Ridgewood’s Stier homes, built after the turn of the last century, march off into infinity on 70th Avenue near 6th Lane. Photo by Paul Cox for BushwickBK

While Bushwick works on its own landmarking efforts, Ridgewood is miles ahead, with its fourth and largest historic district now on the Landmarks Preservation Commission’s calendar. The LPC only just finished the process of approving number three, the 212-building Ridgewood South Historic District, at the end of October, but within two weeks were already announcing much bigger intentions. 

Marking its tenth birthday Sunday is the Stockholm Street Historic District (PDF map), designated long before the others. This single block at the terminus of Stockholm Street is a charming and photogenic collection of front-porched houses built by German families between 1905 and 1921, easy to recognize by its restored yellow-brick paving. 

The LPC got more serious about Ridgewood last year, designating the 90-building Ridgewood North Historic District (PDF map) and holding a public hearing on a Ridgewood South Historic District (PDF map) on the same September day. Both of these districts exist in recognition of the Mathews flats, developed by Gustave X. Mathews and his brothers at the start of the 20th century. Mathews built the working-class tenements for $8,000 each, giving mortar to the spirit of the 1901 Tenement House Act with ample space, individual toilets, and air-shaft ventilation, though no central heat or hot water. His efficient "new law" buildings became the archetype for modern low-cost housing all over the city, and eventually the country, after models were displayed to great acclaim at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco. 

 
A typical Stier home on 68th Avenue in Ridgewood. (Paul Cox/BushwickBK)

Last month, just after the southern member of this pair achieved its designation (pending City Council approval), the LPC went ahead and calendared a much larger Central Ridgewood Historic District (PDF map) of 940 houses. This stretch between Onderdonk Avenue and Fresh Pond Road, reaching from Woodbine Street in the north to 71st Avenue in the south, is more than triple the size of all three predecessors combined and is made up of different stock. This is what was once called Stierville, the real estate kingdom of speculative developer Paul Stier, who sold row after row of single-family homes for $5,600 — about $125,000 adjusted for inflation — early in the century. Somewhat upmarket from Mathews’s flats but still aimed at German working families, the Stier homes were designed by the firm of Louis Berger, who himself provided Ridgewood and Bushwick with some 5,000 buildings. The Stier homes’ prominent curved bays, colorful brickwork, connected cornices and brownstone stoops impressed the LPC as "a cohesive collection of speculative urban architecture" which "represent an important part of the development of housing in New York City." 

The LPC will see if the neighborhood agrees at a public hearing not yet scheduled, according to the Times Newsweekly. But even a protected Stierville may not be the end-all of Ridgewood landmarking. Paul Kerzner, president of the Ridgewood Property Owners and Civic Association (RPOCA), ultimately hopes to bring all 2,982 Ridgewood buildings listed on the National Register of Historic Places into the fold. Ridgewood has indeed ruled the Register since 1983 as the largest such historic district in the country, but the relatively toothless national designation doesn’t offer as much as the LPC in the way of protection. Council Member Diana Reyna, who has pushed for the Ridgewood districts as well as the current landmarking efforts in Bushwick, offered a different vision when announcing the passage of Ridgewood South. In her suggestion, this moved the neighborhood one step closer to having "one contiguous historic district." 

So why all the sudden fixation on Ridgewood stock? Just last week we were appreciating the good old days of 1900s Ridgewood, so we understand the appeal, and the built environment of this speculative boom town did set a mold for much of what followed. Reliably, the Queens Crapper offers a more cynical view: 

"Why? Easy explanation. The LPC is concentrating on landmarking rowhouses because they generally aren’t targets of developers. They also can brag about the thousands of Queens buildings that they designated while the historic detached ones get torn down left and right and replaced with crap." 

The Commission has definitely made a show of addressing Queens this year, boosting numbers in the city’s least landmarked borough by 40% in October to 3,800 structures. With only 20 individual buildings among these, districts are pulling almost all of the weight, and row houses make up most of these. But if Queens is the borough where mass-produced urban housing really ventured into the 20th century, then in a way this might be appropriate.

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