tury row houses into modern twentieth-century apartment
buildings.
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle published several articles about
Slee’s stratagems, complete with floor plans. They showed
building owners that by stripping the front ornamentation,
getting rid of the stoops, and moving the entrance
to the ground floor, one could divide the houses into
floor-though apartments, while modernizing them with
the latest Colonial Revival interiors. Those old buildings
could approximate the modern new apartments, many
designed by Slee & Bryson, that were now so popular in
Brooklyn Heights and elsewhere. Slee may have taken his
own advice, as 102 Pierrepont no longer has a stoop and
was subdivided into six units.
A FINE END TO TWO LONG CAREERS
Slee’s and Bryson’s careers may have been slowed down by
the Great Depression, as were many, but they continued
to design through the lean years. The building that made
them a household word in Brooklyn came at the end of
their joint careers. It was a modern new building for the
Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, located on
Monroe Street in Brooklyn Heights.
The elegant courthouse was begun in 1936 and finished a
year later. It is one of their best designs. It was the best of
Brooklyn’s newer courthouses, housing at its opening eight
justices and 63 staff. The location and civic pride evidenced
in the Appellate Court was cited as one of the factors in
the decision to not run Robert Moses’ Brooklyn-Queens
Expressway through Brooklyn Heights a decade later.
By 1936, the Bryson family had moved back to Brooklyn
Heights. Robert Bryson wasn’t well, and after a long illness,
died on September 10, 1938 at his apartment at 15 Clark
Street, a building he and Slee designed. He was 63. Slee kept
the firm’s name and he and his staff kept going. They had
moved to larger offices at 16 Court Street, where most of
Brooklyn’s architects hung their hats. They still had plenty
of buildings left in them.
In 1941, Slee was chosen to lead a panel of architects, city
planners and others to contemplate a new civic plaza near
Borough Hall. He threw himself into the project, giving
lectures and presentations and publishing his maps and
ideas in the Brooklyn Eagle. Robert Moses wanted to
tear down the area around Borough Hall and create a
Venetian-style civic plaza. Slee designed an elegant street
plan, complete with new buildings. Some aspects of his
proposal were incorporated into Cadman Plaza, although
his version would have had much more parkland.
Slee continued to work until his death, on January 14, 1947.
He suffered a heart attack and died at Methodist Hospital in
Park Slope. He was 71. He left behind three siblings. He and
Bryson, in their quiet, unassuming way, contributed more
to the built fabric of Brooklyn than most – hundreds upon
hundreds of buildings, many of which are still with us.
That’s an impressive legacy.
85
Recently completed “English studio houses” for sale on Kenmore Terrace in Flatbush. From the Brooklyn Daily Eagle
via Brooklyn Public Library, Brooklyn Collection.