Aleksandar Dekic

Comparing Urban New York/Brooklyn architecture and streetscape

Development and architecture of the Brooklyn and Manhattan during its early period have a major impact from the Dutch and British style of building. With the Independence of the United States, architects try to step away from British and Dutch style and turn toward the Greek style of building.

Manhattan, with its natural position and terrain perfect for creating ports and docks, starts developing much faster and bigger. The major occupation was trade and commerce. Along with that, they support the business center with building development and landfill in order to extend the shoreline.

On the other side of East River, parts of Brooklyn were given to wealthy and privileged families like Livingston and Smith. This Brooklyn leading landowners recognized the position and growth potential of their town and start developing the land along the waterfront with the commercial port in today’s Dumbo and Vinegar Hill, and housing development in today’s Brooklyn Heights. Parts of Brooklyn were transformed from farmland to urban land and then divided into the blocks. The blocks were then divided into the lots and given on the auctions to be sold for development of houses or if it is a bigger lot for a building.

We can find houses in Brooklyn Heights from 1830, like a brick building in Willow street and we can recognize the Flemish pattern in the way how the house was built.  Each course is made up of alternate headers and stretchers. Each header, on a stretcher above and below and every alternate course begins with a header in the corner. The door and window are also specific. The door has 4 columns with flutes, two whole columns and two half-way inside the walls, with the lintel above the door. Windows have a soldier course and they are rectangular. With the development of Brooklyn over time, we get to have mix of houses. Next to each other, we can see brick houses and wood houses all over the landmark places.

In Manhattan, one of the earliest places developed was South Port. There, we can see the use of Iron cast beams instead stone columns, and use of material that is more expensive, like granite or marble which is a sign of not just wealth, but also use of a material which is more resistant to a high concentration of the salt in the air. Also, at the places where we have canals which were used to transport goods to inland, now we have streets. The first floor of the building is taller than the rest of the floors which indicates that in Manhattan was used industrial and commercial way of building. Most of the buildings next to the shoreline were trading posts and warehouses. Solid stone was used to construct bigger buildings for storing the goods. Outside, buildings are riched in appearance, with a lot of decorative piers and windows. Windows are bigger on the lower levels and getting smaller toward the last floor.

The post-revolutionary Brooklyn and Manhattan show us the different styles of construction and building. Thanks to Stuart and Revett and their book on Greek architecture we can see the transfer from Flemish and English way of constructing toward Greek revival style.