The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) on Tuesday voted unanimously to give landmark status to the Alice and Agate Courts in Bedford-Stuyvesant. It will be the city’s 93rd historic district.

It was part of an agenda that saw the LPC also give individual landmark status to Consolidated Edison Inc.'s headquarters at 4 Irving Place and One Chase Manhattan Plaza, two of the Manhattan skyline’s most distinctive skyscrapers.

The Alice and Agate Courts Historic District, described as “a quiet enclave of 36 late 19th-century Queen Anne-style rowhouses,� is the ninth historic district outside of Manhattan designated under the Bloomberg Administration, the highest number of any administration since the commission was founded in 1965.

Said Commission Chair Robert B. Tierney, “The designation of Alice and Agate Courts is a milestone for this commission, as it’s the ninth historic district we’ve approved outside of Manhattan, the most of any mayoral administration, and still more are on the way.�

The 36 row houses are on two cul-de-sac streets on the north side of Atlantic Avenue between Kingston and Albany avenues, near the southern edge of Bed-Stuy. Constructed between 1888 and 1889, they were developed as rental properties by Florian Grosjean, a Swiss-born industrialist whose New York-based company manufactured metal utensils, pots, pans, sinks and other wares.

The cul-de-sac streets were named for Grosjean’s daughter, Alice Marie and for "agate ware," the enamel-coated iron products that were made by his company, Lalance & Grosjean. The firm operated a plant in Woodhaven, Queens, for about 100 years, disbanding in 1955.

The red brick, brownstone, bluestone and terra cotta buildings were designed by architect Walter M. Coots, who was responsible for a number of other row houses and apartment buildings in Brooklyn. The buildings feature conical-roofed corner turrets, projecting bays, carved stonework, elaborate ironwork and stained glass windows.

“These charming, eclectic rowhouses form a quiet residential oasis in the midst of a bustling commercial district,� said Tierney, who added that the designation includes a tall, brick wall at the end of Agate Court. “The buildings aren't identical, but work together as a cohesive group.�

The row houses’ earliest tenants were mostly white collar workers such as publishers, salesmen, builders, stenographers, clerks and bookkeepers. Each residence had between 10 and 11 rooms, and rented for up to $540 a year. Grosjean’s heirs sold the properties in 1904, and were subdivided and resold several times in the first decades of the 20th century. The majority of the row houses currently are occupied by their owners.

In addition to the designations, the commission also voted to calendar a proposal to designate the Ocean on the Park Historic District, a stretch of 12 early 20th century Renaissance Revival limestone rowhouses on Ocean Avenue between Lincoln Road and Parkside Avenue in the Prospect Lefferts Gardens section of Brooklyn.

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