A STREETCAR JUMPS ON SACKETT STREET (1929)
Brownstone Detectives investigates the history of our clients’ homes.
The story you are about to read was composed from research conducted in the course of one of those investigations.
Do you know the history of YOUR house?
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If you bought a house that a streetcar had once crashed into – would you know about it?
When researching the history of a client’s house, these are the stories that literally MAKE a House History Book. They are the stories that make the biggest splash – but in this case, a CRASH…
But to the story…
Back in the day, streetcars used to crash into buildings from time to time. The motormen’s reasons for this were usually that the car jumped the track while it was making a turn onto another street or avenue.
In this instance, though, the motorman could only say that the streetcar “jumped,” but it does not appear that he was able to explain why – because he was operating the car in a straight line uphill on Sackett Street.
While doing some research on a client’s home recently I saw this picture and I thought, “I didn’t even know that Sackett had a streetcar line!”
Apparently, though, the line ran up and down the street back when it went both ways. The street must have been amazingly congested with these things going both ways!
One day, in the Fall of 1929, though, that streetcar – starting on its run up the “slope” – literally “jumped” the tracks, skidded sideways, and then almost “plunged” through the buildings on the south side of the block.
It was a Saturday, which explains the number of kids on the street. The caption did not mention casualties, so if there were any, they were not that serious. Probably just some jolted nerves.
This crash took place about a month and a half before another larger one – the stock market crash of 1929 – when nerves would be jolted quite a bit more, and far beyond little Sackett Street.
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Brownstone Detectives is an historic property research agency. Our mission is to document and save the histories of our clients’ homes. From our research, we produce our celebrated House History Books and House History Reports. Contact us today to begin discovering the history of your home.
