My Precious!

52 East 5th Street :  Oooh La La!  Contemporary modern French Second Empire in Windsor Terrace. Super fine example of Post Civil War Brooklyn General Grant Style opulence on a diminutive residential scale.  

PRE'CIEUX WOOD HOUSE  Square, double dormers, oui, contrasting colored mansard roof, oui, fancy pants slate tile shingles, oui, under the eaves bracketed cornice, oui, wonderfully ornamented portch shed oui, and oui, oui, an imaculate white picketed fence at the gated sidewalk.

THE HAT MAKES THE MAN: Slate fish scale shingles surround this dormer window letting light into the garret living quarters squeezed within the REAL Mansard roof,

LOCATION, LOCATION ;LOCATION  From this 1924 aerial map of bucolic Windsor Terrace Brooklyn you can see that the home site was perfectly nestled between the GreenWood Cemetery and Prospect Park.

The calm before the storm.  This 1951 aerial photo taken just before demolition began for the Prospect Expressway.  Built to alleviate the traffic bottleneck way down on 4th Avenue and Prospect Avenue the expressway would slice through Windsor Terrace displacing some 1250 residents and permanently dividing the neighborhood in half.

Dodged a bullet fired by King Moses,  

Contemporary photo showing just how close petite 52 East 5th Street came from being eminently-domained to death and obliterated from all time.

Street scape East 5th Street