IT’S A WONDERFUL (BROOKLYN) LIFE (1946)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** Do you know there exists a connection between the enduring 1946 Christmas movie “It’s a Wonderful Life” and a certain brownstone in Brooklyn Heights? Many do not know this, but No. 88 Remsen Street was once the home of Philip Van Doren Stern, who wrote The Greatest Gift, a short story that was inspired by a dream that was reminiscent of the 1843 Charles Dickens novella A Christmas Carol. He began writing the story in 1939 and finished it in 1943, but was unable to find a publisher for it. He sent 200 printed copies to friends as Christmas cards in December 1943. His daughter, Marguerite Stern Robinson, recalled “I was in the third grade and remember delivering a few of these cards to my teachers and my friends … My father, who was himself from a mixed religious background, explained to me that while this story takes place at Christmas time, and that we were sending it as a Christmas card to our friends, it is a universal story for all people in all times.” The story was published as a book in December 1944. Stern also sold it to Reader’s Scope magazine, which published it in its December 1944 issue, and to the magazine Good Housekeeping, which published it […]
FINDING $1.5M IN YOUR BROWNSTONE (1934)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** Does a small fortune lie secreted away within the walls of your brownstone? If you live in a certain Park Slope brownstone, you may want to start looking… THE FORTUNE AT NO. 292 12th STREET (The following story comes from the Friday, 2 November 1934 edition of the Home Talk section of The Brooklyn Eagle newspaper.) She died as she had lived—alone. Miss Louisa Herle, 74-year-old wealthy recluse, of No. 292 12th St., was the Hetty Green of South Brooklyn, and although she slept on a dilapidated leatherette lounge in her kitchen, she left a fortune of $1,500,000. The dead body of the aged spinster was found lying on the lounge Wednesday, where it had lain for three days. She had removed her shoes before she lay down, and her stockings had been placed over the arm of a rocking chair. In the squalid two rooms on the street floor of the old brownstone house, Miss Herle had lived since 1916, when her brother had died. Following his death she closed the upper floors of the-house, and the rooms, inches deep in dust, and piled high with broken furniture, had never been opened since. Three heavily barred doors led into the living room where an old fashioned safe stood. Miss Herle, […]
PATRONAGE & PLUMS, No. 398 HENRY ST (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?******************************************************************************************************************************** “The house is a three-story and basement structure. As it is now, the basement is transformed into a pool and billiard room, and from the cellar to the roof the premises are heated. The parlor, of course, comprise the second floor. There is an expanse of Brussels carpet which covers the entire space; in the rear parlor is a business desk, and in the front of it the president’s seat, for the parlors comprise the meeting room of the association and from four to five hundred people can easily be accommodated. Specials chairs are provided when a meeting is to be held, but on other occasions the members are allowed to utilize the furniture for their own comfort. There is not an upholstered chair on this floor which is not an easy one; there is not a lounge or sofa which is not inviting. The walls are papered tastefully, the oil paintings which hand upon them are masterpieces of art and good judgment. The ornamental fireplaces are surmounted with open cabinet work, in the sections of which are enshrined choice bric-a-brac. “Between the front parlor windows hangs the picture of the ward leader, ex-Register James Kane. On the southern wall is the crayon resemblance of Peter Fagan, one of Mr. Kane’s closest friends, and who […]
THE TERRORS OF ST. FELIX STREET (1898)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** (From the Brooklyn Times Union and the Brooklyn Citizen of Tues., 29 November 1898.) Harry, Marx and Jacob Hefter, aged 10, 12 and 14 years, were arraigned in the Myrtle Avenue Court this morning. Mrs. Louisa Selover, of 28 St. Felix street, was the complainant against the lads. She said they pelted her with snowballs on the street yesterday and also called her unspeakable names. She stated she had only recently moved onto the street, and that a lady neighbor told her the prisoners were “the terrors of St. Felix street.” The youngsters denied the annoyance charged. “The three youngsters,” noted the Brooklyn Citizen, had “decidedly Hebraic countenances,” and “Mrs. Selova was an excitable little woman” who “told her story with a good deal of trepidation.” The Magistrate gravely warned the boys about converting pedestrians into targets for snowballing and sent them home. “They live,” noted the newspaper, “at 17 St. Felix Street.” 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 Books and House History Reports. Contact us today to begin discovering the history of your home.
THE “WEIRFIELD” HOUSE ON THE HILL (1850)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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 Bushwick Avenue were a family, it would likely be an entertainingly and curiously dysfunctional clan. It would maybe be something akin to that harmless uncle who comes to Thanksgiving dinner, doesn’t talk about politics, but engages in witty banter and sips a few too many vermouths. Some houses on the avenue present as mindlessly conforming rowhouses — lined up at attention like toy soldiers. Squeezed within some of those rows, however, we sometimes find structures that seem oh-so-slightly out-of-place – as though they were built in – and transported from – another time and galaxy. One such structure is a 172-year-old house that appears as though it should be sitting alone upon a hill with a view to unfolding valleys of pastureland. THE HOUSE ON THE HILL In the mid-1800s, No. 1250 Bushwick Avenue was the only house on the south side of Bushwick Avenue between Weirfield and Margaretta (Halsey) Streets. The house was erected in approximately 1850 and, in its day of glory, stood on a knoll about six feet above street level, flanked on either side by immense maple trees. The grounds sloped gently down to a stone wall, five feet above the grade of the street, which extended along the street frontage from Weirfield street to Margaretta […]
BROOKLYN & THE “JUMPING SELFIE” (1886)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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 1886, there was a LOT of jumping on Livingston Street. That year, a man by the name of Wallace G. Levison, an amateur photographer who lived on the street with his family, was testing a new type of film along with its ability to capture subjects in the process of motion. As the dawn of the 20th century approached, newer, more sensitive film emulsions were being developed that allowed pictures to be taken with faster and faster shutter speeds. Levison was set on experimenting with them. An avid photographer, he used the new technology both as a scientific tool and a recreational activity. In addition to being an amateur photographer, Levison was a chemist, inventor, and lecturer who founded the Departments of Mineralogy and Astronomy at the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences in the latter half of the 19th century. He may have also invented the concept of the “jumping selfie.” ORGANIZING SHUTTERBUGS Born at 1435 Pacific Street, Brooklyn (where – except for the 1880s-1900s – he would live for most of his life) in 1846, Levison attended Cooper Union, New York City’s prestigious free school for the sciences and arts, and graduated with a BS from Harvard in 1870. He was a member of the New York Mineralogical […]
