A Bit of Old Dutch Brooklyn — ON FOOT, ON WHEELS

WHERE: The Flatlands and Marine Park neighborhoods of Brooklyn

START: Flatbush Avenue and Avenue K (B41 local bus)

FINISH: Nostrand Avenue and Avenue U (B3, B44, B44 SBS buses)

DISTANCE: 2.79 miles (4.5 kilometers)

Photographs by Michael Cairl except as noted. Map courtesy footpathmap.com

It didn’t take long after the Dutch West India Company founded New Amsterdam, in 1624, for new arrivals from Holland to go across what is now called the East River to set up farms and villages in what is now called Brooklyn. Never mind that there were already people living there. There are plenty of reminders of Dutch settlement in Brooklyn, from street names to some old farmhouses to old church congregations. On this walk I visited two: the Flatlands Reformed Church and the Hendrick I. Lott House, and rode the bus past two others: the Lefferts Homestead in Prospect Park and the Flatbush Reformed Church.

This walk was in a part of Brooklyn south of the terminal moraine, a ridge line dating from the last Ice Age that runs the length of Long Island. I have called this Big Sky Brooklyn and, affectionately, Uncool Brooklyn. It is very flat, with only the occasional short hill. The sandy and marshy ground probably reminded early Dutch settlers of home. This part of Brooklyn is comprised of mostly attached houses and two-story commercial buildings, with higher-rise buildings here and there. Nearly all the buildings I walked past were built since World War I.

A few minutes’ walk from the starting point, at Kings Highway and East 40 Street, is the Flatlands Reformed Church. It is one of three Dutch Reformed congregations founded by order of Governor Peter Stuyvesant in 1654. All three congregations still exist, the others being Flatbush Dutch Reformed Church in Flatbush and Old First Reformed Church in Park Slope. The founding pastor of all three, Reverend Theodorus Polhemus, was a ninth great-grandfather of mine. The present Flatlands church is a Greek Revival structure that opened in 1848, replacing a building that opened in 1794.

Flatlands was one of the townships in Kings County, later absorbed into the City of Brooklyn. From the Flatlands church’s website: “Flatlands was recognized as a town in 1788, and the minister was designated as the first Supervisor, perhaps because he was one of the few who had not given his allegiance to the King during the war. By the time the Constitution was ratified in 1789, economic and social necessity had forced amnesty and reconciliation.” This part of Brooklyn remained semi-rural and was not extensively built up until after World War I. Again from the Flatlands church’s website:

In 1838, the Reformed Church was incorporated, and the first parsonage in Flatlands was built, on near the present intersection of Avenue K and Kings Highway, for its first full time pastor. The church reported 100 adults in communion. By 1840, the population of Flatlands had grown to 800. Although slavery had been abolished in New York State in 1827, some former slaves continued to live and work as free laborers.

Kings Highway, which in 1920 was mostly a narrow, unpaved road, was expanded to its present width and paved later in that decade. In August 1776, a large British army landed at Gravesend Bay in southern Brooklyn. One column marched northeast along Kings Highway to Jamaica Pass (near modern Broadway Junction) then west along the Ferry Road (modern Fulton Street) to attack the Continental Army, as commemorated on the historical marker below. The other column marched north to fight in what is now called Prospect Park.

*Historical marker just inside the fence of Flatlands Reformed Church, facing Kings Highway.*

From the church I walked south along East 40 Street, west on Flatlands Avenue, and south on East 36 Street into the Marine Park neighborhood. There are intervening named streets as well as busy Flatbush Avenue, so the distance from East 40 Street to East 36 Street is not four blocks. (Brooklyn street nomenclature is often confusing.). This is an area I have biked through many times going to or from the Rockaways, but had never walked through. There is little that is remarkable about the streetscape, but I was struck by a pair of huge old trees flanking East 36 Street near Avenue R. One of them is pictured below.

A block or so past the trees is the Hendrick I. Lott House, built in 1720 and enlarged in 1800. From untappedcities.com:

Still standing in its original orientation on its original site, the Hendrick I. Lott House is a rare surviving Dutch-American house in New York City. At its peak, the Lott family owned over 200 acres worth of land, according to the Historic House Trust. Much of their property would be sold off in the 1920s, with the neighborhood later becoming known as Marine Park, but the house remained in the family.

One of the extraordinary finds in this house is a closet believed to have been used to hide runaway slaves, with the house serving as an important stop in South Brooklyn on the Underground Railroad.

From the Friends of the Lott House website:

The exterior of the Lott House represents a traditional Dutch-American vernacular farmhouse. Built c. 1800 by Hendrick I. Lott, it incorporates the 1720 house built by Hendrick’s grandfather, Colonel Johannes H. Lott.

The vernacular style of the house is limited to the exterior; the interior exhibits a much grander style. High ceilings and decorative fireplace mantles and moldings highlight Hendrick’s skill as a professional house carpenter in Manhattan during the last decade of the 18th century. Decorative and architectural features in the house date from the 18th through early 20th centuries. At present, the interior of the house remains unrestored.

The eastern wing of the Lott House is the original 1720 house. It has been theorized that this house was along Kimball’s Road (not to be confused with present-day Kimball Street). Kimball’s Road ran approximately along East 38th Street. It was the 19th-century address of the Lott House, and a driveway turned off of East 38th Street onto the Lott property. It is more likely the 1720 house originally stood where East 36th Street is now.

The Lott House is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is a New York City landmark. New York City purchased the house in 2002 from the estate of Ella Suydam (1896 - 1989), a direct descendant of Hendrick I. Lott and his grandfather Colonel Johannes H. Lott.

This house is rarely open to the public but I will be on the lookout for when it is.

There’s an interesting history of the Lott family and house at https://www.bklynr.com/keeping-house/. I wish I had met Ella Suydam.

From there I walked along Avenue S into Marine Park. Along the way I heard music to my ears: the sound of people who probably have lived in Brooklyn their whole lives. Marine Park has several parts: athletic fields, a public golf course, tidal wetlands with nature trails, and more. I walked along the reconstructed Marine Park Oval to Avenue U. The oval is notable for a line of stately trees.

Leaving the park, I walked west on Avenue U to the end of the walk at Nostrand Avenue, and lunch at a Brooklyn landmark, Brennan and Carr.

Outside and inside, Brennan and Carr looks like an old roadhouse, probably little changed since it opened in 1938. They are renowned for their roast beef sandwiches but I opted for a roast pork sandwich instead, the meat sliced very thin and the whole thing was very tasty. That and a plate of sweet potato fries made for a nice lunch indeed. The staff were very hospitable and helpful to this guy with a cane. I’ll be back.

There’s one more old Dutch farmhouse in Brooklyn to visit: the Wyckoff House in East Flatbush. And I should visit the Flatbush Dutch Reformed Church, built between 1793 and 1798. This walk wasn’t physically taxing and there isn’t much of note in the streetscape, but I walked through a diverse area with a lot of history. I’m glad I did it, on a very pleasant December day.