection with a line extending easterly from the northern

curbline of North 1

Street, westerly across the roadbed of Driggs Avenue and along the northern

curbline of North 1

Street to a point formed by its intersection with a line extending southerly

from the western property line of 676 Driggs Avenue, northerly along the western property lines

of 676 through 662 Driggs Avenue, easterly along the northern property line of 662 Driggs

Avenue to the western curbline of Driggs Avenue, southerly along said curbline to a point

formed by its intersection with a line extending westerly from the northern property line of 667

Driggs Avenue, easterly along said line across the roadbed of Driggs Avenue and along the

northern property lines of 667 Driggs Avenue and 7 Fillmore Place, northerly along a portion of

the western property line of 9 Fillmore Place, easterly along the northern property lines of 9

through 21 Fillmore Place, southerly along a portion of the eastern property line of 21 Fillmore

Place, easterly along the northern property line of 23 Fillmore Place, southerly along the eastern

property line of 23 Fillmore Place to the northern curbline of Fillmore Place, easterly along said

curbline to the point of the beginning.

Robert B. Tierney, Chair

Pablo E. Vengoechea, Vice Chair

Frederick Bland, Stephen F. Byrns, Diana Chapin, Roberta Brandes Gratz, Christopher Moore,

Margery Perlmutter, Elizabeth Ryan, Roberta Washington, Commissioners

BUILDING PROFILES

DRIGGS AVENUE, NOS. 662-676 (WEST SIDE, BETWEEN NORTH 1

STREET AND

METROPOLITAN AVENUE)

662 Driggs Avenue

Borough of Brooklyn Tax Map Block 2366 Lot 24

Date of Construction: c. 1867

Builder: Not Determined

Original Owner: Joseph A. Goeller

Type: Flats with store

Style: Italianate

Stories: Three

Material: Brick with stone trim

Ownership History to 1950:

1864 Joseph A. Goeller

1868 Michael Gesser

1869 Andrew Steinmuller and Ernst Boencke

1871 Ernst Boencke

1872 Valentine Nieting

History: This property was not part of Clock &

Miller’s plan but was developed at about the same

period. It appears that the three-story brick flats

building was erected in the late 1860s as an investment

property for Joseph A. Goeller, a shoemaker who lived and worked in a adjacent building (now

demolished) at 664 Driggs Avenue. The property subsequently passed through several owners

until Valentine Nieting acquired the building in 1872. Nieting—listed in directories as a tailor—

and his family resided in an apartment in this building for several decades. In the early 1890s his

daughter and son-in-law, Louise Marie Nieting and Heinrich Miller, moved to a flat on the upper

floor with their young son, the eventually famous author Henry Miller, Jr. The elder Miller also

worked as a tailor and was apparently employed as a cutter with his father-in-law. The Millers

lived at 662 Driggs Avenue for less than a decade, but the time proved to be a powerful memory

for young Henry. Reflecting on his life in a New York Times article from 1971, Miller recalled, “I

began my sojourn in Paradise in the first year of my life at 662 Driggs Avenue, Brooklyn, and I

remained there until 1899…these few years are ineradicably engraved in my mind.” By 1901 the

family had moved farther out in Brooklyn to the Bushwick neighborhood. Valentine Nieting and

his family appear to have retained ownership of the building at 662 Driggs Avenue for a number

of years.

Description: Three-story Italianate-style brick flats building with ground floor storefront. Main

(East) Façade: Three bays wide; ground floor has storefront with commercial entrance at center

and residential entrance at right; storefront flanked by brownstone pilasters, central entrance with

metal security gate recessed between large, single-pane windows, door has single large glass

panel; recessed residential entrance has historic wood door frame with plain reveal, rope molding

around frame and on transom bar, and three-pane transom light; ground floor separated from

upper floors by pressed metal cornice; upper floors have segmental-arched window openings

with stone lintels and sills; replica modillioned cornice supported by four acanthus-leaved

brackets with molded panel frieze. Side (North) Façade: Parged brick wall with single square

window opening at third story; coped parapet; stairway bulkhead visible above roofline from

street. Side (South) Façade: Parged brick wall with a rectangular window opening at second and

third stories; two light fixtures with conduit above second floor; coped parapet and two chimneys

visible from street. Alterations:

Recent building restoration included replacement of cornice,

window lintels, and sills with replicas based on historic photographs; entrance door replaced; all

historic windows replaced; light installed in door frame soffit; doorbells installed in left door

frame reveal.

References:

Kings County, Office of the Register, Liber Deeds and Conveyances.

Henry Miller, “A Boyhood View of the Nineties,” New York Times (October 17, 1971), A1.

New York City, Record of Tax Assessments, Brooklyn Ward 14, 1868-1898.

New York City, Division of Taxation, Tax Photographs, c. 1940.

United States Federal Census Records, 1860, 1870, 1880.

