Beverley Square East and Beverley Square West, also spelled Beverly Square, are a pair of neighborhoods in the Flatbush section of the

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Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

. Located southwest of Prospect Park within what is now called

Victorian Flatbush Victorian Flatbush is the western section of the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, New York, bordering Midwood, that is characterized by Victorian houses. The neighborhoods of Victorian Flatbush were developed in the early twentieth century from fa ...

, one of the largest concentrations of

Victorian house In Great Britain and former British colonies, a Victorian house generally means any house built during the reign of Queen Victoria. During the Industrial Revolution, successive housing booms resulted in the building of many millions of Victorian ...

s in the United States, they were developed in the 1900s primarily by Thomas Benton Ackerson, whose former home is in Beverley Square West.

Context and construction

The two neighborhoods extend from Beverley Road in the north (south of

Prospect Park South Prospect Park South is a small neighborhood in Flatbush, Brooklyn, New York City, located south of Prospect Park. It is included within the Prospect Park South Historic District, which was designated by the New York City Landmarks Preservation ...

) to Cortelyou Road in the south. The cut for the

BMT Brighton Line The BMT Brighton Line, also known as the Brighton Beach Line, is a rapid transit line in the B Division of the New York City Subway in Brooklyn, New York City, United States. Local service is provided at all times by the Q train, but is joined ...

of the New York City Subway between Marlborough Road (East 15th Street) and East 16th Street forms the boundary between them: Beverley Square East extends east from there to East 19th Street, and Beverley Square West west from there to Stratford or Argyle Road.Nedda C. Allbray, ''Flatbush: The Heart of Brooklyn'', Making of America, Charleston, South Carolina: Arcadia, 2004,
pp. 142–43
Beverly Square East and West Neighborhood Associations

Brooklyn Community Board 14 Brooklyn Community Board 14 is a New York City community board that encompasses the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Flatbush, Midwood, Kensington, and Ocean Parkway. It is delimited by Coney Island Avenue, the Long Island Rail Road, McDonald Avenu ...

, retrieved January 20, 2013. Four of the five north-south streets in the development were renamed for a British high tone.Evan Lerner
"Peaked Roofs, Crossed Fingers"
The City, ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'', March 16, 2008. The Beverley Squares, like most of Victorian Flatbush, were built on rural land.Peter Ross, ''A History of Long Island: From Its Earliest Settlement to the Present Time'', Volume 3 by William S. Pelletreau, , New York: Lewis, 1905
p. 403
Ackerson organized his development company in order to develop Beverley Square East,''Metropolis'' 2 (1982
p. 23
beginning work in 1898 with a line of large houses along East 19th Street. Beverley Square West was built on Catherine Lott's farm,
Victorian Flatbush, retrieved January 21, 2013. which Ackerson acquired in 1901. Ackerson arranged for there to be subway stations on the new

Brooklyn Rapid Transit The Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company (BRT) was a public transit holding company formed in 1896 to acquire and consolidate railway lines in Brooklyn and Queens, New York City, United States. It was a prominent corporation and industry leader using ...

line at both the north and the south ends of the two neighborhoods, only a block apart, the two closest open stations in the New York City Subway system:

Beverley Road Beverley Road (known in local parlance as Bev Road) is one of several major roads that run out of the city of Hull in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. The road is noted for being a major arterial route into, and out of Hull. It also known ...

and Cortelyou Road on the BMT Brighton Line (now the local ). The line was also placed in the cut in response to developer pressure; it was originally at grade level. Originally Ackerson offered his houses in Beverley Square East for sale at $10,000 and up, and those in Beverley Square West at $6,500 and up; when sales of the first houses in Beverley Square East were disappointing, he had the rest of that neighborhood developed with somewhat simpler houses by Lewis H. Pounds and Delbert H. Decker (it was completed in 1901), and modified his plan for Beverley Square West, building somewhat smaller and less distinctive houses. The Beverley Squares were "Ackerson's major project"; his own home was in Beverley Square West, at 304 Marlborough Street (built in 1903), and Pounds, who later served as Brooklyn Borough President, had his home at 317 East 17th Street in Beverley Square East. Beverley Square West also includes the "honeymoon cottage" built as a wedding present for a daughter of the Guggenheim family, at 305 Rugby Road.

Gentrification

Like the rest of Victorian Flatbush, the Beverley Squares have been revitalized since the 1970s by an influx of new residents who value the relatively cheap houses in a variety of architectural styles with details such as fluted columns, stained glass, large porches, and turrets. Beverley Square West has an active residents' association that celebrated the centenary of the neighborhood in 2002 and is trying to achieve designation by the

New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) is the New York City agency charged with administering the city's Landmarks Preservation Law. The LPC is responsible for protecting New York City's architecturally, historically, and cu ...

, but without success . Together with Ditmas Park West, the Beverley Squares are now often thought of as part of Ditmas Park.Jake Mooney
"Moved for the Space; Stayed for the Food", Living In , Ditmas Park, Brooklyn
Real Estate, ''The New York Times'', November 13, 2009.

Education

Public School 139, the Alexine Fenty School, occupies the blockfront of Cortelyou Road between Rugby and Argyle Roads in Beverley Square West; several of the original houses were demolished to build an extension to the school. The "mini-school" annex opened in 1989.Eve M. Kahn

''The New York Times'', October 19, 1989.

References

{{Coord, 40, 38, 30, N, 73, 57, 54, W, display=title Neighborhoods in Brooklyn Flatbush, Brooklyn