HISTORY
ARCHITECTS FOR THE MODERN AGE
Slee & Bryson's unassuming but numerous buildings, many in the
Colonial Revival style, changed the look of Brooklyn.
story by SUZANNE SPELLEN (AKA MONTROSE MORRIS)
Ever since architecture became a legitimate and
fast-growing profession in the latter decades of the
nineteenth century, Brooklyn has had its superstars.
They were men (without exception) such as Montrose
Morris, George P. Chappell, Theobald Engelhardt,
and the Parfitt Brothers, who painted on the canvas
of the city. They, and many others whose biographies
have been featured on Brownstoner over the years,
created much of the Brooklyn many of us treasure today.
They designed our houses and apartment buildings,
churches and synagogues, and our civic, commercial,
and industrial buildings.
They and their contemporaries began designing in the
1870s and ‘80s, and many had retired or died by the end
of World War I. They paved the way, both in design and
in their business practices, for the generation that came
after them, firms and individuals that started work in the
new century. One of the most important of these early
twentieth-century architectural firms was Slee & Bryson.
JOHN B. SLEE AND ROBERT H. BRYSON
John B. Slee was born in Maryland in 1875. He was
educated at the Friends School of Baltimore. Between
1891 and 1893, he received his architectural training
at Baltimore’s Maryland Institute, one of the country’s
oldest art and technical schools. He moved to Brooklyn
sometime after graduation and was employed at an architectural
firm, perhaps Kirby, Petit & Green. The 1900
census shows Slee working as a draughtsman and living
as a boarder with his younger brother George at a house
at 183 Amity Street in Cobble Hill.
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A design sketch for the Brooklyn Appellate Courthouse on Monroe Street in Brooklyn Heights. From the Brooklyn Daily Eagle
via Brooklyn Public Library, Brooklyn Collection.