SACRIFICED TO A FEED A BRIDGE (1907)
********************************************************************************************************************************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?******************************************************************************************************************************** Most New Yorkers know it when they see it – the Manhattan entrance to the Queensborough Bridge. It’s congested with vehicles, cars, and pedestrians – all just trying to get onto the bridge or around it. Most people, though, don’t know what this area looked like before the bridge was built. In 1907, fortunately for us, someone went around and took pictures of the rows of buildings – mostly wooden – that were doomed to the woodpile, soon to be sacrificed to feed that bridge. In these pictures, you will see life continuing to go on around these buildings. If you look closely, though, you will see something rarely seen in old pictures of New York City life – everyone is preparing for the end. Moving vans abound. Sales are announced. You can even see it in the faces of the subjects: “There is not much time before this is all gone…” To the feint of heart, everything you are about to see – is no more… These are those pics: To see these pictures in their glorious hi-res detail, check out this part of the New York City Department of Records Photographic Collection by clicking HERE. Follow @BrownstoneDetec Share ———————————————————————————————————————– The Brownstone Detectives Brownstone Detectives is an historic property research agency. Our mission is […]
SNUFFED OUT IN A BOWERY WINE CELLAR (1917)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** When we discovered a set of NYPD archive photographs showing the aftermath of a murder in the wine cellar of a Bowery tenement, it came attached with just a street address as a clue. Armed with this information, we started our investigation, tracking down the story of the murder from newspaper archives. We present that story – and these original pictures – to you today. This brief story details exactly what allegedly happened and how the subject came to be discovered murdered in his wine cellar. The story is from the New York Tribune of Friday, 19 January 1917. – The Brownstone Detectives “The telephone bell in Dominick Bononeolo’s undertaker’s shop, at 294 Elizabeth Street, rang at 7:30 last night. The undertaker himself responded in his soothing tones. “‘Go down cellar,’ commanded a harsh masculine voice, ‘and see that everything is well with Dominick.’ “The undertaker tried to explain that an hour before he had seen Dominick Maestropaolo descend into his wine cellar beneath the undertaker’s shop and that he had seemed in the best of health. The telephone had gone dead, however, except for central’s thin query. “Bononeolo’s son, Giuseppe, who is about twenty year old, went down. One of the iron doors was open. A flickering gas flame set […]
STEP INSIDE A ’70s BROOKLYN BROWNSTONE…
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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 1970, officials with the New York City Housing and Development Administration (HDA) paid a visit to the owner of No. 23 Virginia Place in Crown Heights. The reason for the visit was assisting citizens with the rehabbing of their homes. The city wanted to get some great shots of their beureuacrats helping everyday folks, and so they took a photographer along with them to show them doing ust jthat. As a result of the public affairs shoot, we have today some great images of what No. 23 Virginia Place looked like in 1970. Enjoy! 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. 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.
“CINDERELLA OF BERKELEY PLACE” (1971)
******************************************************************************************************************************** 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 showed how a brownstone, nicknamed “Cinderella,” in the slums of Park Slope, was about to go through a full-scale renovation. To be sure, the brownstone, No. 211 Berkeley Place, was in truly rough shape – but it had “good bones;” clearly, however, it was the worst house in the best bad neighborhood – and it needed a LOT of work. The brownstone was not being renovated by a couple of young brownstoners, however; it was purchased for renovation by the Brooklyn Union Gas Company, at the behest of local activists. The plan was to show the ease with which brownstones could be renovated with few resources and not a lot of money, allowing owners to live in their own grand brownstones in America’s first suburb. THE ACTIVISTS Everett H. and Evelyn G. Ortner galvanized the historic preservation movement in Brooklyn. In 1963, after living in Brooklyn Heights for the first decade of their marriage, the couple purchased an 1882 four-story brownstone at No. 272 Berkeley Place in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn. This would be the catalyst for their involvement in the “Brownstone Revival” movement. The Ortners soon became active in a variety of community organizations. They lobbied local banks to provide mortgages to prospective Park Slope home-buyers at […]
IN GOWANUS, AMONGST COCAINE FIENDS (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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** Cocaine abuse truly became a “thing” in the United States starting in the early 20th century. Although it existed here earlier than that, it wasn’t until the early 1900s that states began to prick up their ears to the threat and counter its effects on society. In 1910, President William Taft declared the white powder “Public Enemy No. 1,” and in 1914, where our story begins, Congress passed the Harrison act, which tightly regulated the distribution and sale of cocaine. That year, an unassuming brownstone in the less-than-glitzy Gowanus neighborhood in Brooklyn became the target, first, of wealthy cocaine users and then, second, the police. SAY WEALTHY FOLK GOT COCAINE HERE “Detectives Asip and Dowd, of the Bergen street station, made a raid at the two-story and basement brownstone house at 666 Degraw street late yesterday afternoon,” noted the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, “and arrested a man and a woman for selling and dealing in cocaine, heroin and opium. “The attention of the police had been called to the place by some neighbors. The frequent presence of automobiles, carriages and other vehicular equipment of well-to-do persons at the front door aroused suspicion. “Detectives Asip and Dowd got a tip which led them to believe that the occupants of the house were dealing […]
THE MARXIST AT No. 477 E. 16th St. (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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** At No. 477 East Sixteenth Street lived a Socialist. He wasn’t your ordinary, run-of-the-mill Socialist, however. Louis B. Boudin was a Russian-born American Marxist theoretician, writer, politician, and lawyer, who wrote a two volume history of the Supreme Court’s influence on American government as well as his piece de resistance, The Theoretical System of Karl Marx in the Light of Recent Criticism, first published in 1907. Boudin’s family emigrated to America in June 1891 and settled in New York City. He worked in the garment industry as a shirt maker and as a private tutor. At the same time, Boudin began legal studies, gaining a Master’s Degree from New York University and being admitted to the New York State Bar Association in 1898. At first, Boudin was a member of the Socialist Labor Party of America. He was also a member of the governing National Executive Board of the party’s trade union affiliate, the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance from 1898 to 1899. Although he left the party for a short period, he returned after the turn of the century, being elected a delegate of the Socialist Party of America of the International Socialist Congress in Stuttgart in 1907 and the 1910 Copenhagen Congress of the Second International. Boudin was frequently […]
