Brooklyn's Brownstones, Explained

Brownstones. If you've ever walked the streets of New York, these elegant buildings probably caught your eye. Quaint and European looking, but also distinctly New York, brownstones have left a huge physical and cultural footprint across Brooklyn and Manhattan and feature prominently in some of the most popular movies ever made. Largely built in a huge craze during the late 1800s, as many as 50,000 of them remain standing everywhere from Baltimore to Boston. Today, brownstones are especially beloved among New Yorkers. According to some, brownstones are part of what makes New York, New York. But what actually are they? A brownstone is a type of townhouse. A townhouse is an attached house within a city, usually in a row of similar homes. But importantly, not all townhouses are brownstones. If its facade is made of brick or cement or glass or any other material, it's just a regular old townhouse. It's only a genuine brownstone if its facade is made of reddish brown sandstone called brownstone. Some buildings that look like brownstones actually use cheaper brown cement-based facades, something that became especially popular in the early 2000s. Authentic or not, brownstones are usually one to two family homes around three or four stories tall with characteristically long stoops out in front. The stone itself comes from the Jurassic period, Importantly, brownstone is local to the northeast in huge quantities, with massive deposits dotting much of New England and New Jersey. Brownstone was first used as material for the tombstones of early New Englanders in the first half of the 17th century. It was so plentiful that by the 1700s, the town of Portland, Connecticut, where New York later got 80% of its brownstone, was operating a huge quarry and offering the stone to the town's residents for free. By the 1800s, this cheap and locally available material became popular in expanding northeastern cities. Perhaps nowhere was brownstone more popular than New York, where to quote Yale art historian Vincent Scully, the material quickly became the very blood and fiber of the city. That distinctive reddish brown tint was also an important factor in the popularity of brownstones. Northeastern cities rapidly industrialized after the Civil War. Cities were being blanketed in so much dust and smoke from factories and coal burning that it became practical to simply change the color of the buildings to match the color of dirt and brine. Everett H. Ortner, founder of New York's Brownstone Revival Coalition, theorizes that because the northeast was awash in factories and money after the Civil War, the middle class finally had the funds to build their houses out of stone, something which had previously only been reserved for the aristocracy. Brownstone was more affordable for the new striving middle class. Now, architectural historian Louis Mumford further argues that aesthetic tastes changed following the Civil War. People were traumatized by the war, which to this day is still the deadliest military conflict in the nation's history. Tones were darker and more serious. And so for various reasons, dark gray and brown colors dominated the city following the Civil War. The northeast's industrial revolution is one reason for those weirdly high stoops you see in front of every brownstone. In the late 1800s, New York streets were covered in grime, feces, and sometimes dead animal carcasses as horses were used for everything from transport to hauling ice. All of this posed serious public health issues to people living at street level. These stoops or elevated entrances that you see on brownstones, in addition to improving aesthetics and providing homes with a porch, allowed New Yorkers to escape the filth of the streets, which to this day are still dirty as f**k. Sometimes people are like, why did you move back to New York? And I was like, I don't know. I just really love the ambiance. However, by the end of the 1800s, people were tired of brownstones. Architecture moved towards brighter, more optimistic building materials like marble and limestone. Edith Wharton, one of the period's most famous novelists, described brownstone as the most hideous stone ever quarried. In the 20th century, a small number of new buildings still use brownstone. NYU's Bobst Library, which was built in the 60s, is a notable example. But in general, brownstones became a byword for poverty and decline as wealthier citizens moved to buildings with architecture or renovated their existing properties. The stone itself is actually considered a poor building material. It's not very sturdy and requires regular maintenance and renovations. Because of that, we're likely to not see another big wave of brownstone construction like we did in the 1800s. Ironically, the poor quality of brownstones and the resulting scarcity is partly why they're so sought after today. For much of the 20th century, parts of South Brooklyn brownstone country were considered dangerous and impoverished. However, white-collar professionals began to migrate to the brownstones of South Brooklyn because they were priced out of the increasingly expensive Manhattan housing market, a trend which has continued to the present day. Manhattan? Overrated. I feel really in touch with my creative side here. I just love buying plants, going to shows, getting tattoos. These upper-middle class professionals loved the charming old-timey look of their brownstones and fought against developers to keep them standing. The movement of these white-collar professionals was not wholly appreciated by the previous residents of South Brooklyn, a historically working-class area. Despite their efforts to preserve the historic character of neighborhoods, the new arrivals brought higher rents and pricier storefronts. By the 1980s, brownstone Brooklyn's white-collar professionals were facing an onslaught of criticism from the people they were slowly displacing. If you've ever been to brownstone Brooklyn, you can probably tell that, in the end, the gentrifiers took over. Since the 