Brooklyn · Kings County
Wyckoff House Museum Garden
NYC Parks
- Location
- 5816 Clarendon Road, East Flatbush
- Size
- 1.5 acres
- Hours
- Museum hours: Tue-Sun
- Type
- NYC Parks
Wyckoff House Museum Garden surrounds the Pieter Claesen Wyckoff House, the oldest surviving structure in New York City. Built around 1652 by a Dutch indentured servant who became a prosperous farmer, the house predates every other standing building in the five boroughs.
The Wyckoff House is a designated National Historic Landmark and New York City Landmark, preserved as a museum of Dutch colonial life in Brooklyn. The wood-frame farmhouse with its distinctive sloped roof represents the architectural traditions the Dutch brought to New Amsterdam.
The museum garden features historically appropriate plantings and a working garden that demonstrates the agricultural practices of 17th-century Dutch Brooklyn, when the area was farmland in the colony of New Netherland.
East Flatbush, the neighborhood surrounding the house, is now a predominantly Caribbean-American community. The Wyckoff House stands as a reminder that Brooklyn's history stretches back centuries before the current community took shape.
Wyckoff House Museum Garden connects visitors to the oldest surviving building in New York City, a 370-year-old farmhouse that has witnessed every chapter of Brooklyn's transformation from Dutch colony to modern metropolis.