From the 1920s on, Brooklyn was a stopping-off point on the principal highway between Iowa City and Des Moines (US 6 in the 1930s; Interstate 80 at present). The Standard Service Station ( CE039) is a testament to that role.
Also in the community is the Beyers house (1875, now the Brooklyn Hotel), located at 154 Front Street. This building is a characteristic L-shaped Italianate house with a gable roof and a three-story tower placed within the ell. The arches of the windows are highly emphasized, as are the paired brackets supporting the eaves and gable ends of the building. Sometime around 1900 a Colonial Revival porch replaced the original porch; other later additions are present at the rear.
At the southeast corner of Green Street and North Orchard Street is a Prairie house (1917) that bears the name “Pine Crest.” This two-story horizontal wood-sheathed house was designed by the Chicago architect Robert S. Smith for Kenneth McAra. Its general boxlike form, steeply pitched hipped roof, and other details remind one of the contemporary work in and around Chicago by the firm of Tallmadge and Watson. Small curved eye-window dormers occur in the roof, and their curve is repeated in the projecting bay window of the dining room. To the left side of the main section of the house is a two-story porch, with an enclosed sunroom on the ground floor and an open screened sleeping porch above.
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