LETS PRESERVE AND PROTECT OUR WONDERFUL NEIGHBORHOODS. BEDFORD, STUYVESANT HEIGHTS & TOMPKINS PARK
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Sunday, December 19, 2010
Here comes the judge.... August Van Wyck
Augustus Van Wyck (October 14, 1850 – June 8, 1922)
One of the neighborhood most famous residents in 1890s was Augustus Van Wyck of 172 Hancock Street of the Bedford Section of Bedford Stuyvesant Brooklyn. 172 Hancock is on the architectural pleasing block between Nostrand and Marcy Avenue. Augustus Van Wyck in 1881 was the third man to build a home on this block. The architect for this neo-grec house was the Brooklyn architect Marshall J. Morrill. Morrill designed many other fine homes on Hancock street between Bedford and Nostrand with architect Robert Dixion. Morrill practiced architecture from the 1860s until the early 1900s and was a popular brownstone architect. Morrill's work can be found in the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Clinton Hill, Park Slope, Prospect Heights, Ft. Greene and Cobble Hill just to name a few.
Son of William Van Wyck, Augustus was born October 14, 1850. His brother was Mayor Robert A. Van Wyck and his brother-in-law was Confederate General Robert Hoke. Roots of the Van Wyck family date back to early Dutch immigration to North America. One of the first descendants of the family, Cornelius Barents Van Wyck came from the town of Wyck, Holland in 1650.
Augustus Van Wyck's education led him to Phillips Exeter Academy and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to study the practice of law. Moving to Richmond, Virginia where he met and married Leila and practiced law there for a brief period. In 1871 Van Wyck moved to Brooklyn, New York living first on 387 Gates Ave, near Nostrand.
He was an active member of the Democratic party in Brooklyn. In 1882 Van Wyck was elected as President of the County General Committee. He also was active in state, county and national conventions of the Democratic party.
In 1884, Augustus Van Wyck was elected to the Superior Court in Brooklyn until transferred to the Supreme Court where he remained until 1896.
Much to Van Wyck's surprise, he was nominated by his fellow Democrats to oppose the Republican, Theodore Roosevelt, in the race for Governor of New York in 1898. Although Van Wyck was seen as a strong candidate, Roosevelt's popularity in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War led him to win the election by 17,786 votes. Van Wyck received 643,921 votes, while Roosevelt received 661,715 votes.[1]
After the election Van Wyck resumed his law practice on 149 Broadway, New York.
New York Times article from 1898: http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=F10F10FA3F5C11738DDDA00894D8415B8885F0D3
Friday, August 6, 2010
G. A. Schellenger Architect
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The future Bedford Historic District had many famous architects (or Starchitects) from the Victorian era who designed most of the buildings. One such architect was Gilbert A. Schellenger. Schellenger was born to Rueben Riggs Schellenger and Esther Perry on December 21, 1845, in the town of Stockholm, NY. Schellenger grew up in a very large family. His father was a mechanic/carpenter which was had a common tradition producing architect sons. Schellenger studied at the prestigious and world famous L’Ecole des Beaux Artes in Paris but dropped out to accept the commission for a new city hall and opera house in Ogdensburg County.Schellenger along with his first wife Jennie came to New![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjs3RREUHNcdhO_7YJpXAwky1MH3fWMft7dzZY2cdbxlyYfSE6yHRJ2fh1mh2lV5t5zA8CQNvDf2KIQPt18_N2WAsAzaRlfVV6phVNr1Lv3x7773hBqOJeSgAJHzv7G2es8cCJcIKhS8B4/s320/Mother-and-Child-on-Stoop.jpg)
York City in 1883 and right away he started working on various projects. His earlest New York townhouses are here in Bedford Stuyvesant but on the Bedford side. At that time Bedford as it was called then was a rather choice neighborhood with upper middle class families dominating its blocks. Schellenger Bedford buildings are on Hancock Street and Jefferson Avenue and where done for builder George Stone. Stone lived in a Schellenger designed house at 301 Jefferson in the proposed historic district was the owner and builder of these lots.![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXgfgYdavl46QLHEr8WfGZaypSbP9wxdJRxuJ4w73LyCAwgN-f1FOThtAh1mXetiRkJ7HTfyrqxtMhO9onjKVTsuuhaAYc8ywFBuY4YXW-Xuye2mg_bF-rXER9DdQFQl-CfAsyc9N_WLAQ/s280/schell5.jpg)