664 Driggs Avenue (aka 664-670 Driggs Avenue)

Borough of Brooklyn Tax Map Block 2366 Lot 25

Date of Construction: N/A

Architect: N/A

Original Owner: N/A

Type: Unimproved Lot

Style: N/A

Stories: N/A

Material: N/A

History: This property—once three

individual building lots—was not

part of Clock & Miller’s plan but

was developed during the same

period. A three-story brick

building once stood at the

northernmost lot, while a pair of

two-story frame structures occupied the southern lots. Joseph A. Goeller, a shoemaker, acquired

the brick building in 1863 and resided there until his death in 1902. He eventually purchased the

adjacent frame structures in 1880, consolidating ownership of the three parcels. Goeller’s

obituary in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle notes that he was “one of the oldest pioneer German

residents of the Eastern District” and “assisted in the development of that section of this

borough.” The buildings were demolished c. 1918; the lot has remained unimproved since.

Description: Unimproved lot enclosed with chain link fence.

References:

Obituary, Brooklyn Daily Eagle (January 16, 1902), 3.

Kings County, Office of the Register, Liber Deeds and Conveyances.

New York City, Record of Tax Assessments, Brooklyn Ward 14, 1868-1898.

New York City, Division of Taxation, Tax Photographs, c. 1940.

672 Driggs Avenue

Borough of Brooklyn Tax Map Block 2366 Lot 28

Date of Construction: c. 1868

Builder: Edward A. Woolley

Original Owner: Edward A. Woolley

Type: Flats with store

Style: Italianate

Stories: Three

Material: Brick with stone trim and wood cornice

Ownership History to 1950:

1866 Edward A. Woolley

1878 John H. Woolley

1880 Sarah E. Stewart

1887 William Ramsey

1912 Solomon Rosenberg

1920 Jacob Epstein

1922 Fannie Epstein

1923 Hannah Pittel

1925 Eva Dirsus

1926 Adele Markunas

1934 John G. and Nellie Mardosa

1940 Joseph M. Creamer

1947 Mary Gambale

1950 Regina Jacina

History: This property was not part of Clock & Miller’s plan but was developed at about the

same period. In the 1850s several parcels of land were conveyed by Philp J. Tuska to William B.

Foster, who in turn sold the lots to Edward A. Woolley in 1866. Woolley soon began

construction on a row of three flats buildings (now known as 672, 674, and 676 Driggs Avenue)

designed in the then-popular Italianate style. It appears that Woolley was his own contractor;

according to his obituary in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Woolley “went into the building business

in 1864 and since that time had built over two hundred houses” throughout Brooklyn. While the

property remained in the Woolley family’s ownership for several decades, passing to Edward’s

son John in 1878 and then to his married daughter Sarah E. Stewart in 1880, none of the family

ever resided here. Early tenants according to the 1880 United State census included William

Ramsey, a truckman (who eventually purchased the building in 1887), Sarah Thompson, a

boarder with the Ramseys, and Michael Hewatt, longshoreman.

Description: Three-story Italianate-style brick flats building with ground floor storefront. Main

(East) Façade: Three bays wide; ground floor has storefront with commercial entrance at left,

residential entrance at right, and storefront window at center; ground floor separated from upper

floors by pressed-metal cornice; upper floors have segmental-arched window openings with

radiating brick lintels and projecting stone sills; modillioned wood cornice supported by four

brackets with segmental-arched molded panel frieze. Side (North) Façade: Parged brick wall;

parapet with metal flashing. Site Features: Non-historic metal fence enclosing grade-level

areaway; areaway has concrete paving with metal cellar hatch at center. Alterations:

Ground

floor completely altered, commercial entrance at left altered to plain brick rectangular opening

with air-conditioning hole punched through façade above non-historic single-leaf door,

residential entrance set within plain brick opening with glass block transom and non-historic

single-leaf door, central storefront window replaced with glass block with an air-conditioning

unit punched through façade under glass block; original wood cornice above ground floor

replaced with pressed-metal version; original cast-iron window lintels on upper floors have been

removed; all historic windows replaced; façade has been painted; intercom and key box installed

in left door frame reveal of residential entrance, light installed in glass block transom.

References:

Obituary, Brooklyn Daily Eagle (June 18, 1899), 7.

Kings County, Office of the Register, Liber Deeds and Conveyances.

New York City, Record of Tax Assessments, Brooklyn Ward 14, 1868-1898.

New York City, Division of Taxation, Tax Photographs, c. 1940.

United States Federal Census Records, 1860, 1870, 1880.

674 Driggs Avenue

Borough of Brooklyn Tax Map Block 2366 Lot 29

Date of Construction: c. 1868

Builder: Edward A. Woolley

Original Owner: Edward A. Woolley

Type: Flats with store

Style: Italianate

Stories: Three

Material: Brick with stone trim and wood cornice

Ownership History to 1950:

1866 Edward A. Woolley

1878 John H. Woolley

1878 Sarah A. Woolley

1887 John Krapp

1893 Paul Sauer

1914 Abraham and Louis Schanman

1921 Morris Kampf

1924 Aaron Friedman

1924 Max Mances