Brooklyn Conservatory of Music
58 7th Avenue | Park Slope | built 1881
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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.
- 1881
An oilcloth manufacturer has a Victorian Gothic mansion built at 7th Avenue and Lincoln Place
William M. Brasher, who made his money manufacturing oilcloths, built a large house in Park Slope, where Lincoln Place meets 7th Avenue. The architect was S. F. Evelette, who had offices on Montague Street. The design is Victorian High Gothic, with Queen Anne touches in the massing and in the mix of materials. It went up while Park Slope was growing quickly after the creation of Prospect Park.
Source: brownstoner.com
- 1920
Martha Brasher dies, having cut her daughter and grandchild out of a million-dollar estate
William Brasher died in 1912, and his widow Martha spent much of her remaining life in lawsuits over property rights and foreclosures, along with a bitter fight to disinherit her estranged daughter. After Martha died in 1920, that case went to court, because she had left her daughter and grandchild out of an estate worth about a million dollars. The Brasher house was later bought from that estate.
Source: brownstoner.com
- 1924
The Park Slope Masonic Club buys the Brasher house for $40,000 to make a clubhouse
The Park Slope Masonic Club, then about two years old and meeting in other halls and lodges, bought the house from the Brasher estate for $40,000. It planned to spend another $35,000 refurbishing it as a modern clubhouse. The club's trustees included Stephen Callaghan, a New York State Supreme Court judge. The Masons kept the building until 1944.
Source: brownstoner.com
- 1944
The Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, founded by German immigrants in 1897, buys the building
In 1944 the Masonic Club sold the house to the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music. German immigrants had founded the school in 1897 as a European-style conservatory, first on Lefferts Place and Franklin Avenue. By the time it bought the mansion it had merged with the Queens Conservatory of Music, so it began here as the Brooklyn-Queens Conservatory. Its programs later widened beyond classical music and added music therapy.
Source: brownstoner.com
Further reading
- Brooklyn Conservatory of MusicWikipedia
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