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Bertine Block, 136th Street, Mott Haven, Bronx

The Bertine Block Historic District consists of thirty-one residential buildings lining both sides of East 136th Street between Willis Avenue and Brown Place in the Mott Haven section of the Bronx.

Within the boundaries of the district are four groups of rowhouses and two groups of tenements. Erected between 1877 and 1899, the buildings reflect the history of real estate development in the southwestern portion of the Bronx. The buildings in the historic district comprise fine examples of neo-Grec, Queen Anne, Romanesque Revival, and Renaissance Revival design, illustrating the stylistic trends in residential architecture in New York City in the final three decades of the nineteenth century.

The buildings of the historic district retain their architectural integrity to a high degree and survive today as a reflection of the character of Bronx architecture in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when the Mott Haven area was beingú developed, and as a physical manifestation of the variety of people, from varied ethnic and national backgrounds, who have lived, and continue to live, in this neighborhood.

Among the earliest new residences was the trio of rowhouses in the neo-Grec style at 408 to 412 East 136th Street of 1877-78, the first buildings erected within the Bertine Block Historic District. Although designed and built as an ensemble. each of these three houses was commissioned by a separate individual, two of whom moved their families into the completed homes; It was rare for a row of houses to be erected for individual owners, rather ~ for a speculative builder. Perhaps developers were still not willing to risk investing money in this neighborhood, with its poor mass transit facilities and its location far to the north of New York City's business, shopping, and social centers. The three houses were designed by the firm of Rogers & Browne whosepartners were the architects John Rogers and Edward H. Browne. Although the firm had its office on Nassau Street in Manhattan, both architects lived in Morrisania. Early in the 1880s,John Rogers would design several additional rowhouses nearby in what is now the Mott Haven Historic District.

The three rowhouses on East 136th Street are identical two-story-and-basement dwellings designed in the neo-Grec style which was at the height of its popularity in the late 1870s. Neo-Grec rowhouses share the rectilinear form, rhythmic bay arrangement, three-dimensional carved window and doorway enframements, and heavy projecting bracketed cornices popular on the Italianate rowhouses of the 1850s and 18605, but the character of their ornamental detail. sets these neo-Grec buildings apart from their predecessors. Rather than the sculptural relief ornament of Italianate rowhouse facades. the detail on neoGrec facades has a stylized, angular form, evident 00: the East 136th Street row at the brackets that support the entrance pediments and at the massive galvanized-iron cornices. Original plans show that each of these houses had the kitchen and dining room in the basement, front and rear parlors on the first story. and three rooms on the second story.

In the 1890s, three rows were erected on East 136th Street between Willis Avenue and Brown Place. These three rows, comprising a total of twenty houses, were built by developer Edward D. Bertine who spent $63,500 amassing property on 136th Street in 1891. Little is known about Edward Bertine. Listings in New York City directories indicate that he had been a Manhattan milk dealer in the 1870s and early 1880., branching into groceries by 1883. In 1889-90, Bertine first appears in the directory as a builder. All of the buildings that Bertine is known to have erected are in the Bronx, and, following the completion of his first row on East 136th Street, he moved into a house on the block.

In 1891 Bertine began construction on a row often houses on the south side of East 136thStreet. Designed by architect George Keister, this is one of the finest rows erected in New York City in the late nineteenth century. The row was illustrated in The Great North Side or Borough of the Bronx in 1897 and was given the appellation, "Bertine Block," in the first edition of the A1A Guide to New York only in 1967. The row, at 414 to 432 East 136th Street, is designed in the Queen Anne style. Each house is faced with tawny brick above a rock-faced stone base, and ornamented with trim in brick, stone, stained glass, and slate. A Queen Anne aesthetic is especially evident in the variety of design elements, including those of Romanesque, Gothic, and Flemish origin, combined within the unified row; in the picturesque rooftop silhouette, consisting of flat roofs, mansards, and pedimented, stepped, and scrolled gables; in the dynamic texture created by the flat brickwork contrasting with patterned brick and other materials; in the juxtaposition of a variety of fenestration patterns; and in the use of tall chimneys, a favorite Queen Anne design conceit employed to lend the houses an air of comfortable domesticity.

Responsibility for the creation of this unusual row lies with architect George Keister, one of the most talented architects active in New York City at the end of the nineteenth century, but a man about whom relatively little is known. It In the 1890s Keister designed several exceptional buildings with the same unusual massing and innovative use of form seen on the Bertine row. Surviving examples of these are the First Baptist Church (1891) on Broadway and West79th Street, an eccentric Romanesque Revival work: with asymmetrical towers and large expanses of stained glass, and The Gerard (1893-94) at 123 West 44th Street, an apartment hotel that combines Romanesque Revival and Northern Renaissance features and has a striking silhouette of projecting dormers and gables. Through much of his career, Keister appears to have specialized in the design of theaters.

The ten houses of the so-called "Bertine Block" are each fifteen feet wide and three stories tall with basements that extend slightly below ground level. Six of the houses were built with two-story feat extensions that were ten-and-one-half feet wide and fourteen feet deep. A low stoop (each is extant) leads to each entrance and. at the first story. each house was planned with a front parlor and rear dining room (six houses have small rooms to the rear) and a central' stair hall." This plan, with a sizable stair ball (often with a fireplace) between the front and rear rooms, became popular in the 18805 and is a characteristic feature of Queen Anne style houses. At the second story. each house had two rooms with closets and at the third story were a large front room, a: small central room, and two small rear rooms.

There were two rooms (including a kitchen) and a central stair hall the basement. The original location of the toilets is not known.

With the completion of the ten houses on the south side of the street, Bertine began construction in 1892 of a row of six single-family houses at 415 to 425 East 136th Street. These were not designed by Keister. Rather, Bertine commissioned John Hauser, a local architect with an office at 1441 Third Avenue, to complete the row. Hauser is first listed as Ian architect in city directories in 1892 and was active at least until 1922.14 In the 18908 and the first decade of the twentieth century, Hauser was a prolific designer of rowhouses and apartment buildings, primarily in the Bronx and in northern Manhattan. The row that Hauser designed for Bertine must have been among his earliest works. The six brick-faced houses are articulated with the round arches common to the Romanesque Revival style, and all have molded-brick and stone trim and high stoops lined with wrought-iron railings.

Bertine's third and final row in the historic district comprises the four Renaissance Revival style houses at 434 to 440 East 136th Street, designed in 1895by Adolph Balschun, Jr., an architect whose office was located around the comer on East 135th Street. In 1895, an Adolph Balschun (without the "Jr. ") is listed in the New York: City directory as a carpenter located on East 135th Street; in the following year Balschun is listed as a builder.