HOOCH RAID IN A PARK SLOPE SLUM (1922)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** Everybody was “thirsty” in 1922. Not everyone, though, wanted to pay the price of the drink. While the wet laws during the 1920s were none too popular with many Brooklynites, most of these residents, for safety reasons, though, did not want the hooch being made under their own roof. As a result, there was no shortage of citizen reports to the police of active neighborhood mash stills. Even in the slums of Park Slope. A CASE IN PARK SLOPE One of these stills was “uncovered in a flat occupied by Daniel Beshara, at 721 Union street” where it was discovered that the hooch was being made in a makeshift still in the middle of the night. Not only illegal, the operation, powered by open flames, was also dangerous. Beshara and his cousin, James Pamperi, who also lived in the building, were arrested in the act of producing mash. “In the Pamperi home were found fourteen barrels of mash,” claimed the Brooklyn Standard Union newspaper. “That dwellers in the tenements are becoming aroused over the fire peril is shown by the great number of complaining letters which have been sent” to the district attorney, demanding that he stamp out these “moonshine dens.” ASST. D.A. SNYDER TO THE RESCUE In a grand response […]
GREENWICH VILLAGE MOVES TO BROOKLYN (1921)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** “Greenwich Village is moving to Brooklyn. No, there isn’t a catch in it. It’s so.” So began the cover story of Magazine and Book section of the New York Sun from Sunday, 24 April 1921. “The new site of village activities,” the article explained, “was Brooklyn Heights.” And hair was short. It could have easily been 2017. THE BOHEMIAN LIFE OF BROOKLYN HEIGHTS The story, written by Hannah Mitchell – who would later become the editor of The Scarsdale Inquirer – took on the aura of the modern day true-life story associated with the small-town girl who’s moved to New York City in the past 5-10 years, and, finding she could not afford it – because she could not – had determined she would swallow her pride and halve her rent by moving to Bushwick, thus living (and defending) the bohemian life. Mitchell, who justified her move to Brooklyn Heights as just a slide over to another Greenwich Village with benefits, ballyhooed the pros of the Brooklyn Heights apartment and how it far surpassed that of the Greenwich Village. “From the outside these places are made attractive by little painted panels, frescoes over the doorways, and other quasi-exotic decoration,” Mitchell explained. “Inside they have the virtue of being freshly plastered and […]
THE WHITE ELEPHANT OF AVENUE “O” (1914)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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 came across an old newspaper photograph from 1914, republished 30 years later in an old newspaper in 1954. This picture not only celebrates our first entry for a house in the Flatlands section of Brooklyn, but it specifically illustrates a “long-familiar landmark in Old Flatlands.” So noted the text accompanying the picture in the Old-Timers section of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle from May of 1954. Having stumbled across this interesting picture, we were curious to learn if the 2-story and basement structure in question – No. 5407 Avenue O, Brooklyn – was still there, and, by the way, if it was still “white.” So, we looked the address up on Google Maps, expecting to find a shopping mall or a 1940s era soap factory, and – miracle of miracles – there it was! There is a “newer” house to the left of it now, and it seems to have been faced with some vinyl siding (yes, white), but the house appears to be largely as it was back in 1914. The story accompanying the pic in the 1954 article reads as follows: “THE OLD WHITE ELEPHANT”-This picture, taken in 1914, shows a long-familiar landmark in Old Flatlands located at 5407 Avenue O.” COMPLETE FAMILY “The Di Carlo family is shown. […]
BROOKLYN’S FIRST GENTRIFIER (1814)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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 the evolution and availability of transportation which initiated this whole Brooklyn gentrification hubub. But it started earlier than most people realize – in 1814. HOW A FERRY RIDE HELPED MAKE BROOKLYN THE ORIGINAL SUBURB A 2014 New York Times article laid out the story of how Manhattanites began their adventures in outer borough living – specifically, Brooklyn – when they started looking for cheaper digs and some lebensraum, or “elbow room,” in 1814. Regular ferry service, from Manhattan to Fulton Street in Brooklyn, started in that year when the twin-hulled Nassau, of the Fulton and South Ferry Company, carried “549 passengers, one wagon and three horses” to the borough. AMERICA’S FIRST COMMUTER Was Brooklyn where it all began? The New York Times article noted that the first man to board that ferry on 10 May of 1814 could “justly be called America’s first commuter.” Whether this claim is justifiable or not, another claim might be “justly” made: The ferry service which began on that day could arguably have kick-started the birth of gentrification. Throughout the century, as workers on Manhattan sought and found affordable housing in Brooklyn, farmers were pushed from the land. Like many selling their brownstones in Brooklyn today, though, they made tidy profits in the exchange, […]
THE “OLD LADY OF HALSEY STREET” (1935)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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 the type of story that modern-day house-hunters dream of – a brownstone that, since it was built, has been occupied by the same elderly lady who rarely left the house and never “modernized” it. The gas fittings were original. The details were untouched. Even the furniture was from the 19th century. Its nickname was the “Treasure House,” and it was owned by the “Old Lady of Halsey Street.” THE LIFE AND DEATH OF MARY V. WELSH When Mary V. Welsh died in April of 1935, she had been known as the “Old Lady of Halsey St.” She got the name because little was known about her other than the fact that none of her neighbors was old enough or had lived on the block long enough to have remembered her moving into her house at 425 Halsey Street. The neighbors always remembered her simply being there. She dressed in a style of 50 years previous, never spoke to anyone on the street, and had cats – 9 or 10 of them, as far as they were counted. A relic of another time, the neighbors took notice of her only as the anachronism that she was to them – a connection with a time long forgotten. After her body was found, […]
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, NEW YORK, NEW YORK! (1985)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** Start spreading the news! Exactly 35 years ago today (7 February 1985), Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York” became the official anthem of “the city that never sleeps”! According to the New York Times (the official record of New York City) it was Mayor Ed Koch who proclaimed (but not through an official “proclamation”) the tune to be New York City’s official song. In a 22 February 2017 article, the Times wrote: Today the song is often paired with last call at a tavern, or the final strikeout of a Yankees game, and when it was belted out by Sinatra in 1978 at Radio City Music Hall, it instantly resonated with audiences, said James Kaplan, author of “Sinatra: The Chairman.” “Sinatra alchemized the bombast, the recalcitrant, yes, even boastful, up-all-night spirit of the city itself,” Mr. Kaplan said. While Ol’ Blue Eyes made it an anthem, it wasn’t always Frank’s tune. Written by the songwriting team of John Kander and Fred Ebb (the men behind the musicals “Cabaret” and “Chicago”), the song was first performed by Liza Minnelli in Martin Scorsese’s 1977 film “New York, New York.” “But when Sinatra heard it, he took an instant liking to it,” Mr. Kaplan said, “and when Sinatra performed the song, he conveyed its emotional […]
