Sunset Park Historic District

Sunset Park Historic District covers much of the Brooklyn neighborhood of Sunset Park, running up to twenty-seven blocks north to south and three blocks wide. It holds 3,237 contributing buildings across seventy-one blocks, plus Sunset Park itself. The area is mainly residential, with a low-rise scale of two-story row houses and three- to five-story apartment buildings, and mixed-use buildings with shops below and apartments above line the avenues, especially Fifth Avenue. Brick is the main facade material, with stone rows concentrated between Fourth and Fifth avenues. Building styles trace a progression from frame houses with Italianate and neo-Grec detail, through Queen Anne and Romanesque Revival forms of the 1890s, to the neo-Renaissance style that dominates the district. Many houses were built by speculative builders as two-family homes. Finnish cooperative apartments arranged around central courts add an unusual note. Churches, schools and banks supply the main institutional landmarks. Together the buildings create a cohesive neighborhood set apart from its surroundings.