Stuyvesant Heights Historic District

Stuyvesant Heights is a Brooklyn neighborhood of about 430 buildings on thirteen blocks north of Fulton Street, built up mostly between 1870 and 1920. Tree-shaded streets and broad avenues are lined with two- and three-story row houses, many behind planted front yards, along with some free-standing suburban-style houses, early four-story apartment houses, churches and a few small stores. The rows show changing tastes over five decades: late Italianate brownstones on MacDonough Street, neo-Grec details, Romanesque Revival and Queen Anne groups, limestone neo-classical houses on Stuyvesant Avenue, and neo-Georgian and Spanish Renaissance houses on Bainbridge Street. Churches include Mount Lebanon Baptist and Our Lady of Victory. The area was once farmland near the hamlet of Bedford. Early residents were mostly middle-class merchants and professionals of German, Irish and English descent. From the 1930s it became part of a predominantly Black community with many owner-occupied homes. The district was listed for its harmonious character and architectural quality.