Senator Street Historic District

Senator Street between Third and Fourth Avenues in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, holds a unified block of 38 three-story, bow-front brownstone row houses, along with three garages. Fred W. Eisenla of the firm Eisenla & Carlson designed the houses in the neo-Renaissance style, and they were built as speculative housing between 1906 and 1912 on land once owned by industrialist Joseph Wild and subdivided after his wife's death in 1898. At first glance the houses appear identical, but nearly every carved element, including capitals, rosettes and panels beneath the parlor windows, differs from house to house. Only the lion's head on each stoop railing and the top rosette over each entry are the same throughout. The block is the only one in Bay Ridge with brownstone rows on both sides of the street. It was recognized for its architecture and for what it shows about speculative development in early twentieth-century Brooklyn. Its period of significance runs from 1906 to 1920.