Budget-Minded Rows Marketed as Dodgertown Eased the Postwar Housing Crunch in East Flatbush

These petite East Flatbush homes won’t grab the eye for any architectural extravagance, but the builder came up with an appealing advertising hook and a price range answer to the housing crunch in Brooklyn following Environment War II.

The title has dropped out of use, but the rows of brick houses on East 45th and East 46th streets in between Winthrop Avenue and Rutland Street were being the moment regarded as Dodgertown.

Formulated by builder Milton Steinberg, Dodgertown (spelled Dodger Town in the earliest adverts) was officially released in September of 1949 with a initial batch of households that would finally improve to a micro nabe of a lot more than 150 1 and two-loved ones residences. It was just a single of the postwar developments by Steinberg, who was fast paced building in Queens and Extended Island as well as at yet another Brooklyn advancement, Atlantic Houses in Tub Seashore.

At Dodgertown, people with confined incomes have been promised a roomy residence on a finances and a fairly lengthy checklist of amenities in a giant advert placed to advertise the new improvement in September of 1949. Homes were designed on poured concrete foundations, had insulated roofs, screens in all home windows and “daylight” basements. On the inside there ended up built-in hampers, hardwood or parquet flooring, venetian blinds and kitchens with dinettes. Driveways powering the residences supplied obtain to hooked up garages.

The residences have been FHA inspected and approved, in accordance to the advertisements, and veterans were being in a position to place a $1,250 down payment for a $12,000 property when compared to the $2,500 for civilians for some of the very first residences provided in 1949. Despite the adverts touting uncomplicated funding and reduced selling prices, the houses probable would not have been an obtainable housing choice for all. The not long ago launched 1950 census information exhibit the earliest inhabitants all identified as white. Occupations involved manufacturing unit personnel, taxi motorists, plumbers, mail carriers and nurses. That same 12 months a little one woman was celebrated as the very first arrival of the new community yet another prospect for a bit of push by the developer.

Created in at the very least six sections in between 1949 and 1954, distinct brick types were introduced, despite the fact that all remained somewhat straightforward in exterior detailing, while the selection of rooms and amenities on the inside varied. In 1950, the new two-tale products came entire with steel and concrete bomb shelters in the basement that had been large enough to maintain a team of 16.

The Dodgertown name produced for a nice marketing ploy but the advancement wasn’t accurately in the shadow of the Dodgers’ residence at Ebbets Area, located extra than a mile to the west, but possibly that available a much more focus-grabbing title than nodding to a nearer neighbor, the Kings County Medical center. The Dodgertown title doesn’t appear to be to have stuck substantially earlier the 1950s. Surely the departure of the team hastened the loss of life of the neighborhood moniker.

[Photos by Susan De Vries]

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