SHOT BY AN ORGAN GRINDER (1895)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** Two things can be said of most 19th century Brooklyn organ grinders – they were rarely accompanied by monkey assistants, and they were chiefly non-violent types. As romantic a figure as they are to us today, though, they were not altogether loved by the citizens of their time. Many found the “music” of their hand organs to be grating and and an unforgivable breach of the peace. By and large, most were harmless poor Italian men simply plying their trade in order to bring in a meager living – usually to feed a large family. One morning, though, in December of 1895, the tune of one grinder did not present as sonorous music to the ears of a rising Brooklynite, and in the process this resident found that, attempting to prevent the strains of a lilting ballad, he had “stirred the wrong Italian.” OUTSIDE A BAR ON AN EARLY MONDAY MORNING Michielo Geraso, accompanied by another Italian with a hand organ, appeared in front of the saloon of Bernard Lyons on Tillary street at about 9:30 a.m. Geraso’s companion turned the organ crank while Geraso “made ready to collect money.” The organ had scarcely tuned up when the Italians were ordered to move on. Lyons’ saloon was closed on account of […]
TO CATCH A MACDOUGAL STREET THIEF (1910)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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. ******************************************************************************************************************************** When investigating the history of a house, we sometimes come across a jewel that details an event which took place within the structure. The following narrative from 1910 tells a story involving the homeowner of No. 274 MacDougal Street, a rowhouse in the Ocean Hill section of Bedford-Stuyvesant, who happened upon a would-be burglar entering his home through an open window late one night. The homeowner, Charles Ortman, an engineer, had recently moved to the newly-built structure with his small family. Ortman showed a presence of mind not typical of someone faced with an intruder attempting to gain access to his home. Using old newspaper stories, city insurance maps, and census records, we reconstruct the case. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 5 November 1910 – “Charles Ortman, an engineer last night shot a burglar who was in the act of breaking into his home at 274 McDougal street. The shooting was witnessed by his 12-year-old son, Charles, and by his wife, who had followed him out to the dining room, where the thief’s face had appeared pressed close to the window pane. “Whether the would be intruder was slightly or fatally wounded the police do not know. He had disappeared when a policeman of the Ralph avenue station arrived, in response to a summons from the Ortman home. But there was […]
WHICH LANDMARKS TO DEMOLISH? (1913)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** In 1913, Brooklyn was looking to tear down long rows of stately brownstones. These brownstones were “substantial residences” in the “Court Street Section” comprising Nos. 24 to 40 Schermerhorn Street and Nos. 141 to 137 Clinton Street. The owners of these homes, upon discovering that their residences were in the path of the newest Brooklyn courthouse, were, understandably, up in arms. Eminent Domain or no, they were having none of it, and they started a campaign to force the city to locate a building site more suitable. Apparently, these men got to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, which published this spread showing their houses – along with their names (5 out of the 7 of whom were doctors) – and compared their residences (favorably, of course) to an alternative site that they had seclected comprised of “several blocks of lodging houses, dance halls and the like in the Bridge Plaza District,” asking the question: “WHICH SITE CAN BE BETTER SPARED FOR A COURT HOUSE?” Playing upon the morals of the people of Brooklyn, it would be clear which site would meet the wrecking ball when, the following day, an assemblyman from Brooklyn by the name of Burr announced that the New York State Assembly would soon adopt his bill “taking from the […]
THE LURE OF A MAID’S TOILET (1907)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** As Bay Ridge developed in the early 20th century, and residents moved deeper into South Brooklyn, developers used some intriguing townhouse features to lure buyers to the section of Brooklyn. One of those features was a dedicated commode. SELLING BAY RIDGE With an open-carriage automobile of the period parked purposefully outside these new “one family stone houses,” the Bay Ridge Development Company confidently announced in their advertisement that it was building “the entire block on Seventy-fifth St. Parkway, Between 4th and 5th Aves.” Bay Ridge was becoming the latest new neighborhood around this time, as developers expanded out from the Park Slope area further south through open fields and towards the city’s pleasure grounds – Coney Island. Suddenly, those fields were becoming more and more attractive as speculators snatched up lots and blocks and began construction. The houses in this particular ad were all “of 7 rooms, bath, laundry,” and included a feature which dictated the class of these structures and their prime location – one which no well-heeled buyer could fail to notice – a “maid’s toilet.” The houses’s other features were “hardwood trim, attractively planned, superbly built,” and one that was rather recent for the time – “electric lights.” The company also offered two choices in ranges – both […]
HE KNOWS HIS JEWELS ARE SAFE (1892)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** When the daughter of a Tammany Hall “boss” is married, how does the new son-in-law protect their wedding gifts? By installing a jewel vault in the cellar of his brownstone, of course! THE JEWEL VAULT ON WASHINGTON PARK When Dr. Alexander F. Carroll married the eldest daughter of Brooklyn Democratic Boss, Hugh McLaughlin, in 1890, the New York Times reported that the “wedding gifts were of the most costly and elaborate nature.” “So valuable were they,” New York’s paper of record continued, “that when Mr. and Mrs. Carroll moved to their Washington Park home they had a great burglar-proof vault built under the sidewalk.” Apparently, all of the Boss’s numerous friends and supporters “remembered the happy couple substantially” which presented them with a good problem to have – how to safeguard their extreme amount of new-found jewel wealth. A list of the bridal presents “covered three columns in the Eagle,” noted The New York Sun, the presenters of which included then-President Cleveland. The value of the gifts were variously estimated at “from $100,000 to $200,000.” Mrs. Carroll was “very much worried because she has had to keep the mass of gold and silver received at the time of her marriage in the house and has had private detectives watching the premises.” […]
THE EFFECTS OF WAR ON BED-STUY (1918)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** During the brief period that the U.S. was engaged in WWI, the eastern section of Brooklyn’s Stuyvesant Heights section was decimated by its contribution of men to the war effort. Then, it was decimated a second time by the generous contribution it made of many of these mens’ lives. According to the honor rolls of the “Victory & Peace” memorial in Saratoga Park, approximately 105 men (and one woman) from the neighborhood made the ultimate sacrifice. There was a death on nearly every block of the district – often more. The MAP above shows with red pins the locations where some of these men lived – many of them who had left new wives, parents, and families waiting for them back home. The servicemembers, represented on this map by these red dots, never made it back home, though. Most were buried in American Cemeteries in France; some were re-buried here in the U.S. After the war, the Gold Star Mothers pilgrimages began to take place, as thousands of the mothers of these servicemembers made the government-sponsored trips to France in order to visit the last resting places of their children. Today, the specific memories of these citizens who grew up together, went to school together, played, learned, and competed together here […]
