From the New York Public Library scrapbooks, a nice view of the Alhambra Apartments on Nostrand Avenue in Brooklyn. probably not long after the building was completed in 1890:
This was a high-end apartment house, part of the rapid urbanization of Bedford-Stuyvesant encouraged by the construction of the Fulton Street elevated twi years earlier. Despite the name, there was nothing even remotely Moorish about the architecture, but that’s one of the best late-1800s facades in the city.
The growth of Nostrand Avenue as a commercial strip – and, I’d guess, the building owner looking to maximize rent – led to the construction of a one-story retail extension east of the building in 1923, over what had been an areaway for cellar windows. That in itself wasn’t so bad, but the storefront signage, as sometimes happened, got out of control. Here’s a view from 1983, from one of the photos taken by for the Landmarks Preservation Commission designation:
A fire badly damaged the upper floors in 1994, leaving the building vacant except for the storefronts. We were part of a team that restored the building in 1997-1998, including altering the storefronts to a style that better matches the original building:
The thing that I’m trying to wrap my head around is that our work there was 27 years ago.
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