Bushwick gets a new city landmark: Doering-Bohack House at 1090 Greene Ave.

September 30, 2014 By Lore Croghan Brooklyn Daily Eagle

I've Got Sunshine On A Cloudy Day: This lemon-yellow Bushwick home, which preservationists call Doering-Bohack House, was made a city landmark on Tuesday.

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A supermarket king lived on this Bushwick corner. His house is now a city landmark.

The striking 1880s-vintage wood frame house at 1090 Greene Ave. once belonged to Henry C. Bohack, who founded Bohack’s grocery-store chain in Brooklyn with a Fulton Street shop in 1887.

The city Landmarks Preservation Commission voted unanimously Tuesday to grant the house protected status as an individual city landmark at a public meeting at its Lower Manhattan headquarters.

“It’s clear it has a fascinating history,” Commission Chair Meenakshi Srinivasan said of the eye-catching lemon-yellow house on the corner of Goodwin Place.

She called the home, which preservationists refer to as Doering-Bohack House, “a charming example of the neighborhood’s architectural heritage.”

Bohack lived at 1090 Greene Ave. from 1902 to 1921 — after moving the house from another location on Goodwin Place.

The neo-Grec house with Queen Anne-style touches is also historically significant because it’s a rare surviving example of the work of architect Theobald Engelhardt, and has lots of original design details intact.

New Yorkers of a certain age remember Bohack’s, which endured until 1977. Those who are too young should check out website “Places That Are No More,” which has numerous photos of the metro-area supermarkets — including a still from the 1968 film “The Odd Couple” showing Felix Ungar (played by Jack Lemmon) testing the melons for ripeness at a Bohack market.

One of the commissioners, Brooklyn Heights resident Frederick Bland, mentioned at the public meeting that there had been a Bohack’s in Brooklyn Heights.

Since 1991, the Greene Avenue house has belonged to Percival G. Morrison or P.G. Morrison Family Real Estate Inc., city Finance Department records indicate.

A sign in a window of the handsome home notes that the Light House Church of God is an occupant.