Because Brooklyn used to be a far less expensive place to live — for those among us who are Manhattan snobs — it comes as a shock that houses “way over there” can now cost as much as examples in gentrified parts of Harlem. Some housing in sections that have become almost exclusively white, like Park Slope and Brooklyn Heights, costs far more.
Undoubtedly, being less expensive is the most important reason why, ever since World War ll, enclaves like Fort Greene and Bedford-Stuyvesant have superseded Harlem as the most desirable place for Black New Yorkers to live. An additional reason is that less densely populated parts of Brooklyn are, correspondingly, much calmer. “It’s easier to see the sky and to hear birds sing,” says lifelong resident actor Alvyn Sierra. Moreover, if no longer more affordable, Brooklyn’s historic houses and apartments are “often just as well built and equally elegant, compared to the Victorian and Edwardian residential architecture that makes Harlem so attractive,” says realtor Morgan Munsey.
Far more, certainly today, Black people are living in Brooklyn than Harlem, but Munsey cautions, “For all the same reasons that Harlem is rapidly changing, so is Brooklyn. Our heritage, Black history, cultural traditions, landmarks, and even our communities of color are fast becoming just as threatened as Harlem’s are.”
An architectural gem
A case in point? Standing at the heart of Bedford-Stuyvesant, on a block with just three unique freestanding houses, is one completed in 1915. As imperiled a landmark as they come, it began fortuitously enough as a representative brewery baron’s mansion. Designed in the Neo-Italian Renaissance style by local architects Kirby, Petit & Green, the house at 375 Stuyvesant Avenue was erected by Bavaria-born Otto Seidenberg for his family of four. Also in residence, the Seidenbergs were well attended by five servants.
Appearing to be constructed from carved limestone and brick, typifying the “Progressive Era,” which stressed modernist technology, it was in fact made from reinforced concrete, partly faced with bricks laid in an English cross-bond.
Again indicative of its time is the restraint of an eclectic, historicist decor. “The interiors are wholly overlain with an ‘arts and crafts’ sensibility,” says Munsey. This vibe means that the monumental Y-shaped staircase was formed from massive timbers, subtly paneled but unembellished. Indeed, from top to bottom, the commodious two-story entrance is lined in dark wood. It becomes a perfect foil for the room’s intricately festooned stained glass window. A luminous focal point, this opening lights the stage-like landing from which the stair divides into two flights.
Another outstanding internal element is the dining room’s spectacular chimneypiece. It’s completely fashioned from Moravian tiles devised by artist Henry Chapman Mercer. Featuring a diverse group of tile shapes and patterns, most still offered by the venerable Doylestown, Pennsylvania, manufacturers, it has to be one of the handsomest examples of mantles of this type to survive in the entire city.
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Specially designed, the wrought ironwork of 375 Stuyvesant Avenue is attributed to the acclaimed firm of John Williams Credit: Michael Henry Adams -
Featuring opalescent festoons, the stained glass landing window was made by Heinigke & Bowen Credit: Michael Henry Adams photos -
Beamed and wainscoted, in addition to a remarkable tiled fireplace, the dining room boasts a welcoming window seat and a built-in sideboard Credit: Michael Henry Adams -
Composed of Moravian tiles along with figurative corbels, the dining room chimneypiece is a tour de force Credit: Michael Henry Adams -
Without doubt, the J. & L. Lobemeyer Maria Theresa cut-glass chandelier, imported from Vienna, dominates the Tudor Revival living room Credit: Michael Henry Adams -
Designed by Petit, Kirby, and Green, this Neo-Renaissance style house is one of three on its block Credit: Michael Henry Adams photos -
Designed by Petit, Kirby, and Green, this Neo-Renaissance style house is one of three on its block Credit: Michael Henry Adams -
During the Ford Family’s tenure, the leaded glass bookcases flanking the living room mantelpiece displayed elegant porcelain Credit: Michael Henry Adams
Owner-occupants of note
Following Otto Seidenberg’s death in 1931, his house was sold in 1943. It was transformed in the process by its next two owners, who were Black, into something by far more exceptional than it was previously. For someone, then, to be Black and rich was almost oxymoronic, and the second owner of 375 was one of Harlem’s leading citizens. In a May 1955 profile in Our World magazine, the Port of Spain, Trinidad, native was characterized in the title as “Mr. Big.” “Financier, dentist, father, Dr. Charles (Nathaniel) Ford looms as one of Harlem’s wealthiest men.”
