Carriage Houses in Clinton Hill – The New York Times

John Freeman Gill wrote about the carriage houses of Clinton Hill in The New York Times, including George Mcneil’s studio. Photos by Stefano Ukmar for The New York Times.

The skylit rear stable area of 195 Waverly Avenue was used by the late George McNeil as his art studio for 25 years beginning in 1970. McNeil, a pioneering abstract expressionist of the New York School, often worked on the floor, as evidenced by the paint vestiges on the hoof-worn stones.

Helen McNeil-Ashton, McNeil’s daughter, uses the studio as a display and storage space for her father’s work.

McNeil, who was also a Pratt professor, lived on the second floor of 195 Waverly Avenue. His apartment is now rented to current and former Pratt students.

195 Waverly Avenue was originally the carriage house for George D. Pratt. In 1910, the United States Census found the second floor occupied by Abner Gleason, George Pratt’s chauffeur, along with Gleason’s wife, Ethel; his married sister-in-law; a niece; and an auto mechanic unrelated to him.

A set of carriage houses built for Herbert L. Pratt and George D. Pratt, sons of the oil-rich Charles Pratt, can be found at 185-195 Waverly Avenue. The buildings were designed by the firm of William B. Tubby, who had previously drawn the plans for the Pratt Institute library and the mansion of the patriarch’s eldest son at 241 Clinton Avenue.

The basement of the former carriage house at 195 Waverly Avenue retains a coal chute and other vestiges of its early 20th-century days.