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View looking south toward Avenue H shows the temporary trackage is now in use
with a train of trolley-wire powered elevated cars making a
station stop at Fiske Terrace. The Avenue H station house
(middle left) is still Ackerson’s office, and the
original BRT station house can be glimpsed to the left of the
more substantial Ackerson building. A steam loco in work
service can also be seen.
weeks and months, various interested and
knowledgeable parties were contacted and interviewed. A public
hearing on June 15 heard ten speakers representing political
representatives, the Community Board, the Fiske Terrace
Association, the Brooklyn Borough Historian, the Midwood Park
Home Owners Association and the Historic Districts Council in
support of landmark designation. There were no speakers in
opposition. On June 24, 2004 the combined efforts of many
people and organizations came to fruition when the Avenue H
Station House (a.k.a. 802 East 16th Street or 1518-
1524 Avenue H, Brooklyn NY) became an
official New York City Landmark.
Landmark Designatio
Brings Appreciation
Brings Appreciation
The road to landmark designation
engendered a remarkable transformation: what had been viewed as
a dispensable fire trap became a valued historical treasure
under the scrutiny of the Landmark Commission’s experts.
The designation report, prepared by Landmarks Commission
consultant Eve M. Kahn, cited the uniqueness of the station:
“The Avenue H station on the BMT
line […] is the city’s only shingled wooden cottage
turned
transit station house. Often compared to a
country train stop, it originally served as a real estate sales
office for developer Thomas Benton Ackerson to sell property in
the adjacent neighborhood of Fiske Terrace, an early twentieth
century example of planned suburban development. The structure,
with a hipped and flared roof and wraparound porch, evokes in
miniature the area’s Colonial Revival and Queen Anne
houses. After nearly a century of commuter traffic, the Avenue
H station remains in service and retains much historic fabric,
from a corbelled chimney to peeled log porch columns. It is one
of a very small number of wood-frame station houses
©2007 The Composing Stack Inc.