Lost Apartments of the North Shore: Prospect and York

 

238 York Avenue, ca.1940

 

234 York Avenue, ca. 1940

230 York Avenue, ca. 1940

 

I'm not sure I ever noticed this strange building until I bought a house on Prospect Avenue in 2006. After that, I drove by it all the time, curious about its odd look and hoping someone one would fix it up at least a little bit. Around 2010-2011, someone did do a major renovation. The work wasn't fantastic, and the roof over landing isn't attractive, but a building was returned to use. The DOITT map lists 238 York Avenue as being built in 1931, but it appears to be on the 1917 insurance map. Either way, it's a fairly old building that's still standing and occupied today.

 

Scanning the Advance archives, I wasn't able to determine when the two units to the right of the remaining 238 York Avenue, were destroyed. However, the last article referencing the center unit, 234 York, was in 1974 when for the second time in a year one of its tenants was robbed. The last reference to the rightmost building, 230 York, was in 1975 when one its tenants was sentenced to nine months for burglary. For at least a decade preceding 1975, all three units had tenants who had habitual contact with the police.

238 York Avenue, 1989 

The yellow street signs were gone by the time I moved to the area, but this was essentially how the building looked in 2006.

Sanborn Map, amended 1935

238 York Avenue - 2018

P.S. 17 Hamilton Park - Burned and Gone

PS 17, a fairly standard looking school once stood on the heights overlooking York and Jersey Streets. The bit of woods visible in the right of the picture, behind the school, represent the edge of The Cedars, businessman Shipley Jones' estate.

The school burned down in 1977 and Parks began the process of acquiring the land from the Board of Education in order to build what's now called Skyline Park. It's a great place and every time our nephews visit we try to get there at least once.

1874 Map - a school existed on the site but it's footprint differs from the photo/post card, implying it was a different, older facility.

1917 Map - That's the building in the pictures. The entrance faced Fairview Avenue (now Harvard). I wish there was a photo from a further away location so there'd be a sense of how the school sat on the land.

The streets today - Here's a shot up the little piece of Arnold off York. The school was on the rise to the right.

My Neighborhood - Cottage Hill

New Brighton around Hamilton Park - 1874


Hamilton Park detail - 1874 - Pritchard House circled in red

Hamilton Park - 1917 Here the Pritchard House is owned by Bertha K. Baker. The only reference I could find regarding her was her membership on the board of the Staten Island Institute of Arts and Sciences from 1907.


I've written at length in the past about Hamilton Park and shown some of the houses that stand where it once stood. Recently my ongoing excavations of the NYPL Digital Collection brought me to this beautiful 1874 map of the HP environs.

I was amazed at the difference in a mere 43 years. The open lawns and gardens of the original Hamilton Park estates and "cottages" are gone by 1917. Some of the original homes are still there (like the Pritchard House at 66 Harvard which remains even today) but their property is greatly depleted and they are coming to be surrounded by newer, smaller homes.


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66 Harvard Avenue - Pritchard House - the wooded back yard on the house's west side used to be a lawn looking out over at the fields and farms of New Jersey. Today its enclosed with a giant hedge and overgrown.


The difference between 1917 and 2010 is less noticeable. The big estates were already broken up in 1917. There were new homes built, but aside from the large estate of Domenico Rorengo (no reference found) and several other larger houses on Buchanan Avenue, any tear downs aren't immediately apparent. I guess most of the cottages came down in that 1874-1917 period.

Hamilton Park - 2010



This is a closeup of the Stebbins property at the north of the Hamilton Park development property. HG Stebbins was a War Democrat, congressman and later the president of the NY Stock Exchange. His estate, which I don't presently have a picture of, was described as castlelike and crenelated. By 1917 it was all gone, as were many of the neighboring mansions to the north along Richmond Terrace.


As usual Forgotten New York has already covered the neighborhood and provided more and much better pictures than I've ever put up. Thanks for making me feel small ;)

Some Architectural Finds

Clinton Avenue near Prospect Avenue







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Van Duzer Street - just north of Beach Street


This house, once owned by someone known as R.M. Hazard, date to at least 1874 and probably before that. The surviving house is the one on the right. The left has been replace with stores. There's a plaque on the exterior of the remaining home but I don't have the information at hand. Maybe later (don't I always write that?).


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