THE LION COMIQUE OF 276 CARLTON AVE (1930)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** Fred Roberts was known in the “seventies” as one of the great comic singers of the variety show. He sang the topical and comic songs that were then popular, often making them well-known himself. Brought over from London by the legendary Harrigan & Hart, Roberts had been known in the English music halls as a “Lion Comique” – a music hall character that was the heart throb of the Victorian era, holding the same cult status as today’s boy bands. According to The Victorian Music Hall: Culture, Class and Conflict, the songs the lions comiques sang were “hymns of praise to the virtues of idleness, womanising and drinking.” In Roberts’ songs, he “deliberately distorted social reality for amusement and escapism.” One critic in the late 19th century remarked that the Lions Comiques were “men who set women just a little higher than their bottle.” Roberts was to be Harrigan & Hart’s answer to the popularity of the famous impresario, Tony Pastor. He soon had a string of hits that were “hummed and whistled around the town” from the 1870s through to the early 20th century when he retired. Roberts’ first song, “Oh, Fred, Tell Them to Stop,” was such a huge hit that he decided to stay in the U.S. and […]
THE DELIGHT OF A CLINTON HILL BOY (1945)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** (The following is an excerpt from the Brownstone Detectives House History Book, No. 241 Washington Avenue – The Story of a House.) On a cloudy windy December evening, the crew of the B-24 Liberator “Beaver’s Baby,” flying at an altitude of 23,000 feet, neared the Belgian border. On the return leg of a bombing mission over Hanau, Germany, the plane’s pilot, Captain Clarence “Bart” Barton, had a crucial decision to make. Their heavy bomber had lost an engine and, according to the Barton, “another was almost gone.” It was clear, he decided, that they would be unnecessarily risking their plane and crew if they attempted a channel crossing considering their plane’s condition. Barton thus alerted his men that they were going to have to make a forced landing somewhere. He, thus, directed his navigator, 18-year-old Lieutenant Robert F. Palestri, to identify the coordinates of the nearest friendly airfield and to guide them to that location. Nearing Belgian soil, after hours of flying over Germany, the crew’s navigator oriented the pilot toward what appeared to be a dark Belgian runway many thousands of feet below them. With the coordinates to guide them, the pilot began inching his aircraft downward. As they dropped altitude and their bomber began to approach the general location […]
THE BOMBING OF BROOKLYN HEIGHTS (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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** It was just past 1 a.m. on a cool Saturday morning in the tony Columbia Heights section of Brooklyn. The police reserves of the Second Precinct, under the able leadership of Sergeant Joseph Carrougher, would soon be arriving on the scene. Carrougher’s desk sergeant had just awoken him out of a deep sleep at the Fulton Street police station. The sergeant had looked at him gravely in the dark of the room. “Somebody exploded a dynamite bomb on Willow Street.” “GROTESQUELY DRESSED, THE RESULT OF A HURRIED TOILET” When Carrougher arrived on the scene, he found Officer Seymour, “a portion of whose post was the scene of the explosion,” along with “a crowd of citizens” busily disturbing the crime scene. It was not too troublesome, however, having this crowd of citizens, “grotesquely dressed, the result of a hurried toilet,” tromping about the evidence. So long as they did not take anything that would assist in apprehending the guilty party. But many at the scene that night had begun amusing themselves “by digging out the fine white powder of the cobblestone with their penknives,” taking away samples. Sgt. Carrougher had seen it all in his 25 loyal years of dedication to the force. And while there were a number of clues that […]
THE CANUCK NURSES OF 172 LAFAYETTE (1909)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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 late 19th century, when much of New York City’s brownstone stock was constructed, many of these townhouses were initially used as the clubhouses for any number of the organizations and clubs existent then. There were Republican and Democratic clubs, bicycling clubs, social clubs, actors’ guilds, athletic clubs, and countless other organizations dedicated to the betterment and/or pleasure of their memberships. Those clubs with the money and the membership were able to afford to purchase – or rent – a brownstone for the use of its membership. In 1909, at No. 172 Lafayette Avenue, a club for graduates of the “Brooklyn Hospital Training School for Nurses” – which was “always in reach of doctors” – was set up,” noted the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. The purpose of the club was as a social center and a business office for nurses, as well as a location where they could “entertain their friends.” The Nurses Club, only in existence for a “couple of years” by that point, had – in that short period of time – made “enviable progress.” Previously located at No. 255 Carlton avenue, it was not long before the capacity of that house was taxed to its limits. In 1909, the pressure became so great that this larger clubhouse on […]
TENDER FEET IN STUYVESANT HEIGHTS (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. Do you know the history of YOUR house? ******************************************************************************************************************************** Charles I. Clark seemed to be all about helping womens’ tired, aching feet. From 1900 until 1923, at the intersection of Halsey Street and Broadway, sat Clark’s shoe store, above which was posted a sign that ran the width of his building (at the cornice): “THE CLARK SHOE.” In Clark’s store, one of his shoe lines was “Grover’s Soft Shoes for Tender Feet,” a footwear design for women who were both sensitive and sensible. The location of his store was an excellent one. Just outside of it was the stairway leading to and from the Halsey Platform for the Brooklyn Rapid Transit elevated train. People heading into Manhattan passed his store on their way to the elevated trains, and those returning from “the City” detrained there. Additionally, in 1910, according to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Clark had invested in a major remodeling on the front of his store, which “considerably improved its appearance.” Clark had “electric lights in concealed prism reflectors in the ceiling” which gave “ample illumination after nightfall” and “made the store bright and cheerful.” So, there was every reason in the world for any woman who shopped along the Broadway business corridor to have purchased a pair of sensible shoes in Clark’s store – if she had tender […]
WHEN MAY DAY WAS MOVING DAY (1847)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** Imagine, as a New York renter, waiting with dread every year for May 1 to arrive. It meant that you, like many untold thousands of other renters in the city, had to move. Now, consider the competition for hiring moving vans and movers – and the surge pricing associated with every aspect of it. This was exactly what took place in New York City on the first day of May starting in the early 19th century and lasting for about 120 years through WWII. While the annual event may have originated as a custom, the tradition was actually couched in law in 1820 when an act of the New York State legislature was passed into law, mandating that all housing contracts were valid unto the first of May (unless the day fell on a Sunday, in which case the deadline was May 2). In other words, the landlord basically had his tenants by the law. And it rarely ended well for the tenants. According to the New York Times, February 1, sometimes known as “Rent Day,” brought landlords togive notice to their tenants what the new rent would be after the end of the quarter, and the tenants would spend good-weather days in the early spring searching for new houses and […]
