This morning while walking on Pierrepont Place, BHB’s Karl Junkersfeld noticed that there was flooding at historic No. 2 Pierrepont Place. He enlisted the help of a passerby to call 311 and alert them of the situation. A neighbor called the owners.
Our Claude Scales adds:
This afternoon I looked out my window and saw a huge FDNY ladder truck stopped on Pierrepont Place. I went down and saw police blocking off the street while firemen were busy around 2 Pierrepont Place. Later a pumper engine came across Pierrepont Street, turned, and parked facing the ladder truck. Firefighters appeared to be trying to pump water out through a small access hole in the sidewalk. A few minutes later, they put their equipment back in the vehicles and left. I asked one of the police officers on the scene if there was a water main break. He said it was “something about the water” and that the DEP had been called to investigate. Since then, nothing more has happened.
No. 2 Pierrepont Place (Alexander M. White house) was once part of a trio of homes on Pierrepont. It and No. 3 (Abiel Abbot Low house) were designed by Frederick A. Peterson in 1857 and still stand, while No. 1 (the Henry Pierrepont Mansion, designed by Richard Upjohn) was demolished in 1946 to make way for a playground and the Promenade entrance. The AIA Guide 2010 to New York City calls numbers 2 and 3 Pierrepont Place “the most elegant brownstones remaining in New York.”
Philanthropist Alfred T. White was born in No. 2 and Seth Low, the only person to serve as both mayor of Brooklyn and New York City, lived at No. 3.
