Bronx rowhouses make 100th Historic District

Nine Queen Anne style homes on Perry Avenue in the Bronx designated as a historic district. On December 15, 2009, Landmarks designated a row of Queen Anne style houses at 2971 to 2987 Perry Avenue in the Bronx as the Perry Avenue Historic District. The historic district, which is the City’s 100th, consists of nine three-story, wood-frame houses built between 1910 and 1912. Following the extension of the IRT and the Third Avenue elevated line to areas north of Fordham Road, developer George D. Kingston acquired the properties and hired Bronx-based architect Charles S. Clark to design the homes.

The houses feature alternating orange and red brick facades and small yards enclosed by fieldstone walls. The houses at 2971 through 2977 feature three-sided porches, and the remaining five homes have projecting porticos supported on columns. From the 1920s through the 1950s, large multi-family apartment buildings began replacing many of the area’s single-family rowhouses. Despite the area’s change in character, the Perry Avenue houses remained intact.

At the hearing, Landmarks Chair Robert B. Tierney noted that if designated, the historic district would not only be the City’s 100th district, but also the fourteenth outer-borough district designation during his tenure. Commissioner Stephen Byrns called the district “a little jewel” and noted that the buildings remained well-preserved, while Commissioner Margery Perlmutter described the Perry Avenue houses as “a rare typology,” and unique for the City. Landmarks voted unanimously to designate the district.

LPC: Perry Avenue Historic District, Bronx (LP-2339) (Dec. 15, 2009).

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