FINDING YOUR BROWNSTONE – IN 1924
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** Have you ever wondered what your neighborhood looked like in 1924? Or 1951? Or 1996? Aerial photography exists of all of New York City’s neighborhoods and is available to view (and zoom in on!) for free just by visiting NYC Map (a service of the City of New York). Simply type your address in the box at the top of the page and click “Search.” Then – in the upper right hand corner of the map – click on “Map Type,” and select the year you would like to view. Here is a view of Stuyvesant East in Bedford-Stuyvesant (showing Saratoga Park) in 1924. As you might have guessed, you won’t be able to see the expressions on peoples’ faces with this imagery, but it will give you a good indication of what your neighborhood looked like in any of these years. For comparison’s sake, here is a view of the same section of Bedford-Stuyvesant (as above) – but for 1996. What differences do you note between the two pictures? Comparing the two maps, you can see some obvious changes. Other than the fact that the second image is in color and was apparently taken in the winter time, if you look closely, you can see how whole swaths of brownstones […]
SO, A TROLLEY WALKS INTO A BODEGA…. (1931)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** We’ve all heard the famous opening line to the joke. But this one really happened. Rather, the streetcar “rolled” into the business, but only after jumping its tracks. This incident took place on 7 July 1931, at the corner of Putnam and Nostrand avenues in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn. Fortunately, no one was killed, although six people were injured. Unfortunately, though, streetcar accidents had become a common occurrence in the days after streetcars stopped using horses for propulsion. And this was all too evident in Brooklyn, for within the past week, alone, four other streetcar crashes had occurred, injuring a total of 31 people. As a matter of fact, this was the final straw for Brooklyn’s D.A., who ordered an investigation into the “six B.M.T. trolley car accidents in the past few weeks.” His intention was “to determine whether or not there is cause for criminal proceedings.” It would have been understandable among many Brooklynites of the period if there were talk about returning the streetcar to the horse. For another story we’ve written about streetcars jumping their tracks, click HERE. Follow @BrownstoneDetec Share ———————————————————————————————————————– The Brownstone Detectives Brownstone Detectives is an historic property research agency. Our mission is to document and save the histories of our clients’ homes. From […]
THE PSYCHE OF 192 ST. JOHN’S PL. (1889)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** Starting in the late 1880s, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle started a series of articles which described – in great length and detail – the interiors of individual newly-built or renovated houses. These houses were usually brownstones belonging to those affluent or upper-middle-class members of society. Not only did such articles describing the interiors of neighbors’ homes sell newspapers, but the articles also served as advertising directed at those in the market for a townhouse who wanted a home of their own. These advertisement-articles were placed, likely at the expense of the designers responsible for the “interior decorations” being described, as each piece often ended with what readers wanted to know: “Who did the work?” “THE WORK WAS DONE BY A. KORBER” Albert Korber, who went by “A. Korber,” was an architect and designer who settled in Brooklyn at the age of 15. Three years later he “started business on Adams street as a manufacturer of picture frames and moldings. Several years later he founded the decorating business which bears his name, with showrooms on Montague street and a factory for the manufacture of interior woodwork and furniture in South Brooklyn.” By 1889, Korber was 42, a successful decorator throughout the City of Brooklyn. Although he was held in high esteem for […]
THE BOERUM HILL SNAKE-OIL MAN (1885)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** If you climbed to the third floor of 375 Pacific Street in 1885, two floors above its stable, and you passed through “several mysterious little doors,” you might find “a little room where seven girls were busily engaged” in filling and labeling numerous clear bottles. And if you thought, while climbing the thin stairway and passing through the oddly small doors, that perhaps you were entering upon the quarters of a crime syndicate or those of a mafia den, you would not have been too very far from the truth. MAKING, BOTTLING, AND SELLING THE CURE Years before the Pure Food and Drug Act was signed into law in 1906, patent medicine salesmen were plying the U.S. mails with great success. Although their “cures” brought their clients considerably less success, their hopes were still strong and snake oil continued to sell at a good clip. Patent medicine salesmen were everywhere, advertising everywhere, and came from a number of professions – failed doctors, teachers, tinsmiths, and even wood engravers. What a wood engraver might have known about medicine was probably never in dispute – all he needed to know was how to sell a product – what was in dispute was the fact that his “cure” did nothing other than make the […]
WOMAN SURVIVES B’KLYN BRIDGE JUMP! (1900)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** Yellow Journalism was in its heyday in 1900, and Joseph Pulitzer’s “World” was right up there at the top of the whole heap of it. This is an example of the hype that existed back then, drawing readers into a version of the world that was part real and part made-up. The subject of this splashy front page story, Marie Rosalie Dinse, came to be the second woman to jump from the Brooklyn Bridge. Dinse, amazingly, survived this “mad leap,” surprising the physicians who attended her. While the New York World reporter who wrote this story included a number of facts in his story, he also took liberties to suppose a number of many more, weaving an account that was sure to enthrall readers and – more importantly – sell newspapers: “As she crossed the bridge the river looked so restful,” read the World article. “There was peace there. “She sought it.” The truth was, simply, she lost money is a boarding-house speculation. After the fall, she was taken to an asylum for treatment. Follow @BrownstoneDetec Share ———————————————————————————————————————– The Brownstone Detectives 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 […]
MISCHIEVOUS BOYS, IRVING SQUARE (1931)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** There isn’t much little boy mischief that a Bushwick alderman, a beat cop, and a parks department official can’t handle. And all three were necessary to combat the troublesome striplings that were desecrating Irving Square Park during a renovation in 1931. “There’s not a shrub or a plant missing.” So explained Thomas J. Larney, park keeper for Irving Square Park in Bushwick, in his lilted Irish brogue. “The gardener counts up every week and there’s nothing missing. And there are plenty of seats for people to sit down on.” Larney was responding to public criticisms of a project in the park that was supposed to have ended long ago. Construction equipment, concrete park bench forms, bunches of plants and shrubbery, and piles of dirt, though, still obstructed residents’ enjoyment of the public space. He apparently saw the little mischief-makers, though, as no concern to the project, not even mentioning their after-dark activities. The bigger picture, of course, was just a bit more complicated. A series of unavoidable delays was keeping the contractor from finishing his work. These delays were causing conditions in the park which gave the local residents grief. And the continuation of these conditions presented targets of opportunity for the local miniature scalawags, who would “knock over some of […]