First reading it thirty years ago, I understood immediately, from an illustration showing Dr. Ford, his wife Ellen Ford, and their 14-year-old son, Charles, Jr. (one of five adopted siblings), that here was someone of extraordinary importance. How shocking then that today a Google search produces such modest results.
In the picture, there were the Fords, seated in their living room, a space, which, for the home of an African American at the time, was of unparalleled magnificence. It boasted an ornate Elizabethan-style molded plasterwork ceiling. There was an array of European porcelain ornaments on display. Most impressive of all was an imposing J. & L. Lobemeyer Maria Theresa cut-glass chandelier.
No other Black person in 1955 owned such a house. Very few had made such a long progression to gain such tremendous success.
Having worked as a young man as a telephone mechanic helping to build the Panama Canal, Ford came to the U.S. in 1919. He worked as a servant and an elevator operator seeking to attend Howard University. To qualify for Howard, he was first required to do remedial work at Dunbar High School. After Ford graduated from Meharry Medical College in Nashville, he soon learned that their credentials were not accepted in New York. Enrolling in the New York University School of Dentistry, by 1926, the first Black graduate of the NYU Medical program began practicing at 310 Lenox Avenue. He only retired 30 years later.
Real estate partnerships played a big part in Ford’s “side operations.” A co-owner of the Rockland Palace catering hall, after starting out as the apartment building’s elevator operator, Dr. Ford eventually became an owner of the Deerfield at 676 Riverside Drive, too. By the end of the 1930s, he owned the entire block of row houses on St. Nicholas Avenue, between 148th and 149th Streets (1896, Frederick Dinkelberg architect). He lived in the corner house at 400 West 149th Street and leased its twin, 403 West 148th Street, to Black beauty tycoon Rose Morgan. In 1945, the future, second Mrs. Joe Louis opened her first Rose Meta Black beauty spa here, the Rose Meta House of Beauty.
Most importantly, Dr. Ford was a founder of New York City’s first — and for two decades, only — Black-owned insurance company (chartered in 1945). The United Mutual Life Insurance Co. was the nation’s 11th largest, led by people of color. Starting in 1935 as a fraternal mutual aid association, it was headquartered in a building remodeled by Black architect John Lewis Wilson, which was built in 1908 as the Park & Tilford luxury grocery store (B. Hustan Simonson architect, today the Red Rooster Restaurant). In 1992, acquired by Metropolitan Life, United Mutual Life ceased operations, to vanish without a trace
Dr. Ford was 91 at his death in 1981. Moving to Massapequa a decade earlier, according to his New York Times obituary, he was survived by three sons, Dr. Carlton Ford, Dr. Carlos Ford, William Ford Jr., and a daughter, Eloise Ford.
Dr. Ford had sold his remarkable Bedford-Stuyvesant dwelling to community legend Dr. Josephine English, a groundbreaking gynecologist. As entrepreneurial as Ford and also a graduate of Meharry Medical College, Dr. English delivered the daughters of Dr. Betty Shabazz and Malcolm X. She also shrewdly amassed a substantial portfolio of Brooklyn real estate, including the Paul Robeson Theater.
Leased by her heirs to different not-for-profit community initiatives, 375 Stuyvesant Avenue became, variously, a haven for senior citizens, a crucible for the arts, and a school teaching entrepreneurship and youth development.
Subject to a tax lien, it has an order obtained by a majority of its owners for immediate sale, along with Dr. English’s other holdings.
An uncertain, potentially devastating future looms. Yet more community commercial exploitation could easily compromise this structure so identified with the Black experience. Though a part of the Bedford-Stuyvesant Historic District, at this point, its extraordinary and irreplaceable interiors are not protected by landmark designation. This makes gaining city landmark status for the one-of-a-kind interiors surviving here imperative.
What can you do?
Please, before it’s too late, contact any historic preservation advocate interested in African American heritage you can think of, including State Senator Cordell Cleare at: 212-222-7315 and 518-455-2441, the New York Landmarks Preservation Commission at: 212-669-7817, and his honor Mayor Eric Adams and Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani by calling 311 or writing them at City Hall, New York, NY 10007.
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