City Council Approves Wallabout Historic District

Move over Fort Greene, Clinton Hill and BAM—there's a new historic district in the neighborhood.

The City Council voted 50-0 on Wednesday to approve the creation of the Wallabout Historic District, capping a process involving months of study, public input and hearings.

Relatively tiny compared to the much-larger Fort Greene and Clinton Hill historic areas to its south, the Wallabout Historic District consists of just 55 structures on Vanderbilt Avenue between Myrtle and Park avenues.

However, the row of homes on the block, mostly built between 1849 and 1855, represent one of the largest remaining concentrations of wood-frame houses in the entire city.

Wallabout takes its name from group of Walloons who settled in the area in the mid-17th century roughly at the site of the present-day Navy Yard. By the 1820s the land had passed down to the estate of Jeremiah Spader, who decided to subdivide the land to build to first of a series of Greek Revival-style homes on the east side of Vanderbilt Avenue.

The City Council vote comes months after the on landmark designation for the neighborhood—a move that freed up some money for repairs and maintenance, but provided little protection for the historically-significant homes.

The vote to establish a city-recognized historic area—albeit, covering only one city block—will provide much more teeth to protections designed to preserve Wallabout's historic character.

Those protections include a permit system run by the city Landmark Preservation Commission for most work involving the front or visible portion of buildings.

The LPC held an info meeting regarding the beginnings of another move, this time .