Lost Apartments of the North Shore: Richmond Terrace and Nicholas Street

 

224 Richmond Terrace and the foot of Nicholas Street

I came across this lost apartment by happenstance. I wanted to see the houses that used to exist along the beginning stretch of Stuyvesant Place where it meets the Terrace. Lo, and behold, I came across this fine little building. I don't know when it was destroyed, but I don't have a memory of it being there when I started attending Curtis in 1980. When I took of old #5 bus over Jersey Street in the morning, I'd get off right there and walk up Nicholas to school.

I'm not sure when it was built (the Archives photo doesn't have a date), but there was a building with similar looking footprint on both the 1898 and 1917 maps. However, the maps indicate the building was wooden, which, obviously, this isn't. Even the 1937 Sanborn Map shows the building as wooden. However, this picture, if taken at the same time as the rest of the tax photos is from between 1939 and 1940, so that would make it fairly new, which, again, it doesn't seem to be. So, if anybody reading this knows more about it, let me know.

216 Richmond Terrace

 

1898 Sanborn Map

 

1917 Bromley Atlas

1937 Sanborn Map

 1989

2018 - The View; better than an empty lot, I guess

Lost Apartments of the North Shore: Castleton Park

   From the maps and photographs, Castleton Park, once home to the gargantuan Hotel Castleton, and now home to the magnificently dull Castleton Park apartment towers, was a pleasant block of houses surrounding a park and watched over by two attractive apartment buildings. Only by checking the maps and dates right now, did I realize that when I first went to Curtis High School in 1980, that old Castleton Park might have only been recently destroyed. The DOITT NYCMap lists the current buildings, 165 St. Marks, as only having been built in 1976. In the past, I've gone on about how working class communities were destroyed for the ostensible benefit of housing projects, but this is the first time I've come across the obliteration of a middle-class section for affordable housing. 

   What strikes me immediately about Castleton Park's demolition is the absolute lack of any sort of concern for architectural attractiveness. Instead of the nicely detailed apartments and houses that were knocked down, the new apartments are looming, completely unadorned towers. Now, even the greenery that once covered the underground garage in imitation of the old park, seems to have been let go and replaced with concrete. Whatever reasons there are to remove something old and replace it, there's no reason to replace it with ugliness, but time and time again, that's what New York City (and, truth be told, most cities) have done over the past seventy-five years.

1934 Map - The Castleton in orange and The St. Marks in pink

ca. 1940 - my favorite picture of the Castleton as it seems to lurch around the corner of Nicholas and St. Marks

postcard of the Castleton with Castleton Park in the foreground

postcard of the Castleton

 

ca. 1940 - the St. Marks 

 

ca. 1940 - the St. Marks

postcard of the Castleton and the St. Marks

1928 -  skyline showing Curtis H.S., the St. Marks and the Castleton - I feel obligated to track down pictures of all the houses in this photograph

1924 vs ca. 2021 aerial maps

 

2021 - 165 St. Marks Place

Lost Apartments of the North Shore: the Baltimore Flats

 

17-23 Victory Blvd, ca. 1940

When my parents got married, they lived at 115 Stuyvesant Place. It's where I lived my first three years. They bought a house on Cebra Avenue when their rent went up to $137 and exceeded a mortgage. As a baby, my mom and I went to all sorts of stores in St. George and Tompkinsville. I had memories of eating in a luncheonette at the corner of Victory and  Bay, but I couldn't remember anything specific about it except that my mom was friends with a waitress. It was only doing some research a few years ago that I discovered pictures of it.

The luncheonette was called DeFranco's and it was in the corner of a string of apartments called the Baltimore Flats. They're a beautiful example of late 19th-century buildings, designed by Edward A. Sargent. Unfortunately, after part of them caught fire in 1980, it wasn't long before the entire block of flats was demolished.

DeFranco's Luncheonette, 1969 - My mom and I could be inside 

Baltimore Flats on fire - 1980

the Baltimore Flats, 1980 - awaiting their fate

1989 - rubble

2021

Lost Apartments of the North Shore: 210 Victory Boulevard

 

                                                            210 Victory Boulevard, ca. 1940
 

 

   I have only the slightest memories of this building, even though I grew up a few blocks away and probably walked past it hundreds of times before it was torn down in the early 2000s. I suspect the reason it never really registered in my mind is because it was set way back from Victory Boulevard and the property was no longer the nicely-maintained lawns and hedges depicted above, but a mass of uncontrolled trees and bushes. 

   When I was a kid, those set-back buildings had acquired a reputation for housing shady characters. A friend of mine lived in one of them - maybe even this one - and I visited once, and it was fairly creepy. 

   According to Dept. of Building records, in 2000, it was reported that the back of the building had collapsed and the front was in imminent danger of coming down. I've always been fascinated about the circumstances by which a perfectly decent building reaches a state where it's abandoned and left to ruin. Whole families lived there once. Hopes were hoped, dreams dreamed, and lives lived inside those walls. Now, it's not much more than a few photos. As such, I'm going to do a series of short posts about buildings similar to this one that once graced our streets and at some point - poof!- just seemed to vanish into the æther.

2013

1917 map

1996 NYC aerial map