Leftovers, Part 3

This is sort of a two-for-one, or more realistically, one-and-a-half-for-one. When I was talking about the Gravesend Town Hall a few days ago, I showed an 1868 map of Kings County, with the town of Flatbush southeast of the city of Brooklyn. Flatbush Town Hall is still around, and in good shape. Here’s an undated photo, I believe from before 1904:

The Landmarks Preservation Commission designation report for town hall, written in 1973, takes a rare stance on the territorial expansionist tendencies of the local municipal governments in discussing the origins of the building: “In November 1873 the citizens of Flatbush and the other towns of Kings County defeated the annexation proposal which would have made them a part of the City of Brooklyn. Meanwhile, as further affirmation of Flatbush independence, the local papers began agitating
for a town hall which was needed to hold village court sessions, town elections and other public meetings.” It’s worth mentioning that the growth of Brooklyn in the nineteenth century, while slower than that of New York, which was the fastest in the world in the century, was very fast. In 1800, Brooklyn was simply one of the Kings County towns, and Flatbush had the county courts from 1685 to 1832. The new building was completed in 1875 and served its name role until Brooklyn finally swallowed the town in 1894. From then until 1972 it was used as a police precinct and courthouse. Here it is in 1971, as the 67th Precinct of the NYPD:

The site was at the center of the town and as such there were other important buildings nearby. Directly behind Town Hall, to the north, was Erasmus Hall. The original building opened as a private school in 1786 and operated as such until 1896, when it was donated to the city of Brooklyn for use as a public school. The old building wasn’t necessarily of much use as a high school, but the large amount of land around it was, and Erasmus Hall High School was built in stages from 1905 to 1940. Amazingly, the old school was retained, as the new building was constructed as an open rectangle around it. Here’s a current site plan (from the excellent OpenStreetMap.org):

Flatbush Town Hall is just to the right of the two green rectangles (which may be tennis courts), facing Snyder Avenue; the irregular rectangle behind it is Erasmus Hall High School, which has been subdivided into several schools as part of the NYC Department of Education’s ongoing plan to get rid of the 4000-student high schools of the past; the Erasmus Hall Museum is the original school building, now about 240 years old. The elementary school PS6 east of the town hall was first built, I believe, early in the 1900s and is now in a newer building. The Town Hall building itself is now also a public school, with its relatively small size making it amendable for use for special-needs students.

One last observation about the role of Flatbush in history: the list of Erasmus Hall alumni is a bit overwhelming.