A BLACK PORTER ON WHITE 12TH ST (1901)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** Back in Victorian Brooklyn, segregated neighborhoods were the norm. The only blacks that most whites expected to see on their streets were those who worked there as maids or who participated in other working class trades. Blacks – commonly referred to then as “coloreds” or “Negroes” – rarely lived cheek-and-jowl with whites. On the rare occasion that a black family moved into a white neighborhood, an enormous amount of pressure was usually placed upon the family to move out immediately. It was for this reason that most neighborhoods remained segregated by the turn of the century. One such “Negro” family moved into the Gowanus section of Brooklyn in 1901, at No. 198 Twelfth Street, between Third and Fourth Avenues. It was not long before the family’s new white neighbors started to show their own colors as they began – very publicly in the newspapers – to register their extreme displeasure and disgust at the “intruders” on their block. This was a very highly charged story, to be sure, but was it factual? Or, was it generated to sell a house? The Brownstone Detectives investigated… WHOLE BLOCK EXCITED OVER ADVENT OF NEGROES… This story took place in the summer of 1901. Reported by the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, it seemed a sensationalist piece, […]
MAD DOGS & BROOKLYN MAYORS (1844)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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 Brooklyn in 1843, there was a dog problem. A MAD dog problem. The people of Brooklyn – in what makes up Brooklyn Heights and the Downtown Brooklyn area today – were getting fed up with the number of strays, a good number of which were exhibiting “mad” tendencies, biting Brooklynites from time to time. A newspaper of the period complained of how “our streets are filled with miserable, half-starved curs whose dismal howlings make night hideous.” They demanded, thus, that a law be enacted to “shield us from that frightful malady – hydrophobia.” A FEAR OF WATER Back in the day, the disease that we know today as rabies was called hydrophobia. The disease was labeled hydrophobia – or a fear of water – because its subjects were not only unable to swallow water, but they had such a fear of it that it sent them into spasms or running from its very presence. And, of course, there was no cure for hydrophobia. Although, there was no shortage of quacks who sold “instant cures” to the masses through the mails or in their offices – such as the goodly Dr. S. Bachelder, across the East River at 343 Broome Street on Manhattan. Bachelder offered “Thompsonian and other Botanic Medicines” for […]
THE “IMPOSING” VIEW FROM OCEAN HILL (1848)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** Before there was Ocean Hill—the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood—there was Ocean Hill—the section of Green-Wood Cemetery. Whether one influenced the other is lost to the ages. What is clear, however, is that both locations got their names from a geographical point from which a body of water could clearly be viewed. “At this point, now known as Ocean Hill,” described a contributor (whose pen-name, revealingly, was Investment) in an edition of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle published just a few years before the Civil War began, “we have reached the highest point on the avenue (Fulton Street) and the most commanding elevation of ground in the city; and which, for grandeur, beauty and variety of its scenery, cannot be surpassed. “The ocean view,” Investment continued, “is especially grand and imposing.” Investment, whose contribution to the paper existed as a thinly veiled promotional piece for Brooklyn, was describing the “advance in the value of Brooklyn real estate.” From Fulton Ferry he advanced down Fulton Avenue to “gather such information as will enable the public to form an intelligent estimate as to the present and prospective value of property on and near this great thoroughfare.” “At this point Fulton avenue is distant but a few hundred feet from Atlantic avenue on the south, and Broadway on […]
A JUNGLE MARCHED THRU BED-STUY (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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** The grey mastodons pounded threateningly down Howard Avenue past the gloomy darkness of Saratoga Square Park. Lumbering slowly around the corner onto Macon Street, they let forth a great trumpeting roar, swaying rhythmically to and fro. As their long, great shadows danced menacingly on the canopy of the park’s trees, cast vaguely by the faint light of the omnipresent red and green flickering colored torches, they presented a terrifying and foreign spectacle. Hundreds of small boys darted in and out of the gathering throngs to view the intimidating beasts, instilling in the air a noticeably heightened excitement which spread further and further down the block, as the presence of these creatures became known. As these majestic monsters moved towards 738 Macon Street, they let out their crushing roar which now could be felt more by the bones than by the ears. A great moan of excited joy leapt, in a synchronized response, from the lips of the visually excited crowd as each and every person lining the Macon Street parade route viewed the very first elephants. As the grey forms, dabbled in red and green light, diminished in size on their trek towards Ralph Avenue, they were replaced by the great humpbacked dromedaries with their inartful steps and studied looks of […]
BOERUM HILL TIMEWARP! (1922 vs. 2018)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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’s always a blast to compare old photographs of Brooklyn streets with what is there now. Often the old buildings, street lamps, and flagstone sidewalks are long gone, but sometimes you are discover a treat that makes the journey worthwhile. With a little help from the internet it’s easy to make these comparisons and then to even bring the past back to life. Using the Old NYC app, which allows you to search a map of the city to find locations where old New York City pictures were taken (and are stored at the New York Public Library’s Digital Collections), you can search for any address within the five boroughs. With some luck you might find an actual picture of the building or location you are looking for. With our case, we were looking for street addresses on Atlantic Avenue. Searching the database, we found 336 Atlantic Avenue. The picture was described as “336 Atlantic Ave., south side, west of Hoyt Street,” and this particular photograph had a little more information than you usually get on this site – information on the building’s conveyance from one owner to the next, likely around 1922. The caption at the library’s site further notes that the photograph showed “a home bought by Mrs. Pruize […]
FOOLS AMONGST THE PENNY HUNTERS (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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** April Fool’s jokes have a long and colorful tradition of the instigation of harmless pranks on hapless “fools.” They have often been played with great success on their unsuspecting targets at least since the 16th century. In 1895, one April Fool’s joke brought about not only the public mockery of one Brooklyn businessman – but also a great loss of some “small change.” THERE’S GOLD IN THEM THAR PENNIES! On April Fool’s Day in 1895, a Bath Beach business man, John Brodie of Bay Seventeenth street let his greed get the best of him. On that fateful day a “stranger entered Brodie’s collecting agency office” and “let out the secret that all the 1892 cents would be recalled and that their value had suddenly jumped to 8 cents each.” The reason, it was averred, was that “by mistake some gold had become mixed up in the copper.” Brodie saw a chance to make a great profit, but only if he acted swiftly and quietly. He, thus, “sent his office boy around to the different banks and secured fully $50 worth of coppers. Not satisfied with this he visited various stores at Bath Beach and gathered in all the pennies he could.” But Brodie could not keep the secret of the path […]
