145 Hancock Street
Photographed by: Christopher Bride
This house was developed and built in 1893 by one of
Brooklyn most fascinating people name William H. Reynolds. Forgotten today Reynolds
the youngest ever New York State Senator (24 years old) from Bedford was also
major New York builder developer. William Reynolds had just finished his first
project a row of 19 townhouses a block away on nearby Halsey Street when he
hired the same architectural team of Magnus E. Dahlander and Frederick B. Langston
to design this group of four houses plus the corner building in the Romanesque
Revival with elements of Renaissance Revival-style. Dahlander from Sweden
received his first Brooklyn architectural commission from Reynolds with the
Halsey street buildings which Dahlander designed in one night. Reynolds wanted
all his buildings to look different from the façade. Dahlander and Langston would go on to do many
buildings in Bedford, Stuyvesant Heights, Crown Heights and Park Slope.
Dahlander would later team up with Axel Hedman a fellow Swede and design much
of William Reynolds Prospect Heights developments on Park and Sterling
place.
William Reynolds
145 Hancock was in the very aristocratic section of Brooklyn
called Bedford and sold very quickly. The first owner was the well-respected
John T and Ann Huner. The Huner family
had four children and all are living in this house in 1900 along with two
German servants. John Huner made his
fortune in the matches business. Huner matches were called Our Darling Parlor
Matches. He sold the cheapest matches on
the east coast which made him a lot of money. John Huner match plant was on
Myrtle Avenue in the Evergreens section of Queens. He was one of the largest matches makers in
the country at the turn of the century. John died in 1912 and sometime during
the late 1910’s the house traded hands.
In the 1920s Henry and Isabella Barnard are living in the house. Henry
was a wholesale salesman. In 1930 Isabella is a widow living in the home with
her sister Florence McDonald and German maid.
Arvhitect F. B. Langston
Architect Magnus Dahlander
1940 is the first time I see the place as multiple dwelling
with four families living in the house.
The renters in the house work as truck drivers, drug and grocery
salesman and teacher. Also by 1940s this area is now called Bedford-Stuyvesant
due to Brooklyn Union Gas. After WWII this once all European American
neighborhood area would turn into one of the largest African American
neighborhoods in the country.
More of Reynolds projects here From Suzanne Spellen ((https://www.flickr.com/photos/31129802@N03/sets/72157623863816513/detail/).
