Locals Protest Development Behind Historic Bed-Stuy Mansion

BEDFORD-STUYVESANT, BROOKLYN — Local residents are fighting to stop developers from building a five-story “monstrosity” in the backyard of a historic Bed-Stuy mansion.

Community organizers intend to protest plans, which call for demolishing a garage and developing the lot behind the Stuyvesant Mansion at 375 Stuyvesant Ave., at a public hearing on April 17.

“It’s an insult,” said Ardenia Brown, 63, a life-long Stuy-Heights resident who is rallying the neighborhood against the proposal. “It’s a humongous building that has nothing to do with the quality of the homes here.”

Architecture firm DXA Studio filed for permission to build in September 2017 and now awaits approval from the Landmarks Preservation Commission, the agency that manages development on landmarked areas, city records show.

The plans call for demolishing a garage and building a five-story apartment complex with seven units and a modern, dark grey brick exterior that Brown believes “has not the remnants of looking like a landmark status building.”

“Developers are coming into our community and building these monstrosities on a landmarked block,” she said. “You can’t change the whole structure of what’s here — that will not fly.”

The historic mansion has stood on the corner of Stuyvesant Avenue and Decatur Street since 1914 when was it was built Henry P. Kirby and John J. Petit — the architects behind the first homes in Prospect Park South and the original Coney Island Dreamland amusement park — for brewer Otto Seidenberger, according to a Brownstoner report.

The building was later passed on to Dr. Josephine English, a renowned community leader and gynecologist who opened groundbreaking health clinics and delivered the children of Malcolm X and former U.S. Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown.

When Dr. English died in 2011, she bequeathed Stuyvesant Mansion to her family and asked that they keep a community center running in the lower levels of the building, said Brown.

The family respected her wishes, but have since become burdened with the cost of maintaining the massive mansion and decided to build in its empty lot, according to Brown.

“We’re not bashing them or throwing them under the bus,” said Brown, who does not object to the idea of developing the lot. “But that monstrosity? That’s not necessary.”

Which is why Brown is calling on residents to sign petitions which she’s passing around the neighborhood and attend a meeting with developers at the mansion on April 10 at 7 p.m.

Brown plans to present the petitions and letters of protest at the LPC hearing on April 17, and hopefully pressure developers to renovate with the garage that’s already on the property.

“It could be a fabulous loft with red doors please,” she said. “Wear it out, and then I’ll buy it!”

DXA Studio did not immediately respond to Patch's request for comment.

Photo courtesy of GoogleMaps/Oct. 2017