22 TIMES • JULY 14, 2016 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT www.QNS.com real estate Mathews fl ats helped shape Ridgewood’s development BY ROBERT POZARYCKI rpozarycki@ridgewoodtimes.com @robbpoz Renters looking to move into Ridgewood often seek perks such as free utilities, but more than a century ago, just getting a home with fresh air and sunlight was a luxury unto itself. This was the era of the tenement, rundown buildings where families lived in cramped quarters and had little access to modern utilities and proper ventilation. The city’s population was booming in the early 20th century, and developers looked across the East River to the then-rural areas of Queens as an opportunity to build better homes while also addressing the housing crunch. Enter Gustave Mathews, a German immigrant who would develop the “Mathews fl ats,” yellow-bricked, six-unit apartment houses that would rise out of the farmland of Ridgewood and become some of the most desired dwelling places in the city. Their importance to the history of Ridgewood and the city as a whole led to many of them being landmarked by the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission over the last decade. In the early 1900s, Mathews set out to build a different kind of apartment building, one that not only provided its residents all the proper necessities but also affordability for both homeowner and tenant alike. The fi rst Mathews fl ats rose along Bleecker Street between St. Nicholas and Cypress avenues. Mathews would then build others on what was once part of the Meyerrose farm in the vicinity of Woodward and Catalpa avenues near St. Matthias Church. Mathews made sure that his apartment buildings would stand the test of time, using reliable local materials including gold and brown bricks produced in Staten Island and wrought iron fencing and bannisters built by local companies. The Mathews fl ats feature “railroad apartments” with access to fresh air and natural sunlight; this was achieved with the creation of air shafts in the center of each building. Each Mathews building sold for about $6,500 a piece. They were made affordable to working-class New Yorkers who purchased the home, took up residence in one of the units and rented out the other fi ve units as supplemental income. The Mathews fl ats forever changed Ridgewood, as their development brought in more than 25,000 new residents into the area from Manhattan and Brooklyn and transformed the area from a rural to an urban community. In later years, the city, state and federal governments recognized the importance of the Mathews fl ats to Ridgewood’s history. Many of these homes were placed on the State and National Register of Historic Places; in the last decade, the LPC also created the Ridgewood North and Ridgewood South Historic Districts, giving landmark status to more than 300 Mathews buildings across two swaths of the neighborhood. RIDGEWOOD TIMES/Photo by Anthony Giudice Some of the historic Mathews ats apartment buildings in Ridgewood Queens sees the most home foreclosures of any borough Chart via PropertyShark BY ANGELA MATUA amatua@ridgewoodtimes.com @AngelaMatua The real estate market in Ridgewood and other areas in Queens may have rebounded from the fi nancial crisis of the last decade, but many Queens homeowners still fi nd themselves mired in debt. New York City has seen a surge of fi rst-time foreclosure auctions this year compared to 2015, and most of these foreclosures are concentrated in Queens, a study found. According to a PropertyShark report, Queens has 302 foreclosed properties scheduled for auction this quarter, the highest number of any borough. This number represents a 43 percent increase from the same time last year, where 211 homes were scheduled for fi rst-time foreclosure auctions. In the second quarter of 2016, there were 673 properties scheduled for auction across the entire city, which represents a 33 percent increase from the same time last year. The amount of fi rst-time foreclosure auctions has risen to “levels unseen in the past six years,” according to the report. Southeast Queens has been hit hardest by the city’s housing bust in 2008 and the largest foreclosure activity is concentrated in Jamaica, South Jamaica, Hollis and St. Albans, with 32 properties scheduled for auction. The study found that two-family homes were the properties most likely to be auctioned off followed by one-family homes, condos and co-ops. Last month, city offi cials announced the Community Restoration Program, where the city will purchase 24 distressed mortgages for one- to four-family homes — or 41 residential units — in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island. The $13 million program is being funded with $1 million allocated by the City Council and $6.9 million from Goldman Sachs’ Urban Investment Group. A $2.2 million grant from the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) and $2.9 million in funds received from Morgan Stanley as part of their settlement obtained by the New York State Attorney General will also fund the program.
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