Fresh Pond-Traffic Historic District

Along Linden Street, Gates Avenue and Palmetto Street in Ridgewood, Queens, 197 brick buildings form a 14-acre district of mostly two-story row houses with one apartment per floor. They were built between 1914 and 1921, with work paused in 1916-18 because of World War I. Bauer and Stier, Inc., Ridgewood's largest builders, developed the area, and Louis Berger designed every row, so setbacks, scale, materials and detailing are uniform. The most distinctive feature is cream-colored iron-spot brick laid up to imitate rusticated stone, combined with brownstone stoops, foliated keystones, and pressed metal cornices with swags and egg and dart moldings. Compared with Ridgewood's older districts, the detailing is more angular and simplified, and easier box bays replaced the earlier round bays. The district marks one of the last large developments of attached houses before later neighborhoods added driveways and rear garages. Alterations are limited largely to replacement doors and metal awnings.