G. A. Schellenger use the Queen Anne and Roman Brick Renaissance Revival style for most of his homes on Jefferson Avenue and Hancock Street. His brownstone stoops and wood cathedral doors are surrounded by crowned pediments. Schellenger likes to play with his skyline making all of his roofs have a language of there own. Many of the house have three sided bay windows or rather large arched picture windows that are typical of the Queen Anne style. Many of the first owners of these house were Physicians, Stock Brokers, Insurance men, Lawyers and Merchants. ![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjmKqYGBDM6s2f7kg1m1a0UOZjvcQTsFGSDerPEsKlQ4a6M1A77y56tKUKfDofF5hZPAx35Gbz7roH7VB8XHVq9wKKtZONcvT7L3KE7fAnc3FF-JSSu14BazhXOalgjuzW0svvp3yyzvQe/s320/jeffson1954.jpg)
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G. A. Schellenger house around 1900
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Jefferson Ave G. A. Schellenger homes built in the early 1890's
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Jefferson Ave in 1954
These homes where built for the upper middle class that wanted to live in the choice Bedford Section following 1883 Brooklyn Bridge opening. By 1885 Schellenger had designed 10 homes on Hancock Street as well as Jefferson Avenue and would later design a few more for George Stone.
Schellenger houses built in 1887 Jefferson Ave.
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G. A. Schellenger would go on and turn his attention to Manhattan clients, I am sure they paid very well compared to the Brooklyn developers. G. A. Schellenger would design many of stately homes on the Upper West (and East) Side of Manhattan and Harlem. If you read the LPC reports for Manhattan his name is everywhere making him a very busy man during the 1890's. Schellenger designed many fine apartments and dorms (for Columbia University) that still stand today. At 128 Broadway he completed plans for the Salvation Army National Headquarters which was noted in the New York Times. G. A. Schellenger also did a few buildings in Crown Heights and Prospect Heights later in the 1880s and 1890s.
Schellenger interior built 1884
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In my research I do not find him designing any buildings in the Stuyvesant Heights section of the neighborhood.
Gilbert Alphonso Schellenger died on November 22, 1921 while visiting his sister Alta Schellenger Taylor in Massachusetts. I am truly thankful that this NYC super architect of the 1890's designed lovely homes here in Bedford section of Bedford Stuyvesant in the 1880's. His houses are just as beautiful as other architect rivals such as John Prague, George Chappell and Montrose Morris. Some residents are starting to restore these grand house to there original grandeur. If you walk down or Hancock Street between Nostrand and Marcy or Jefferson between Marcy and Tompkins you see all his great works looking as stately as the day erected. Most if not all of G. A. Schellenger buildings are landmarked in Manhattan, Crown Heights and Prospect Heights. His earliest homes in New York City are in Bedford Stuyvesant and not protected. I really hope this changes very soon.
Gilbert Alphonso Schellenger died on November 22, 1921 while visiting his sister Alta Schellenger Taylor in Massachusetts. I am truly thankful that this NYC super architect of the 1890's designed lovely homes here in Bedford section of Bedford Stuyvesant in the 1880's. His houses are just as beautiful as other architect rivals such as John Prague, George Chappell and Montrose Morris. Some residents are starting to restore these grand house to there original grandeur. If you walk down or Hancock Street between Nostrand and Marcy or Jefferson between Marcy and Tompkins you see all his great works looking as stately as the day erected. Most if not all of G. A. Schellenger buildings are landmarked in Manhattan, Crown Heights and Prospect Heights. His earliest homes in New York City are in Bedford Stuyvesant and not protected. I really hope this changes very soon.
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1900 census for Jefferson and Hancock.
Monday, May 10, 2010
Lena Horne The Queen of Bedford Stuyvesant.
