2 Councilmembers, 2 Landmarks To Receive Lucy G. Moses Awards

March 23, 2012 Brooklyn Eagle Staff

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BROOKLYN — Two Brooklyn landmarks and two Brooklyn Council members will be honored by the New York Landmarks Conservancy at a special ceremony on Wednesday, April 25, as recipients of Lucy G. Moses Preservation Awards.

Council members Brad Lander, representing the 39th District in Brooklyn, and Steve Levin, representing the 33rd District in Brooklyn, will each receive the Public Leadership Award for fostering historic preservation and, more specifically, “for facing down opposition and voting for the merits to affirm the designation of the Borough Hall Skyscraper Historic District in Brooklyn.”

The two landmarks that will receive awards are a residential building at 58 Hicks St. in the Brooklyn Heights Historic District and Brown Memorial Baptist Church, an individual landmark at 484 Washington Ave. in Clinton Hill. 58 Hicks Street. Image courtesy of New York Landmarks Conservancy

They are two of a dozen preservation and restoration projects in the city that will be recognized at the ceremony, known as the “Preservation Oscars,” to be held at the New-York Historical Society — also one of the award winners.

“The awards are a celebration of outstanding restoration projects throughout the city as well as some extraordinary individuals,” said Peg Breen, president of the conservancy. “The awards are a perfect reminder that preservation creates local jobs and encourages tourism. It’s a joyous evening as we salute great work and great people.”

Another name familiar in Brooklyn, John Belle, a founding partner of Beyer Blinder Belle Architects & Planners, will receive the Preservation Leadership Award for his role as a leading preservation architect.

At 58 Hicks St., the owners have transformed one of the least attractive buildings in the district into one of the most striking. Covered with asbestos shingles, the circa-1814 wood-frame house had little of its original appearance when they purchased it in 2007. Now wooden clapboard has replaced asbestos siding, and original bricks were turned around and re-used. The six-over-six panel windows match the historic windows in a pattern that follows the original and, at the suggestion of Landmarks Preservation Commission staff, the door, sidelites and transom match the house’s Greek Revival wood-frame neighbors.

Brown Memorial Baptist Church was designed in 1860 for the Washington Avenue Baptist congregation. The exterior of the individual landmark is in the Romanesque Revival style, and the interior in Gothic Revival. The Brown Memorial congregation, founded in 1916, purchased the building in 1958. Since that time, the church has been the home of this predominantly African-American congregation, which has struggled with deteriorated masonry façades, leaks from an unstable roof, and deteriorated plaster, resulting in threats to safety. In 2003, the congregation replaced the roof and drainage system and restored the brick façade and, in 2009, undertook the sanctuary restoration.