Jewels of the Crown

homeowner

There's been a bit of complaining about the lack of diversity of topics on the CH board. So, I decided to try something that was different than our usual crime/gentrification/drugs threads. Let's each try and post something about the folks and activities in our nighborhood. Maybe things that other people don't know but might be interested in. Stealing a line from the Crown Heights North association, let's try to highlight the "Jewels of the Crown".

Below is a bio of Grace Edwards who is a Crown Heights resident and well known mystery writer.

Grace F. Edwards was born and raised in Harlem and now lives in Brooklyn.

Do or Die is the fourth novel in the Harlem-based mystery series featuring former cop Mali Anderson. The first book, If I Should Die, was released in 1997 and earned an Anthony Award nomination for Best First Novel. The second book, A Toast Before Dying, won the 1999 Fiction Honor Book award from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. No Time to Die, the third novel, was released in 1999. Film and TV rights to the series have have been sold.

Ms. Edwards teaches creative writing, and has been a member of the Harlem Writer's Guild since 1970. Her first novel, In the Shadow of the Peacock, was originally released in 1988, and will be reprinted by Harlem Writers Guild Press.

bojolais

Do you know which Crown Heights buildings Morris built?

Montrose W. Morris, the architect of the Renaissance, was active in Brooklyn's late 1800's real estate boom. When Morris opened his office in 1883, his advertising technique was to design and build his own residence in Brooklyn and open it to the public. One of the visitors was developer Louis F. Seitz who commissioned an apartment house on property Seitz owned on Nostrand Avenue. Known as the Alhambra, the new building so pleased Seitz that he commissioned Morris to design two additional apartment houses, the Renaissance and the Imperial.

http://www.nyc-architecture.com/ARCH/ARCH-MontroseWMorris.htm

king without a crown

Ok well for starters, a Youth group from Clara Barton H.S. along with members of the 77 precinct painted over Graffiti at several locations in Crown/Prospect Heights. The Corner store at Underhill ave -St Johns Place and a Huge Gang Turf graffiti masterpiece was removed at Classon and Pacific st.

leeho

I don't know who did it, but two or three summers ago, a group of kids with artists painted a mural of imagination and science with a theme of women's lib on a huge building and on some storefronts on Washington and St. Johns. Really nice.

lilbangladesh

bojolais wrote: Do you know which Crown Heights buildings Morris built?

Montrose W. Morris, the architect of the Renaissance, was active in Brooklyn's late 1800's real estate boom. When Morris opened his office in 1883, his advertising technique was to design and build his own residence in Brooklyn and open it to the public. One of the visitors was developer Louis F. Seitz who commissioned an apartment house on property Seitz owned on Nostrand Avenue. Known as the Alhambra, the new building so pleased Seitz that he commissioned Morris to design two additional apartment houses, the Renaissance and the Imperial.

http://www.nyc-architecture.com/ARCH/ARCH-MontroseWMorris.htm

It seems that most of the buildings (at least ones that were featured) are actually in Bed-Stuy.

capt. planet

The Imperial apartment building claimed to have the largest apartments in NYC when it was building. I believe they had 8 rooms. It's in Crown Heights on the corner of Pacific Street and Bedford Avenue.

While we're on the topic of fleeting and famous, how about Charles Evan Hughes? Rumor, as yet unconfirmed, is that he was born and raised in Crown Heights in a large mansion on the corner of Prospect Place and Brooklyn Avenue. His mansion later housed the Froebel Academy, a prominent private school sponsored by the Episcopal Church. Among the more famous attendees was Roger Kahn, author of the 1973 best-seller, The Boys of Summer. (Eric Siegel, of Love Story fame, was raised on the same block.) The lovely Board of Ed demoished the Hughes mansion and replaced with the monstrosity we see today. Thanks, Board of Ed!

Anyways, I'll give five free walks around Brower Park to anyone who knows who Charles Evan Hughes was.

bojolais

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Evans_Hughes

crownheightsproud

Montrose Morris also was the architect of two of the most ornate houses on "Doctor's Row", the block of St. Marks Ave. between Brooklyn and Kingston, across from Brower Park. Those are # 855 and 857, the semi detached mansions with the turret. He also designed the Bedfordshire Apartments, on Pacific, next door to the Imperial Apartments.

Interestingly, he built all over brownstone Brooklyn, in all of the upper class neighborhoods of the time, including Clinton Hill, Park Slope, Bedford Stuyvesant and Crown Heights. As far as I've been able to determine, all of his buildings in Crown Heights still stand. Pretty cool.