1980s, this group of white-collar urbanites drove a cultural change that totally revitalized the popularity of brownstones throughout the whole city. Brownstones are so important to New York that politicians may pretend to live in them to appear to be with the culture. Eric Adams allowing reporters inside a Brooklyn apartment he owns after questions were raised about whether he really spends his time in Fort Lee, New Jersey with his girlfriend. While there are still low-income communities in brownstone neighborhoods, living in a brownstone has become a marker of wealth, luxury, and sophistication. In the center of brownstone Brooklyn, Brooklyn Heights is one of the most expensive neighborhoods in all of New York. Rapper Biggie Smalls, who famously repped Bed-Stuy, grew up on St. James Place in what is now known as Clinton Hill, which some say is a neighborhood name that has been made up by transplants and real estate agents. Clinton Hill has become increasingly dominated by young moms with dogs, lattes, and strollers. And, uh, full disclosure, I also live there too. The demand for brownstones is interesting. It's sort of illogical to want to live in an old building that uses heat inefficiently, creaks, demands regular repair, lacks central AC, has poor noise insulation, and doesn't have modern appliances like dishwashers or washing machines. Despite their common maintenance issues, living in a brownstone has become a marker of elite Brooklyn culture, along with attending overpriced farmers markets and partying at obscure DJ sets. The demand for brownstones has increased rent pressures in historically black neighborhoods such as Bed-Stuy, which is home to a large number of pre-1900s buildings. It's not uncommon to find brownstones listed at upwards of 10 or 15 million dollars. Brooklyn Heights has actually been in the news recently, as St. Francis College tried to sell its now-abandoned campus to the Manhattan developers behind the infamous Jenga building. But the sale has run into legal troubles, and the reasons for those legal troubles are tied up in the history of brownstones. Hezekiah Pierpont was a wealthy landowner who shaped the development of Brooklyn Heights. In the 1820s, he saw a growing need for Manhattan's wealthier residents to escape the quickly growing city. He mapped out a plan for the neighborhood on his land and created a series of rules to ensure the neighborhood would stay that way forever. These rules, or covenants, which are legally binding promises, basically mandated that all buildings had to be residential townhouses set back eight feet from the street. They also stated that the neighborhood wouldn't allow any businesses to interfere with the high-class residential characteristics of the area. That meant no butchers and no factories. This was, in effect, one of America's first suburbs. Despite the huge population boom which followed the creation of this early suburb, some of Pierpont's 200-year-old covenants have survived to the present day, and they're the reason why St. Francis College is having trouble selling its campus to the highest bidder. Courts interpret covenant law extremely strictly, and they're still leveraged by NIMBYs across America to perpetually preserve the housing prices and character of neighborhoods. Many areas in Brooklyn have been designated as historic districts, which require property owners to receive approval before making certain modifications to buildings. Historic building classifications certainly play a critical role in preserving the city's culture and architectural heritage, but wealthy landowners often weaponize these classifications to prevent development, especially development that may contain affordable apartments for the working class. So for the time being, Brooklyn Heights is likely to keep its distinctive architecture and its brownstones. While brownstones at first may seem like a random architectural quirk, they're actually a pretty revealing lens to view New York City's social and urban development, and they introduce some pretty thought-provoking questions. While most New Yorkers cherish brownstones and want them to remain untouched, we have to acknowledge that they're not the most practical or efficient uses of space, especially in some of the city's most expensive neighborhoods. In America's most populous city, in desperate need of new housing, that's a problem. Is replacing a decaying brownstone with a new construction ever acceptable, or should we strive to preserve every brownstone in existence? How do we balance preserving New York's rich architectural heritage with providing denser, more affordable housing? Should New York City take action to ensure these privately owned buildings stay in the hands of locals rather than become the trophies of wealthy transplants? And if so, how? I don't think anyone has quite figured out the answers to these problems, but they're certainly worth discussing. I've previously held extremely negative views, even hatred, of NIMBYs as they oppose the high density housing that America's cities desperately need. However, brownstones are these charming, beautiful, historic homes, and I, like many New Yorkers, would be devastated to see them disappear. So on your next walk through Brooklyn's charming, brownstone-filled neighborhoods, it's worth pausing for a moment and considering the building's long and storied history. From the establishment of Brooklyn Heights as a suburban retreat from the city, to the wave of brownstone construction in the decades after the Civil War, to the gentrification of Brownstone Brooklyn and beyond, the story of these charming old townhouses mirrors that of the city itself. If you have thoughts on city policies that affect brownstones, from their sales to their preservation, let me know in the comments. Please like and subscribe, as it really does help the channel. If you enjoy videos on New York's urban landscape, check out my video on the power broker, Robert Moses, a civil servant who shaped the development of New York in the 20th century. Thanks for watching. Peace.