Alhambra Apartments

500 Nostrand Avenue | also 508 Nostrand Avenue, 29 Macon Street, 518 Nostrand Avenue | Bedford-Stuyvesant | built 1890

Open on the map5 entries

The lot about 1940
About 1940. Via 1940s.nyc
The lot about 1985
About 1985. Via 80s.nyc

The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.

Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.

  1. 1889

    Architect Montrose Morris wins the Alhambra commission by opening his own house to visitors

    When Montrose W. Morris opened his office, he built his own house on Hancock Street and opened it to the public as advertising, which drew visitors and favorable press notices. Developer Louis F. Seitz was one of the visitors and commissioned Morris to design an apartment house on his Nostrand Avenue property opposite the new Girls' High School. Seitz was so pleased that he soon commissioned two more, the Renaissance and the Imperial.

    “…he designed and built his own residence and opened it to the public ... Louis F. Seitz who commissioned him to design an apartment house…”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  2. 1890

    The Alhambra is completed as one of Brooklyn's earliest apartment houses for the middle class

    Built in 1889-90 by Seitz, the Alhambra was among the first Brooklyn apartment buildings designed for middle-class tenants. At the time the single-family row house was the middle-class standard and many people disliked flats. Its rich materials and fine design were meant to draw families, and its scale was kept in tune with the surrounding brick and brownstone row houses.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  3. 1890

    Morris gives the Alhambra corner towers, open loggias and terra-cotta arcades

    The block-long building faces Nostrand Avenue as two matching halves joined by open columned bridges at the upper floors. Each half rises four stories of Roman brick, stone and terra cotta under a slate mansard, with polygonal corner towers and recessed loggias. Morris combined the Romanesque Revival and Queen Anne styles, and the landmarks commission praised its polychromatic effect.

    “…actually divided in the center, creating two separate identical structures connected at each upper story by open columned bridges…”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  4. 1923

    The ground floor is converted to a continuous row of storefronts

    In 1923 the Nostrand Avenue ground floor was altered into a continuous block-long run of shops. Before that, the central division of the building had been much more apparent, giving views into the interior courtyard. The entrances on Halsey and Macon Streets were enlarged to make up for the ones lost on Nostrand Avenue.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  5. 1986

    March 18

    The Landmarks Preservation Commission designates the Alhambra a city landmark

    The commission designated the Alhambra on March 18, 1986, after hearings in June and September 1983 at which nine witnesses spoke in favor and none opposed. By then the upper floors were vacant and the stores only partly occupied, but the commission judged that the building's dignity had survived its alterations.

    “March 18, 1986; Designation List 184 ... Nine witnesses spoke in favor of designation. There were no speakers in opposition…”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

Further reading

Nearby

All 23 buildings with stories in Bedford-Stuyvesant