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Horne's second marriage was to Lennie Hayton, a Jewish American and one of the premier musical conductors and arrangers at MGM, in December 1947. They separated in the early 1960s, but never divorced; he died in 1971. In her as-told-to autobiography Lena by Richard Schickel, Horne recounts the enormous pressures she and her husband faced as an interracial married couple. She later admitted in a 1980 Ebony interview she had married Hayton to advance her career and cross the "color-line" in show business.
Screenwriter Jenny Lumet, known for her award-winning screenplay Rachel Getting Married, is Horne's granddaughter, the daughter of filmmaker Sidney Lumet and Horne's daughter Gail.
Horne died on May 9, 2010, at the age of 92, at New York-Presbyterian Hospital in New York City.
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Thursday, May 6, 2010
I am back! Lets look at MacDonough St
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87 MacDonough is a free standing brick mansion was built in 1863 for William A Parker a hops and malt merchant. The building has been occupied since 1945 by The United Order of Tents, one of the oldest lodges for African-American women in the country. The lodge was founded in Norfolk, Virginia by two slave women, Annetta M. Lane and Harriet R. Taylor; and two abolitionists, Joliffe Union and Joshua R. Giddings as a part of the underground railway, assisting slaves to escape to the north. After the Civil War it was formally organized and publicly recognized as a lodge for African American women and dedicated to charity. The most famous resident of 87 MacDonough was James McMahon. Who was James McMahon? James McMahon founder and first president of the Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank was born in Franklin County, NY in 1831 and in his infancy was taken by his parents to Rochester. At seventeen years of age he came to New York, and remained for a year in the book trade, with Cooley, Keys and Hill. He then went to New Haven where he associated himself with an elder brother, who owned a carriage manufacturer. His Brother leaving the carriage business in 1849 made McMahon return to Rochester where he reentered the book business as a clerk, and shortly afterwards began in the same trade on his own account. At the age of twenty five he cross the country and again joined his brother, who was engaged in mercantile pursuits in San Francisco.
McMahon returned to Rochester and in 1865, he accepted a position of deputy grain measure in New York, at the same time making home in Brooklyn. His new business associations resulted in his establishing, in conjunction with James T. Easton, of Brooklyn an organization to protect the interests of grain carriers, under the title of the "Protective Grain Association," from which sprang the great transportation business of Easton, McMahon & Co. When the federal government, in the days of the Civil War made a requisition on the tonnage of the Camden and Amboy Railroad Co., which had acquired a monopoly of the growing traffic between New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore, urged him to resume his interest in its affairs. He ultimately yielded to their solicitations, and, in 1881, recognized the business, making it a stock company, known as the Eston & McMahon Transportation Company, of which he became president. Within five years , Mr. McMahon again retired from the business and gave himself to the less arduous duties of a financier, also unselfishly devoting time and money to charities that had always claimed from him much attention. The Emigrant Industrial Saving Bank. of which he was the president, had assets placed at $45,000,000 in 1890. He was also a director in the People's Trust Company, of Brooklyn. His experience as the public official followed his appointment by Mayor Low to a seat in the board of education. He participated with all his energy in the plans for reform, which attacked few other departments of municipal administration more severely than the did the educational system; sweeping changes were made and permanent improvements were established. MacMahon was a trustee of the House of the Good Shepherd; belonged to the Orphan Asylum Society, and various charitable and philanthropic societies. He was president of the committee which perfected arrangements for the jubilee celebration of the late Bishop Loughlin. James McMahon was marred three times and died in 1913.The residence of Mr. McMahon at 8 MacDonough Street is situated on the north side of the thoroughfare. The house is surrounded by about an acre of ground, running through from MacDonough to Macon Street, and shaded by numerous tress. The front entrance is about thirty feet back from the street. Ascending a flight of five steps, the visitor enters upon a spacious piazza, which use to extend across the entire front. At the time McMahon the main entrance hall was wide and high-studded, and to the left of it was the library, a large square apartment elegant in its decorations and appointments. The Parlor was situated to the right of the main entrance, and, like every other apartment in the mansions was furnished with eye to comfort rather the to gorgeous display. The dining room was in the rear of the parlor on the main floor. The second story was charming boudoirs and suites of chambers and spacious baths. Upon the top floor was the billiard-room and its is there that Mr. McMahon would seek and obtain his recreation from the care of his great responsibilities.
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