Ansonia Court, 420 12th Street: Review and Ratings

Review of 420 12th Street by Carter Horsley

The Ansonia Court is a four-story, red-brick building at 420 12^th Street in the Park Slope section of Brooklyn.  It once housed the Ansonia Clock company. 

The building has 70 cooperative apartments. 

The building is also known as 393-407 13^th Street and 392-405 7^th Avenue and it is about three blocks form the 7^th Avenue subway station and about two blocks from Prospect Park. 

The 1881 building was converted to a cooperative by the early 1982 and is notable for its very large, impressive and nice courtyard and brick wall interiors.  

Hurley & Farinella was the architect for the conversion and Zion & Breen were the landscape architects for its one-third-acre interior courtyard.

Bottom Line

The Ansonia Court’s courtyard is one of the most impressive in the city.  Loft apartments with high ceilings are just steps from boutiques and restaurants on 7^th Avenue and less than two blocks from Prospect Park.

Description

Near Prospect Park, this red-brick, four-story, former factory building was converted into 69 co-operative apartments centered about a very large and handsome courtyard with an attractively landscaped fountain.  With its exposed brick walls, high, wooden ceilings and roof decks, balconies, and canopied entrance, this is a popular building that is not far from an F subway station and a farmers’ market.

Amenities

The building has an impressive and lushly landscaped center courtyard as well as sidewalk landscaping, a canopied entrance, and roof decks.

It is pet friendly.

Apartments

Apartments have high, wooden ceilings and there are some duplex units. 

Apartment C4L has a 17-foot-long living/dining area, an enclosed 9-foot-long kitchen, and two bedrooms. 

Apartment K1R has a 15-foot-long living room with a 15-foot-long wooden deck, a 17-foot-long eat-in kitchen adjacent to a home office on the lower level and three bedrooms on the upper level. 

Apartment L3L has a 17-foot-long living room and a 14-foot-long dining area with an 8-foot open kitchen with an island on the lower level and three bedrooms on the upper level. 

Apartment P3R has a 16-foot-wide living room with an open kitchen on the lower level and a 16-foot-wide bedroom on the upper level.

History

The Ansonia Clock Company was formed by Anson Green Phelps in 1844.  

Mr. Phelps was a saddlemaker’s apprentice who subsequently bartered saddles for cotton and then purchased dry goods that he sold from his store in Hartford, Conn.  He moved to New York in 1831 and formed a company with Elisha Peck to export cotton to England and import metals.  Mr. Phelps would soon dissolve his partnership with Mr. Peck to form the firm of Phelps, Dodge & Co., with two of his sons-in-law.  It produced rolled brass. 

In 1850, the Ansonia Clock Company was incorporated as a subsidiary of Ansonia Brass Company by Mr. Phelps and Theodore Terry and Franklin C. Andrews, the largest clock makers in Bristol, Conn. 

In 1854, a fire destroyed the company’s factory in New Haven and in 1877 the clockmaking operation was spun off from the brass milling operation and the company was incorporated in New York City. Henry J. Davies joined the firm as president and introduces figurine clocks, swing clocks and other novelties for which the company became known. 

In 1879, a second factory was opened, this time in Brooklyn but the next year the New York factory burns down and is rebuilt the following year as this four-story building. 

In 1883, the Ansonia, Conn., factory is closed. 

By 1914, the company has 440 different clock models but by 1920 the number of models dropped to 136 and in 1926 it sold its warehouse in Brooklyn and a few years later sold its business to a Soviet trading company.