Beverley Square East and Beverley Square West, also spelled Beverly Square, are a pair of

neighborhood A neighbourhood (Commonwealth English) or neighborhood (American English) is a geographically localized community within a larger town, city, suburb or rural area, sometimes consisting of a single street and the buildings lining it. Neigh ...

s in the

Flatbush Flatbush is a neighborhood in the New York City Borough (New York City), borough of Brooklyn. The neighborhood consists of several subsections in central Brooklyn and is generally bounded by Prospect Park (Brooklyn), Prospect Park to the nort ...

section of the

New York City borough The boroughs of New York City are the five major governmental districts that comprise New York City. They are the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island. Each borough is coextensive with a respective county of the State of New ...

Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

. Located southwest of Prospect Park within what is now called Victorian Flatbush, one of the largest concentrations of Victorian houses 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) to Cortelyou Road in the south. The cut for the BMT Brighton Line of the

New York City Subway The New York City Subway is a rapid transit system in New York City serving the New York City boroughs, boroughs of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx. It is owned by the government of New York City and leased to the New York City Tr ...

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 community boards of New York City, New York City community board that encompasses the List of Brooklyn neighborhoods, Brooklyn neighborhoods of Flatbush, Brooklyn, Flatbush, Midwood, Brooklyn, Midwood, Kensington, ...

, 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'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'', 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 line at both the north and the south ends of the two neighborhoods, only a block apart, the two closest open stations in the

system: Beverley Road 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 Government of New York City, New York City agency charged with administering the city's Historic preservation, Landmarks Preservation Law. The LPC is responsible for protecting Ne ...

, 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